Let us consider, in like manner, the Flemish school; and in this school the great Fleming, Rubens, and one of the most striking of his works, the "Kermesse." In this work, no more than in those of Michael Angelo, will you find an imitation of ordinary proportions. Visit Flanders, and observe the types of mankind about you, even at feastings and revellings, such as the fêtes of Gayant, Antwerp, and other places. You will see comfortable-looking people eating much and drinking more; serenely smoking, cool, phlegmatic bodies; dull-looking, and with massive, irregular features, strongly resembling the figures of Teniers. As to the splendid brutes of the "Kermesse," you meet nothing like them! Rubens certainly found them elsewhere. After the horrible religious wars, this rich country of Flanders, so long devastated, finally attained peace and civil security. The soil is so good, and the people so prudent, comfort and prosperity returned almost at once. Everybody enjoyed this new prosperity and abundance; the contrast between the past and the present led to the indulgence of rude and carnal instincts let loose like horses and cattle after long privation in fresh, green fields, abounding in the richest pasture. Rubens himself was sensible of them; and the poetry of gross, sumptuous living, of satisfied and redundant flesh, of brutal, inordinate merry-making, found a ready outlet in the shameless sensualities and voluptuous ruddiness, in the whiteness and freshness of the nudities of which he was so prodigal. In order to express all this in the "Kermesse" he has expanded the trunk, enlarged the thighs, twisted the loins, deepened the redness of the cheeks, dishevelled the hair, kindled in the eyes a flame of savage, unbridled desire, unloosed the demons of disorder in the shape of shattered glasses, overturned tables, holdings and kissings, a perfect orgie, and the most extraordinary culmination of human bestiality ever portrayed upon canvas. These two examples show you that the artist, in modifying the relationships of parts, modifies them understandingly, purposely, in such a way as to make apparent the _essential character_ of the object, and consequently its leading idea according to his conception of it. This phrase, gentlemen, requires attention; this _essential character_ is what philosophers call the _essence_ of things; and because of this they say that it is the aim of art to manifest the _essence_ of things. We will not retain this term essence, which is technical, but simply state that it is the aim of art to manifest a predominant character, some salient principal quality, some important point of view, some essential condition of being in the object.