There is a third aspect of Rubens which cannot be ignored and through which he may be associated with the realist artists of the seventeenth century, who succeeded in preserving a purely Flemish and popular tradition in spite of Italian and monarchist influences. The "Kermesse" of the Louvre and the wonderful landscapes disseminated in so many European museums are the best proofs that the master did not lose touch with his native land and with the people who tilled it. This special aspect of his art is even more prominent in the works of his follower, Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678). It is significant that the latter became a Calvinist in 1655. While Rubens and Van Dyck represent mostly the aristocratic and clerical side of the Flemish art of the period, Jordaens appears as the direct descendant of Jerome Bosch and Peter Breughel. Breughel's satires, such as the "Fight between the Lean and the Fat" and the "Triumph of Death," show plainly that his sympathies were certainly not on the side of Spanish oppression. His interpretation of the "Massacre of the Innocents" (Imperial Museum, Vienna) is nothing but a tragic description of a raid of Spanish soldiery on a Flemish village. Quite apart from their extraordinary suggestiveness, these works, like most of Breughel's drawings and paintings, constitute admirable illustrations of the popular life of the Low Countries during the religious wars. It must never be forgotten that all through the sixteenth century, starting from Quentin Matsys, the founder of the Antwerp school, the popular and Flemish tradition remains distinct from the flowery style of the Italianizants. Though it is impossible to divide the two groups of artists among the two political and religious tendencies in conflict, the works of Breughel and Jordaens may be considered as a necessary counterpart to those of Frans Floris and Rubens if we wish to form a complete idea of the civilization of the period. Illustration: THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS (SIXTEENTH CENTURY). (Imperial Museum, Vienna.) _P. Breugghel._[i] CHAPTER XX POLITICAL DECADENCE UNDER SPAIN