One way for artists to express their values is through idealization or the lack of it. The examples I have chosen are both masterpieces of art, though they illustrate opposing approaches. In the first, Leonardo Da Vinci has undertaken to paint an angel as part of an altarpiece. An angel should be beautiful, manifestly pure and blameless, with no trace of the commonplace. He evidently began by enlisting a model who was as close to these angelic ideals as he could find, and then made an exquisite drawing of her:
Even so, there is a hint of the flirtatious in her glance; a little more idealization is called for. By the time the painting was finished, the artist had largely banished the earthy from his angel:
Francisco Goya, given the task of painting the king of Spain, did not make the slightest attempt to glorify his subject. Though he portrayed his king adorned with the rich fabrics and aristocratic accessories of a great monarch, he gave him the face of a petty, dangerous and mean-spirited tyrant:
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