This is sure a weighted topic - you make some great points here.
Makes me think of a few things..."You only get one chance to make a first impression."
response: "Yeah, but it's the 40th impression that's the really important one."
(meaning that it can take awhile to make up one's mind.)
I think that because we are such an over-media'd society, the impact of visual imagery is hammered into the individual's sensibilty.
This is not necessarily new...as old as Hollywood, at least.
Imagine how different it once was, before the advent of photography....
(when portrait artists were required to capture the likeness of their subject - and it always included the element of the artist's impression.)
A few years ago, in my library, I came across a picture book about Afghanistan. There were photos in this book of people - young, old, and everything in between. I was struck by how beautiful they were - not in any conventional Hollywood sense - but the beauty of character. It was almost overwhelming.
As you say - when the strength of character, emotion, passion, humanity - is evident in the visual, the experience of what our eyes take in becomes a much more profound depth of perception.
(yeah, I know - this is only supposed to be a review....but I have a story for you)
Many years ago I was browsing through a National Geographic magazine, and I came across an article on South Africa. Lots of pictures of the countryside, the cities, the people...........
One large photograph riveted me.
It was taken at a beauty pageant. It was a photo of two people.
One, a contestant - a white woman, tall, blonde, thin, glamorous.
She was standing with her arms stretched up against the back of a canvas tent, leaning slightly forward against the canvas.
The other woman was much shorter....plump, middle-aged, dressed in a formless, shapeless baggy old dress, with a peasant kerchief on her head.
She was pulling the lace stays tight on the back of the beauty contestant's dress.
The "beauty" had her face turned slightly toward the camera. The look on her face was intense, tight, harsh....incredibly ugly.
The look on the face of the black woman? - viewed in perfect profile.....was incredibly serene, peaceful, gentle, warm, content..............................
Which one of the two won the "beauty" contest?
jp
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