Fusion: The Synergy of Images and Words

Everywhere I go in the world, I see young and old,
rich and poor, reading books.
Whether readers are engaged in the sacred or the secular,
they are, for a time, transported to another world.

Ever since Gutenberg invented the printing press which enabled
everyone access to books, artists have tried to portray the
relationship of readers and books.

Garrett Stewart’s book, The Look of Reading:
Book, Painting, Text, explores the relationship of
reading and art.He points out that a wide array of artists from
Rembrandt to Picasso and Cassatt
and dozens more,over the past 500 years
have painted people reading and the “look of reading” on the subjects’ faces.

We are familiar with words describing images, but not so
familiar with images describing words and the
impact reading has on our lives.

Reading a good book is a universal activity,
and people read while they do just about everything else.

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
– Jorge Luis Borges

We read to know we are not alone.
– C.S. Lewis

Reading is a means of thinking with another person’s mind;
it forces you to stretch your own.
– Charles Scribner

When I get a little money I buy books, 
and if any is left I buy food and clothes. 
 – Erasmus

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!
– Emily Dickinson

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