But another century and more passed away. The blaze of the Renaissance had gone down, but the embers were kept alive, for Italy still seemed to vibrate with a desire to paint. Simultaneously in Flanders, in Holland, in France, and in England, private citizens appeared to develop a sudden demand for pictures, and quite naturally artists multiplied and fed the flame. Outside of Italy the hustle and bustle in the art world were novelties to the general public, though pleasant ones withal, and for half a century or more they delighted in the majestic designs of Rubens and Van Dyck, the intimate scenes of the Dutch artists, and the delicate landscapes of Claude and Poussin and their followers, which were continually finding their way from Rome. The simplicity of the people protected the arts. They knew the hard labour involved in the production of a picture; the worries, the struggles, the joys of the painters; and daily saw beautiful imitations of every-day life in the shops and markets. They must have been proud of them--insensibly proud of the value of human endeavour. For them the sham and immature had no place: there is not a single example of spurious art of the first three quarters of the seventeenth century that has come down to us from Holland or Flanders. But while the Dutch school was at the height of its fame, a change was marking Italian art conditions. The half score of academies scattered through the country were still in a state of activity, carrying on, as far as they could, the traditions of the Renaissance: from all parts of Europe students were still pouring in, endeavouring to glean the secrets of the immortals; and there was no apparent decrease in the demand for pictures from the religious foundations and private buyers. But the character of the art produced was rapidly declining: the writing on the wall was being done by the hand that wielded the brush. As a necessary consequence the trader was called in and art began to be commercialized. Worse still, fashions appeared, guided by successive masters in the various centres, often with an influence quite out of proportion with their merits.