Compelling Faces in Art - Basil Blackshaw, Head of Traveller IV, 1984.

We pass people on the street, some we notice, some we do not. The moment can be totally fleeting and meaningless. 

Or, as Gustave Flaubert once considered, “An overwhelming curiosity makes me ask myself what their lives might be like. I want to know what they do, where they're from, their names, what they're thinking about at that moment, what they regret, what they hope for, their past loves, their current dreams ...” 

I ask myself: When our eyes are cast upon another, are we in fact gazing into the depths of a mirror? 

But only from a distance, when the face is still just out of focus. I care about them when they are abstractions. I feel nothing when they are in front of me.