John Berger. The art of seeing (№ 397480)

The idea of the craftsmanship behind exaggerated quality to remain unchanged throughout the history of oil painting.
In earlier traditions of art glorified the wealth. But then, wealth was a symbol of the established social and divine order.
Oil painting celebrates the richness of the new sense - dynamic, finding justification only in the highest power of money, i.e. purchasing power. Consequently, painting had to find a way to demonstrate how coveted everything that you can buy for the money. And the visual desirability of what can be bought lies in its tangibility, in how it will respond to a touch on the hand of a master.