Zoonomy

"From a work, whose whole point is its unity of conception, we select a single feature, focus our search lights upon it and so force it, out of all context, upon the observer's consciousness. Where a contour seems to us too continuous, too obviously comprehensible, we break it up by alternating impenetrable shadows with patches of glaring brightness. When we photograph a sculpted figure or group, we use the camera to isolate a part which we then exhibit in enigmatic independence from the whole. By such means we can de-classicize the severest classic. Subjected to the light treatment and photographed by an expert camera man, a Pheidias becomes a piece of Gothic Expressionism, a Praxiteles is turned into a fascinating surréaliste object dredged up from the coziest depths of the subconscious. This may be bad art history, but it is certainly enormous fun."

- Aldous Huxley, Heaven and Hell, Appendix III.