Great philosophical tangent this thread has taken. One of my favourite subjects, the nature of the soul (assuming there is such a thing). I spent years believing I don't have one. Not just me, but everyine. Now I'm not so sure. That said, my take on the whole deal is somewhat different from the Judeo/Christian/Islamic view. I believe it's just an operating system for running a human. What we see in art as realistic is, as pointed out by nomuse, often very unrealistic in terms of sheer physical representation, yet it moves us somehow, suggests life, movement and, yup, soul. I believe it's a perceptual thing. We're wired to be responsive to certain shapes, patterns, angles and so forth, that even the crudest representation resonates in us and says "This is reality". For example, a hand drawn line by a skilled artist will always look more pleasing to the eye than a badly posed 3D model, no matter how accurate the mesh or how realistic the texture. As an extreme example, Picasso's cubist paintings look more human and realistic than 99.9% of digital art, simply because they capture the sense of humanity rather than just the physical dimensions. IMO, it's not the soul we're missing in pictures, it's the recognisable patterns of shape and movement. as if we insinctively respond to that which is "right".

Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.

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