From the beginning of the record of human aspiration men had the urge to create representations of life. Efforts were made to duplicate in permanent form the pictures reflected in still water, shadows, and birds and animals and people. And so, in a very early day man took up drawing, a variation of light and shadow portrayal. But the early drawings, and attempts for centuries thereafter, did not wholly succeed in their purpose. Life of the surrounding world could not be caught in all its wondrous detail no matter how skilled was the artist. The first picture critics pointed out that the drawings were unnatural because no action was shown and life itself was full of motion. For cinema purposes, one of the earliest examples of “motion” still pictures is a representation of a boar trotting along, for some 10,000, 20,000 or 30,000 years, on a wall of the Font-de-Faune cave at Altamira near Santillana del Mar in Northern Spain. The artist tried to show the boar’s headlong pace by equipping the animal with two complete sets of legs. It was recognized a long while before Walt Disney that more than one still picture was necessary to portray natural motion. For centuries artists continued to strive for the “illusion” of motion without “moving pictures.” Depending on the skill of the artist, the result approached the goal in varying degrees. Action was always, and still is, a problem to the artist working with a “still” medium. A pinnacle of success in this quest was reached in the Winged Victory of Samothrace in which the artist did all in his power to show motion in the medium of cold, lifeless marble. However, the potential progress was limited as long as it was necessary to rely upon the skilled hand of the artist to convey motion. More had to be learned about light and shadow and also a great deal about the everlasting wonder of the human eye before living reality could be captured for future representation. The poets may speculate about man’s first thoughts on light, the sun, moon and stars, and fire. But man used his eyes for ages before he became interested and considered why and how he could see, and what light and shadow might be and how they could be usefully harnessed. Even in our day of apparent enlightenment, the underlying explanation of vision and light still eludes our scientists, so we should be patient about the time it took our ancestors to devise ways of harnessing light and shadow to prepare the brightly lighted way for the Bing Crosbys and Betty Grables of our day. The study of light and vision, and the need for better methods and instruments for observing life resulted in time in the invention of the first optical device--the magnifying glass. All telescopes, microscopes, spectacles, cameras, projectors and other optical instruments have been evolved from the simple lens or magnifying glass. That lens was a special boon to the men and women who through birth, age or misfortune had poor eyesight.