March 31, 2010
The face in the Shroud
From MSNBC:
Does the Shroud of Turin show the "real face of Jesus"? That claim is impossible to judge, even though it serves the title of a documentary about the 3-D analysis of the Shroud of Turin premiering tonight on the History Channel. What can be said is that the centuries-old image wasn’t just painted freehand. Computer analysis of the imprint on the shroud suggests that it had to be left behind by someone draped in cloth. "Is this the artifact of a real person or not? Definitely it is," Ray Downing, the digital illustrator at the center of the show, told me today. Downing worked with specialists on the shroud to come up with a photorealistic representation of the man whose body's imprint appears faintly on a famous 14-foot-long length of linen. For some Christians, the stain serves as the miraculous snapshot of their risen Lord. For most scientists, it is a cleverly done fake from the 13th or 14th century, but nothing more. Back in 1988, carbon-14 dating tests were conducted on a sample from the shroud in an effort to determine whether the cloth was created in Jesus' time. The verdict from three laboratories was that the cloth was produced in medieval times. But the shroud's fans have insisted that the sample was actually taken from a patch, rather than from the original linen. Just this month, a chemist proposed a new series of non-destructive dating tests that would give an estimate for the entire cloth.
From a marketing perspective, the timing of the History Channel show couldn't be better: Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the Christian holy days that mark Jesus' death and resurrection, are just a few days away. What's more, the shroud is due to go on display for six weeks at Turin Cathedral, starting April 10. The last time the relic was exhibited, a decade ago, more than 3 million people came to Turin to see it. More than a million reservations have been received already for next month's viewing. Have scientists been wrong about the shroud? Downing noted that historical records referring to the shroud predate the current carbon-14 estimate. "We know the carbon-14 [test] is wrong," he said. "The question is, how wrong are they? The further back you go, the less likely it is that anybody could have faked it."
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 05:42 AM | Permalink
Comments
LOL.
Posted by: billy | Mar 31, 2010 5:52:48 AM
Even if the shroud is not a medieval fake (which it almost surely is), it is just an image of some guy on a piece of cloth...nothing more, nothing less. Who knows, might it be Brian? (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/)
It is interesting that the appetite for religious fakery has not diminished at all since medieval times!
For a laugh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfqht0LEOWQ
Posted by: Bill | Mar 31, 2010 6:09:44 AM
Sorry, Bill and billy. The contention of this article is that the shroud is older than testing could confirm last time testing was done, more than a decade ago. It may occur that it can be dated to the 1st century, CE. If so, it would still be impossible to determine whether it was the shroud of Jesus Christ, there being many who died in that era, any one of whose shroud it could have been. If you substitute the name of any historical figure who was not a Roman portrait bust subject, who left no DNA traces, and whose shroud was not discovered in situ in a tomb known to pertain to that person, you will see the difficulty of accurately identifying the shroud. All testing might do is accurately date the shroud.
I'm not so sure teeheeing at the science of this can get you where you want to go.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 31, 2010 11:04:01 AM
Richard Dawkins said it accurately: "God never loses".
Posted by: Pepito | Mar 31, 2010 11:17:18 AM
I'm pretty sure that's not what I was teeheeing at...
Posted by: billy | Mar 31, 2010 2:22:03 PM
Sorry Elatia, but if I remember correctly, the type of cloth (a 3-1 herringbone twill weave) was extremely rare in 1st century Rome and practically unknown in Palestine. It is more likely of French or Flemish origin. Furthermore, the pigments used closely resemble those used by artists in th 14th century...go figure!
The evaluation of artistic methods and the determination of artistic origins is based on very scientific methods. If the shroud were not surrounded with a cloud of religious oscurantist fog, the fact that art historians place it in the late medieval period would not be such a secret.
http://www.skeptic.ws/shroud/as/
Posted by: Bill | Mar 31, 2010 4:19:58 PM
The Christian faith seems predicated on a collection of stained rags, wall discolorations, dirty windows, dusty underpasses, and burnt toast.
This religion doesn't need more proof, it needs a good maid service.
Posted by: mrgoodbar | Mar 31, 2010 4:22:17 PM
Yeah, and those Mayans. Did you know that those glyphs that look kinda like spaceships don't actually represent spaceships? Someone should just pitch 'em. They're crap and they delude gullible people.
Seriously, the Shroud's probably not the image of Jesus, but that doesn't preventing it from being a more or less interesting historical artifact in its own right, even if it was intentionally crafted as a fake (and perhaps more so then).
Posted by: markst7 | Mar 31, 2010 4:45:26 PM
Bill, billy and others,
This is not an article about whether the shroud was used to wrap Christ after his death, but about dating the shroud with greater accuracy than before via analysis of samples of the shroud itself (hasn't been done before owing to the church not wanting to risk destruction of even the smallest part of it), and accounting for some of the anomalies in its appearance -- the excessive length of the figure, etc.
When the analysis is complete, there will still be people who believe it is the shroud of Jesus Christ, regardless of what the most scientific methods of debunking that idea say. There are also people who will say that, even if science dates the shroud to the 1st century, CE, that does nothing to convince them of what they knew in any case -- that the shroud belonged to Christ.
You can see the very great care the scientists are using here, to rely on nothing but their findings. This will make the result they get more authoritative. To present your findings with neutrality is more powerful than to mock, more laudable than to announce your intentions to unmask a hoax. The facts will speak for themselves.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 31, 2010 5:48:16 PM
What are you talking about, Elatia? The article was about how they were going to reconstruct the 3D image of the person who was wrapped in the shroud. There was only one sentence about redating it: "Just this month, a chemist proposed a new series of non-destructive dating tests that would give an estimate for the entire cloth." Did you click on the link in that sentence and then confuse the two articles?
In any event, the laughable thing here is your defense of the people who think it was Jesus who was wrapped up in the shroud. What evidence do they have, besides wishful thinking? Absolutely none. Yes, it's possible that one day they'll have some facts on their side, just as it's possible that one day Jesus will appear to me in a frozen waterfall. But until that day comes, I'll continue to laugh as loud and as long as I can, until my lungs give out.
Posted by: billy | Mar 31, 2010 8:16:46 PM
Of interest:
This piece came from the "news" site MSNBC whose parent company just happens to own the History Channel. Thus, "news" is being used to promote a TV show. It's also clear that the timing of the show is pure pandering to the "faithful". I predict that the show will inoffensively (to some believers anyway) cast doubts on nearly all aspects of the scientific inquiry while respecting the believers. This is just a new version of an old dodge. I don't know why a site that respects science would post such an item.
Posted by: Ray Butlers | Mar 31, 2010 9:04:59 PM
billy, I'm not defending anything of the kind. I am pointing out that the findings of science are more powerfully convincing if they are delivered without a smirk. Facts, not "I told you so." That people will believe what they like -- whatever the findings of science -- is a completely different story. We all do it. Even you, just now. You want to believe that I am crazily defending highly religious people who venerate the Shroud of Turin, in spite of my having written not a line that can support that reading. But, you need to believe it, perhaps because it enables contempt and feelings of amused superiority. And so your reading delivers to you that which you need. Facts are not in the way of that delivery system.
Think about it, billy. You have managed to get your deep cravings met by overlooking the fact I have cited (science, not skepticism, will provide accurate dating), and by fantasizing about my intent as well (defending the credulous.) So you see how easily it happens? Maybe this should make you a little less hard on others who tend also to sweep facts aside when a particularly meaningful reading is at stake.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 31, 2010 9:40:30 PM
Elatia, you're defending people who say that the science isn't settled, which of course includes everyone who believes that Jesus was wrapped in the shroud. What do scientists say? "For most scientists, it is a cleverly done fake from the 13th or 14th century, but nothing more." Because of, among other things, carbon dating. Why isn't that definitive? What more evidence do you need? What are the compelling facts on the other side that lead you to say "science will provide accurate dating" instead of "science has already provided accurate dating"?
That's your opinion. I think it's better to ridicule and shame people who believe ridiculous things and ignore the findings of science, not accommodate them and their insanity.
Posted by: billy | Mar 31, 2010 11:13:36 PM
I have followed this controversy for decades, billy. If you go to debunking sites, you'll find out only a little about the scientific aspect of it. While I don't believe the shroud will turn out to have been woven in the time of Christ, I also don't believe the utmost in testing has been conducted. It's syllogistic to infer I am therefore in league with religious people who expect science to vindicate them about this item.
The story of the shroud is extremely fascinating, for many reasons, but mainly for the way that responses to the different possibilities inherent in it demonstrate the need to hope and believe, and how people rationalize that need. I would be very surprised if complete testing of the shroud revealed anything that would be either acceptable to the faithful or that would deter the faithful from their beliefs about what the shroud is, "really." In medieval Europe, many maps of the world were cruciform. Later, when it became demonstrable the world was terraform, you still found people who believed that bearing the cross was the model for all human behavior, and for the shape of destiny. So that the superseded map was yet accurate, though not literally.
Laugh all you want. But it's not foolishness -- for which people deserve to be shamed and ridiculed, as you say. It is the mysteries of the human spirit at which you jeer.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Apr 1, 2010 12:12:34 AM
What more needs to be done? Why isn't the evidence gathered already not sufficient? What facts support the claim that the shroud is legitimate?
Well, of course, yes! But by your logic, I can never laugh at them. Regardless of how crazy their beliefs are or how tall the stacks and stacks of evidence against them are, all my mocking is actually directed at "the mysteries of the human spirit"...
Posted by: billy | Apr 1, 2010 12:36:15 AM
The shroud is a legitimate medieval work of art that is stunning to behold. That said, it is a shame that valuable resources need to be consumed every 20 years or so to "re-verify" the claims of the religious that it is indeed the image of Jesus and the claims of the more secularly minded that is is a valuable, stunning work of art developed when the trade in religious relics was big business!
It is this constant remaking of the myth that deserves ridicule, in my mind...
Posted by: Bill | Apr 1, 2010 3:19:20 AM
The article states that there are references to the Shroud that predate the Carbon testing results. If that be the case, then who care what the carbon tests show? And since dating the shroud is not the point of the show, its a question that will remain answered with alot of qualifying footnotes.
Posted by: chris | Apr 1, 2010 7:17:09 AM
"The Christian faith seems predicated on a collection of stained rags, wall discolorations, dirty windows, dusty underpasses, and burnt toast.
This religion doesn't need more proof, it needs a good maid service."
Perfect.
Posted by: J. Hawkins | Apr 1, 2010 9:22:26 AM
Bill, billy, J. Hawkins, and others -- it's so sad, all you can think of to do is accuse and deride. Contempt is usually a sign of very low resources, not of rationality.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Apr 1, 2010 1:04:14 PM
What's sad, Elatia, is that you seem unable to laugh at anyone. I will pray for you.
Posted by: billy | Apr 1, 2010 2:23:40 PM
It's true, billy -- I prefer to laugh with them. If you mean "laugh at" what others believe in... Well -- that's not for me, either.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Apr 1, 2010 3:13:05 PM
Fair enough, Elatia, but you are missing out on a lot of life. It's one of the most enjoyable and therapeutic things one can do, to laugh at ridiculousness.
Posted by: billy | Apr 1, 2010 3:52:15 PM
Well, you know who my go to guy is when dealing with Bronze and Iron Age Fiction:
The Talking Snake. I think I'll jump on Mohammed's Flying Horse and pay him a visit, he should know if it is real.
That we are even talking about this says how little chance we have of surviving as a species.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Apr 1, 2010 4:00:13 PM
I gotta say, Mr. Ranning, that that Talking Snake bit is funny every single time you post it. Please do so more often.
Posted by: markst7 | Apr 1, 2010 7:48:31 PM
So they keep debating the authenticity of the flat projection of a 3D wrapped body that somehow doesn't show geometric distortion? I guess they do believe on the Cartesian system
Posted by: Kaskir | Apr 1, 2010 10:27:58 PM
Let's compare the recreated face to any historical images of artists/sculptors. The new image does make it appear that a real person was the model for the shroud image. Does he look like Davinci? Michaelangelo? Bernini? Just wondering.
Posted by: odysseus14 | Apr 2, 2010 4:31:00 PM
What a good question, odysseus14, one that raises many fascinating possibilities.
The head shown 3D-imaged in the article looks Burgundian late gothic to me. Such as one might see carved on _The Well of Moses_, by Claus Sluter. The URL of the clearest image I could find is lo-o-ong and might be dodgy, but it's from arthistory360's photostream on flickr, and should be Googleable.
Claus Sluter lived in the 14th century, and his work is uncannily anatomically correct. If the shroud was wrapped around a figure as shown, the figure would have had to have been either a human body or a highly sophisticated, very realistic representation of one.
I see also affinities for the tomb sculpture of the late gothic-early Renaissance era in the Basilica of St. Denis, outside Paris -- the burial place of all but three of the kings of France.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_St_Denis
It is said that art forgeries bear the indelible mark of their era, so that they can be dated on stylistic points pertinent to the time of their creation. For instance, one key to the vintage of the famous and almost perfect Vermeer forgeries of the mid-20th century was that the faces of the women represented resembled Marlene Dietrich.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Apr 2, 2010 10:04:52 PM
All ye who desireth truth:
What Elatia said.
There are those who feel justified in scorning the ridiculous, and who am I to judge such fare. However, science as a process of understanding the natural world, knows no such behavior.
An argument was made (though only touched on in this article) that the shroud itself was not subjected to Carbon 14 dating. Rather, a piece of a patch, not the original material, was dated. Science is never final, as shown in this matter with the shroud. I am very much interested in the nondestructive tests that are proposed.
I am intrigued by the work done to construct a 3D rendering from the 2D shroud image. It reminds me of the 4000+ year old remains of a neolithic man, recently uncovered in the alps. We now know he was murdered, and we understand what kind of life he led, in general terms.
The author, and Elatia, emphasized the difference in approaches to validating the shroud. The believer starts with the assertion that it is a representation of the historic Jesus. Thereafter, investigation focuses on finding the evidence of a hoped for result. Science takes no position, and builds up evidence that is evaluated subsequently. The chips fall where they may. Science has no "final" word on the shroud, and may never have a final word. The scientists did their research and collected their data. Most others supported those findings and the conclusions they suggest. But, a few did raise legitimate issues with the testing. So on we go to the next round.
Should the results go against the hopes of the believers, they might continue to disbelieve the science. So what. That is the way of things.
All of us should maintain a healthy skepticism. I generalize that notion to estimates I get from plumbing contractors, and orthodontists who say my kids need a million dollars of treatment and care.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Apr 3, 2010 12:05:28 AM
Since science has no final word on gravity, I suppose that you, Norman, take very seriously those people who claim to be able to hover in mid-air for minutes at a time?
I will pray for you as well, that one day you'll be able to laugh at such people.
Posted by: billy | Apr 3, 2010 3:18:50 AM
I went to hear a talk by Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Pinker recently. Steven Pinker told a funny joke that should make even Dave Ranning laugh. He talked about growing up in Reformed Judaism and one of the kids seriously telling the rabbi that he didn't believe God existed. The rabbi said, "Do you think God cares?"
Posted by: Louise Gordon | Apr 3, 2010 4:26:58 PM
"Since science has no final word on gravity, I suppose that you, Norman, take very seriously those people who claim to be able to hover in mid-air for minutes at a time?"
A link for those Gravity and SHROUD inquiring minds
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Apr 3, 2010 6:48:22 PM
Dave,
Thanks. I was looking for a link that would explain gravity.
"According to the ECFR paper published simultaneously this week in the International Journal Of Science and the adolescent magazine God's Word For Teens!, there are many phenomena that cannot be explained by secular gravity alone, including such mysteries as how angels fly, how Jesus ascended into Heaven, and how Satan fell when cast out of Paradise."
They make a good point. How else could you account for Satan falling from Paradise? In the movie "Ghost" Patrick Swayze could walk through walls, but never fell through the floor. How did he do it? Can secular science explain it? No, of course not. It requires unintelligent design. Case closed.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Apr 3, 2010 8:17:15 PM
There was a recent Nat. Geographic program that speculated that the Turin Shroud was forged by none other than Da Vinci himself, using light sensitive compounds and a camera obscura to make what was in effect the first photograph.
Posted by: aguy109 | Apr 4, 2010 7:39:03 AM
Happy Easter everybody!
Posted by: Carlos | Apr 4, 2010 8:01:43 AM
Carlos, you're back! Happy Easter to you, too!
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Apr 4, 2010 8:54:53 AM
aguy109,
I saw the same NG program, and read about it as well. There was a self portrait of LdV superimposed over the shroud image. It makes a compelling case for using his own image on the shroud.
While the LdV connection is speculative, I still find it fascinating. I wouldn't put it past him.
The earliest scientific research finding on the shroud was that the image was the result of an oxidative photographic process. I think that still stands as a good hypothesis, though the details of how it was done are still uncertain. It seems a case could be made that the camera obscura was known and used earlier than believed. The CO was a highly guarded secret by those who used it to guide their brush while painting portraits and other commissioned works for the wealthy. Several of these paintings have already been identified. Sorry, I don't remember which ones.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Apr 4, 2010 9:23:42 AM
Camera obscura and renaissance painting:
"...
"Hockney is amazed that art historians don't see what he thinks is obvious - the optical evidence right there in the works of such formidable artists as Holbein, Velazquez, and even Leonardo de Vinci.
"“Leonardo describes the camera obscura, meaning he tried it out and looked at the pictures,” he says.
"Hockney isn't saying Leonardo traced the "Mona Lisa," but that it has the qualities you see in an optical projection, like the soft shadows.
"“Whether he used the lens for this, I don't know. Nobody knows. It wouldn't matter. He wouldn't need it, but he'd already seen the wonderful softness,” he says.
"Then there are all those left-handed people who suddenly showed up in paintings - Hockney's smoking gun. If you just use a lens alone, left becomes right, and vice-versa. Dr. Charles Falco, a physicist at the University of Arizona, and an expert in optics, heard about Hockney's theory and was fascinated.
"As a scientist, he thought, "If this is true, I can prove it." The first painting that caught his eye was the 1543 "Wedding Portrait" by Lorenzo Lotto.
"“He made a mistake. That's what told me a lens was used. This central pattern of this geometrical tablecloth goes out of focus,” says Falco. “Your eye doesn't naturally see something out of focus. The only way you could see this feature is if you'd seen something with a lens.”
"He also found more evidence in the portrait of Cardinal Albergati by van Eyck: “This is one of the rare examples where a preliminary drawing exists along with the painting. I looked at this and said, 'My God, this is good enough to be a photocopy.’”
"“So let's see how actually perfect it is," he adds. "I'll blow up the drawing to the same scale as the painting, and when I overlay them, every feature, every wrinkle, every hair is accurate.”
"Except for the ear: “It's completely off. What if he bumped his easel when he's doing this? Watch the ear. It's perfect.”
"..."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/16/60minutes/main536814.shtml
Posted by: Norman Costa | Apr 4, 2010 9:44:24 AM
"Hockney isn't saying Leonardo traced the "Mona Lisa," but that it has the qualities you see in an optical projection, like the soft shadows."
So Leonardo was a "Tracer" according to Hockney. That is really an insult in the illustration community.
Would Jesus let this happen, as it would be really bad PR?
Disclaimer: I'm a fan of Hockney
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Apr 4, 2010 10:29:38 AM
Aguy and Norman, the facial proportions of the image in the shroud of Turin do not line up with the Leonardo facial type, a very strong and instantly recognizable type.
What is "Leonardesque" is the photographic negative image, a reversing out in b&w of the yellow ochre image on the shroud itself. This has a Leonardo look because of the sfumato effect, the appearance of a face emerging from soft, deep shadows. Leonardo gave special attention to painting shadows that lent atmosphere and volume to his images, and, in his notebooks, recommended painting the walls of a courtyard black to modulate the light for the kind of shadows he wanted. You can see studies he drew of draperies that were illuminated in this kind of controlled setting. There's a lot of drama and mystery to be had from this effect. But it's about painting a certain way for a certain look, not about pre-photography. That the centuries-later photographic negative image obtained from the shroud appears Leonardesque is a coincidence.
Decades ago, when David Hockney first proposed that the very greatest painters of the past used camera-like aids to realism in painting, I wondered why the use of "closely guarded" technical secrets was more palatable to him than that, once in a very great while, nature produces a draftsman of genius with the depth and imagination to become a great painter, too. The people, including overpaid and highly successful artists like Hockney, who believe that the most dazzling of these prodigies were in possession not of genius but of a bag of tricks, are a lot like the people who believe Shakespeare was written by several men, because, really, that's just too much talent for one man.
I think these detractors are showing, merely, that they cannot tell the difference between the kind of genius that occurs a handful of times in history, in any given discipline, and the kind of deception they posit. Too bad for them -- they should concentrate, possibly, on their own fitness to take the measure of genius. If they did that, they would soon see who is the ordinary guy using technology as a crutch. And they might also reflect that drawing superbly from observation is a skill that can be passed on, just like musical composition without a software.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Apr 4, 2010 10:55:53 AM
But the topic is not laughing at ridiculousness, it is derision, which is a different thing. The difference, of course, is that with the latter the ridiculousness never seems to originate within oneself, for some reason.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Apr 4, 2010 12:46:49 PM
As usual, Elatia comments and I learn something.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Apr 4, 2010 2:38:05 PM
"I wondered why the use of "closely guarded" technical secrets was more palatable to him than that, once in a very great while, nature produces a draftsman of genius with the depth and imagination to become a great painter, too."
Are these mutually exclusive?
I suspect the greatest achievements happen when all cylinders are firing.
Posted by: Sagredo | Apr 4, 2010 5:23:25 PM
I don't think it's derision, if you insist on splitting hairs, since most of the time there's not much contempt there. I'm simply laughing with fascination at the absurdity of it all. But even if my laugher sometimes ventures closer to derision, so what? Haven't you or Elatia or Norman ever laughed at, say, Sarah Palin? Again, if you haven't, you're missing out on a very enjoyable part of life.
Posted by: billy | Apr 4, 2010 5:29:49 PM
Well, as Michael Moorcock has pointed out, "It is the end of time, and the human species has finally stopped taking itself seriously".
But it is embarrassing, none the less.
To all my christian friends, I hope the Cosmic Jewish Zombie has arisen.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Apr 4, 2010 5:49:59 PM
billy, Sarah Palin is about as funny as Mussolini. That someone is preposterous and ignorant is not automatically funny, unless they are 100% certain never to achieve power. I hope you are properly frightened by Palin and what she represents. I figure her for as formidable an enemy as liberal secular culture has at this time. You'll say I'm missing out, not being able to giggle at what makes my flesh crawl...
Sagredo, from the Renaissance, art and technology have been allied. The kind of drawing from observation that you associate with Michelangelo, for instance, relies on a knowledge of anatomy, not just a fast eye. Anatomy was learned at that time with the aid of cadavers. Throughout the Middle Ages, artists were forbidden by the church to learn about the body via dissection -- but so were physicians! To learn what he needed to know, Michelangelo had to use extra-legal means. No rediscovery of classical learning, no math, no anatomy -- no Renaissance.
If you wanted a very academic education in life drawing today, you would need to learn anatomy, and some physiology. After several years of study and observation, you might, with talent, be as educated as the typical 19th century French draftsman who emerged from the Beaux-Arts tradition. There are places where you can be trained like this now. The idea is mastery, it takes years, and not many artists in the making want it. Many, many more talented young people than the number wanting to learn to draw want to make art that is in dialogue with the technology of today. There are lots of different skills that can go into figuring forth an image. Some people, like me, think that learning to draw is a matchless place to start. But there was a time, 500 years ago, when learning to draw from life was impossible without cadavers, as it would be today without medical texts and photography. Observation is fundamental to the medical arts, too -- should physicians not bother with observation now that there is imaging?
If you're going to be effective, as a pioneering genius, you are going to be curious, and use everything you can get your hands on. But visual artists who were not terribly gifted were a little more likely than Velasquez, let's say, to use devices that saved them the trouble of accuracy. To demonstrate this proposition, I'd like to move away from life drawing to perspective drawing. An artist of the 1600s could learn Albertian perspective, and draw an interior scene as convincing as a scene observed through an open door to the next room. Or, a less trained artist could look at the same scene through a grid held in place by two panes of glass, and fill in a corresponding grid on the surface of a panel on his desk. If what was inside the squares on both grids matched, then the less trained artist might well have drawn a pretty convincing interior scene. The one artist has mastered a system of representing the continuous recession of objects in space -- a technology, if you will -- and needs nothing but what he knows in order to draw. The other, who has not mastered this technique of descriptive geometry, needs a device. This device, a machine for perspective, was one of the means through which Albrecht Durer began his mastery of perspective, then considered an Italian science.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Apr 4, 2010 8:15:57 PM
I don't see why you can't laugh and be angry or fearful at the same time. Are you telling me that you never laughed at Bush while he was president? Oh god, I feel so sorry for you!
Posted by: billy | Apr 5, 2010 10:07:50 AM
You CAN laugh at all that, billy. A more risible head of state than Bush II could hardly be wished for, and laughter is tension-releasing and life-giving -- an evolutionary advantage in dealing with certain types of threats.
But Bush II was a deeply damaging and shaming presidency, the disastrous effects of which will be felt for a very long time by people who do not have the luxury of laughter, the crimes of which will never be punished. The energy that went to laughing off the ridiculous presidency -- hey, it made the day more bearable -- might better have gone into bringing it down. If I thought he knew what he was doing, I would even guess that Bush cultivated the amused scorn of progressives, on the grounds that it would enervate us. It did.
Anyhow, billy -- my sense of humor is alive and well and amply fueled. No need for you to worry or pray -- but thanks all the same!
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Apr 5, 2010 11:00:29 AM
Again, you present a false dichotomoy. Why can't I laugh and be politically active? And laughing doesn't sap energy, it replenishes it! You silly goose!
Posted by: billy | Apr 5, 2010 12:31:39 PM
billy, I need to detach from the effort of offering you my point of view. We see things in ways that will not be reconciled here, but, just for the road, here's one more pearl of wisdom. Sarcasm, insincere remarks about prayer, avowals of pity, name-calling and failed casuistry -- all this tends to make your playmates gather up their marbles and leave.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Apr 5, 2010 1:21:27 PM
Haha, you took "silly goose" to be name-calling? I was joshing, offering my point of view in a playful manner. What a poor childhood you must have had!
My advice to you is when you read my posts try to imagine me as a nice guy, then my words will seem a lot less objectionable and mean-spirited.
Posted by: billy | Apr 5, 2010 5:36:26 PM
billy, I DO imagine you as a nice guy. What we have here is words without "affect," and tone that is achieved merely by words, so we should all give each other the benefit of the doubt that way. But some of the observations you make -- such as, what a bad childhood a person must have had -- actually help to unmake your image as a nice guy. To maintain that image, you need not to be undermining yourself. See you another time!
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Apr 5, 2010 7:29:40 PM
Elatia, your patience is remarkable but I'm reminded of a line from GB Shaw that a picture gallery is a dull place for a blind man.
Posted by: John Ballard | Apr 5, 2010 9:47:52 PM
"Bill, billy, J. Hawkins, and others -- it's so sad, all you can think of to do is accuse and deride. Contempt is usually a sign of very low resources, not of rationality"
An organization that protects pedophiles richly deserves contempt. In fact, it deserves prosecution. As for people who see Jesus in a piece of burned toast - this elicits not contempt, but laughter, as mr.Goodbar so clearly saw. Humorlessness is generally the sign of "very low resources".
Posted by: J. Hawkins | Apr 6, 2010 11:07:38 AM
They say Jesus died during Passover. Maybe examining the Shroud can tell us if he died from the nails, or from the 11th plague: constipation. Aerghghhhh!
Posted by: aguy109 | Apr 6, 2010 3:21:15 PM
Here is another story about the death of Jesus - less violent than the cross and less uncomfortable than constipation.
Posted by: Ruchira | Apr 6, 2010 4:18:15 PM
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