Faldoni, parts 2488 - 2491

2488. Faldoni’s question about the noses went unanswered, but he made a profound discovery. A nose of a profile head has a line running all the way along it from top to bottom, and so it is very easy to paint, as opposed to those noses seen head on. This was a mysterious and confusing concept to Faldoni. “Why,” he asked himself, “does a shape which has no lines or edges, produce a line when looked at from the side, where does that line come from, how did it get there.”

2489. This sounds stupid I know, and I suspect that you think I am trying to make fun of Faldoni’s simplicity, and encouraging you to laugh at him for his naivety. But that is not true, because sometimes the most simpleminded questions just have no good answer, and this line on the edge of the nose is that kind of a question.

2490. Lets consider, for example, a few lines and make a comparison. Consider, for the sake of argument, a cube and sphere. A cube has 12 very specific lines which make it up, thats obvious. But now I ask you, “How many lines make up the sphere?” This question has no satisfactory answer, because when you look at a sphere it offers you a line around its edge which we call a circle. But where on that sphere is that circle. It is everywhere, and nowhere.

 

 

2491. This problem bothers nobody except that poor soul who sets about doing drawings of things composed of curves that blend into each other. Every second the person’s mind is attempting to pin a line on to a surface which is constantly changing and shifting. This was the exact problem confusing Faldoni, and the profile portrait seemed to him to offer an easy way out.