This is my final example of an artist who drew in what might be called a slick, polished manner: Leonard Starr. Like other artists we've observed this week, Starr could draw in a tight style: And yet, take a close and look you'll see that, like the previous artists I've featured, he doesn't pursue realism slavishly. This zig-zag line in the man's hair, for example, adds a nice effect but could never be derived solely from tracing photographs: Neither could Starr's restraint on the girl's face, or his tapered lines showing the volume of her hair. Starr's drawing ability enabled him to stage his pictures in the most thoughtful or dramatic way. Unlike so many comic artists who are fashionable today, he was not hindered by a lack of skill. Detail Starr's figures were idealized, in accordance with the fashion of the times. I suspect that many of today's audiences prefer a scruffy, unschooled style because it seems more sincere than idealized pictures by skilled artists. Sophisticated audiences would rather be shown the dark underlying truths than the glossy surfaces. But is such closed minded skepticism toward idealistic images warranted? The ancient Greeks lived a harsher, more imperiled existence than we; feuding city states, corrupt politics and daily strife gave them plenty of reasons to be disillusioned about human nature. Yet they still devoted major room in their culture for the "illusion" of idealized beauty. (Clean lines, beautiful proportions, harmonious forms-- as Socrates said, "In portraying ideal types of beauty we bring together from many models the most beautiful features of each.") The parthenon, for example, was intended to be perfect, the embodiment of clean reason and perfection despite everything the Greeks knew from the savagery they had experienced. Their minds were supple enough to appreciate that art could be both realistic and transcendent, both true and beautiful.