'I don't think that to mention that to mention love in Chardin’s work is either mystical or unscientific. Touch lies at the heart of all human life. It is our first experience of another person, and the physicality of Chardin’s stroke is evocative of both caresses and touches of reassurances. I am certain that these strokes made by a paintbrush lie at the bottom of Proust’s comment that in Chardin one feels the affection a tablecloth has for a table.’
