Rubens had all the industry, honesty, and brilliancy of colour of the great Flemings. He had, besides, greatness of conception and breadth of composition. A distinguished English painter calls him "perhaps the greatest master in the mechanical part of the art, the best workman with his tools, that ever exercised a pencil." His paintings glow with vitality; they depict natural life in landscapes, in animals, in human beings. Many of his works are on large canvases and depict gross and sensual subjects. His Madonnas are often unsatisfying; his figures of Christ seldom bear the impress of the Godhead; with one or two notable exceptions the life of the spirit is lacking in his work. One of these exceptions is the Last Communion of St. Francis, which was at last accounts in the Antwerp Museum. The dying saint in the foreground has raised himself on his knees, and is even stretching toward the officiating priest on the left. His weak body is supported by a monk on the right. His face is radiant with spiritual exaltation and an earnestness of purpose that would hold even death in check until the holy wafer has passed his lips. In this picture Rubens has pierced the veil and revealed the things that cannot be known by the senses. Fromentin says of it: "When one has made a prolonged study of this unequalled work in which Rubens is transfigured, one can no longer look at anything, neither any person, nor other paintings, not even Rubens himself; for today one must leave the Museum." But Rubens was the head of a school of painting--the later Flemish school. His studio was thronged with young artists, who were assistants as well as students. With his keenness of observation directed to a line of business, the master quickly discovered what each pupil could do best, and set him at that part of a composition. In this way Rubens was enabled to produce the immense number of pictures that bear his name--thirteen hundred have been catalogued. One student would paint nothing but landscapes, another all the animals, while the teacher put in the most important parts and added the finishing touches to the whole. There was no deceit in this method of working, for the amount of Rubens' own work a given piece contained depended upon the price his clients were willing to pay. The design was always his, but those who paid the lowest price got nothing but the design from his hand, while his wealthy patrons who could afford the maximum received pieces that were entirely his own handiwork, and between the two extremes there were all grades of collaboration.