[Tom Edgerton]

I remember this article, and I've always thought it was much ado about nothing. This guy, not being an artist, thinks he stumbled onto some big arcane mumbo-jumbo that either he was the first to observe or that we all conspired to keep secret throughout the centuries.

In fact, portrait artists have talked about it in shop talk about composition all along, and it was just another topic. I remember Richard Whitney addressing it in a late-night session at an ASOPA conference several years ago. The sky didn't part.

If the ears were in the middle of the head, they'd be in the middle of the painting, and often....DUH!

How much would a scientist by trade know about what "clever composition generates..?" And what of all the non-portrait figurative and genre work throughout art history, where the humans therein weren't--by definition--the main focal point of the piece? It's as if this guy is proud and excited to discover that eyes are generally in the center of passport photos.

Don't tell the general public, let them think we all have a direct line to the cosmos. But we all know that art is only partly intuition, spirit, and passion. It's also daily application of knowledge, craft, and hard work.

Best--TE