Assouline Icons Collection: Heart & Love

Press your thumbs together, bend the other fingers, and connect them at the fingernails, slightly overlapping the thumb and index finger. Combine the less-than symbol with the numeral 3. Draw a diamond, then add half circles on the top-left and top-right sides. These movements come together to form the universal symbol of love—the anatomically inaccurate heart, representing the center of emotion, intuition, and sincerity. Whether we’re heartbroken, following our hearts, or crossing our hearts, the heart has long symbolized our deepest feelings. In the human body, a beating heart is essential to life. And many poets and great thinkers argue that love itself is the true purpose of life. Across cultures and religions, from science to art, the heart has been an enduring symbol for centuries—whether in ancient traditions or pop art.

True love, in all its forms, is something worth believing in. The passionate romances seen in films (think Jack and Rose, Westley and Buttercup, Noah and Allie) mirror the real-life love stories that have captivated us (Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, JAY-Z and Beyoncé). Love has been an endless source of inspiration throughout history, fueling creativity in fashion (Moschino, Saint Laurent), art (Klimt, Leonardo, Koons), and poetry (E. E. Cummings, Pablo Neruda). While love itself may not be tangible or visible, the pages of Heart & Love come closest to capturing this elusive, transformative, sometimes fickle, but always world-consuming emotion.

Heart & Love by Pierre Berville