It seems that one of Bazin's argument in "The Ontology of the Photographic image" is that photography releases painting, the plastic arts, from fruitless and futile attempts in making likenesses. That since photography produces a preservation of life, it is greater than anything painting can achieve. My question is: by what standard is he measuring the creation of likeness? Is it necessarily true that photography creates a greater likeness, or rather creates a more vivid illusion?

Its my opinion that Bazin is measuring likeness on the basis of the photograph being a reflection of an object, and a paiting being an approximation and at best a distortion of an object compared to its form in reality. However, photography, at least at that time, is only one snapshot reflecting one moment and neglecting everything before and everything during. In regards to painting people, what about the subjective that is influenced by the objective in the perception of others?

In the second article, there is a discrepancy in taking portraits between "recording" and painting the "history" of a person. In photography, the wrinkles of a face are recorded but the history is said to be "buried under a layer of snow." However, I am not convinced that somehow the history of someone can be imbued in a painting. What does the author mean by this?

I believe that for someone to paint the history of a figure into the painting, perhaps its necessary to know the facts of someone's past - for how can a stranger know one's history. Perhaps its the subjective response to a person, their being, and the artist creates history rather than simply painting it. I do agree that the photograph does not "preserve the transparent aspects of an object but instead captures it as a spatial continuum from any one of a number of positions" but i feel that a stranger artist painting a portrait with intentions of painting history is no better than just that, or some perversion of it.