Why do our bodies wear out? Why can't we just go on and on and on, accumulating a potentially infinite number of Frequent Flyer mi...leage points? These are the kinds of questions that philosophers have been asking ever since they realized that being a philosopher did not involve any heavy lifting. And yet the answer is really very simple. Our bodies are mechanical devices, they break down. Some devices, such as battery-operated toys costing $39.95, break down almost instantly upon exposure to the Earth's atmosphere. Other devices, such as stereo systems owned by your next-door neighbor's 13-year-old son who likes to listen to bands with names like "Nerve Damage," at a volume capable of disintegrating limestone, will continue to function perfectly for many years, even if you hit them with an ax. But the fundamental law of physics is that sooner or later every mechanism ceases to function for one reason or another, and it is never covered under the warranty.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Part of the portrait painter's art, we must be careful to note, is to produce a sort of synthesis, something more various, richer,... than even an astute photographer (now or yesterday) can catch by snapping a shutter in a camera. The portrait painter must be skilled in human observation, he must actually be moved by his subject as well as by his profession. True, an ambitious photographer might spend as much clock time as a painter in "studying" his subject, looking for the right shade of mood and the right chiaroscuro to articulate it. Yet this method, the photographic one, must necessarily rely too much on the subject's timed cooperation, since, materially speaking, all the photographer can record is a single moment, no matter how tactically approached and psychologically prepared that moment be.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »