Partial answer:
Crossword clues
All clues seem to be related to BACON
1. SIXDEGREES - The "Six degrees of separation" variant "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon"
2. PORK - Bacon is salt-cured pork
3. BEACON - Beacon - 'e' = Bacon
4. POWER - This is a Sir Francis Bacon quote
5. EGG - Bacon and eggs (or eggs and bacon)
6. SALT - Bacon is salt-cured pork
So I went looking for some kind of
Bacon Cipher
It looks like each border has a pattern of lines with 20 dots, repeated twice on each border. They all look the same to me.
Patterns I tried with their decoded values (using distinct codes) are:
Top dot = 'A', Bottom dot = 'B' -> AABAB BBAAB ABBAA BBAAB -> 'FZMZ'
Top dot = 'B', Bottom dot = 'A' -> AABAB BBAAB ABBAA BBAAB -> '?GTG'
Dot = 'A', Space = 'B' -> ABAAA ABABA ABAAA ABAAB AABAA BAABB -> 'IKIJET'
Dot = 'B', Space = 'A' -> BABBB BABAB BABBB BABBA BBABB ABBAA -> 'XVXW?M'
(A '?' means there is no letter matching that sequence)
None of the decoded strings seem all that useful, though. Could be used as a key for something else (especially variations 1 and 3 which all map to letters), or I could have done it wrong.
CORRECTION
I just tried using the third pattern with the I=J/U=V version of the cipher and got "I LIKE U" (congrats!). I think that might be the only message to find here.
"Three Studies for Figures..." picture
The missing word is TRIPTYCH, which fits in the box.
And from @GarethMcCaughan, the artist of this triptych is "Francis Bacon". I assume this bacon just goes up there, with the rest of the bacon.
Character string below that picture
If you decode it using TRIPTYCH as a Vigenere key, you get:
wooooops you just stumbled upon a red herring lets try again
This might mean the triptych picture and/or this string are unnecessary?
Here's @GarethMcCaughan's actual input (since I screwed it up last time):
If you take the uppercase letters of the ciphertext as 'A' and lowercase as 'B', it's BAAAAAABAAAAABBAABBBAABAABAAAABAAAAABAAAABBAAAABBA.
Decipher that bacon cipher to get REDHERRING
Two red herrings in one ciphertext!
I think that about covers the first half. The second half contains considerably less success.
"Three examples of locomotive...art" picture
Left: Small Train Station at Night
Middle: Train in the Snow
Right: The Railway
Not sure what to do with these. The word 'Three' is highlighted, so maybe TRIPTYCH is relevant here? Maybe a ROT3 of something?
I tried using different permutations of the painting names as ciphertext or keys, but nothing turned out all that great.
Also, they're located in different places: The Met, Musée Marmottan, and National Gallery of Art
Character string below that picture
No idea. I tried decoding as a Vigenere cipher with 'BACON', 'TRIPTYCH', 'THREE', 'HANNAH', concatenated painting names, first letters or the paintings, and maybe some others...got nothing.
Final Message:
I have no idea...I tried several of the same keys as before.