It must indeed be confessed that the grave, austere art of the Middle Ages had erred a little in the opposite direction. The influence of asceticism had generated the absurdly exaggerated desire to put out of sight the existence of matter; artists attenuated corporeal forms until on their canvases the body represented merely a thought; and the raiment, consequently, in which the body was delicately and gracefully draped, served as vesture to this thought, and contributed, so to speak, to immaterialise it. The influence of Greek art was needed to effect a reversion and to set upon physical beauty the stamp of a living art. The platonist aesthetics contributed in large measure to strengthen this movement, since it brought into favour the theory that the human body is the perfect type of terrestrial beauty, just as the human soul is the queen of the universe. Thanks to Plato, man, full of wit and love and liberty, appeared in his single self more intelligent, more free, more worthy of worship than all the rest of nature; and as the Bible reveals him also as the image of God, it seemed right to pay him honour. It cannot then be said, even on this matter, that to break with the aesthetic traditions of the Middle Ages necessarily involved breaking with their traditions in psychology and morals; platonism believed it was merely developing and amplifying Christian art, gaining for it all the superb expansion of which it was capable; and consequently, in the early days, it was often with perfect good faith and highly spiritual intentions that artists deified the vital forces of the world in the nude. Michelangelo is there to prove to us that it was possible to glorify the human figure fearlessly and unblushingly without weakening in any way the general conception of vigour and chastity. Whether he paints men or women, the result is the same: in bringing his wrestlers upon the scene he seems to fling at them this old apostrophe of a mystic: “I love you, not because of your fine garments, but because you have suffered much.” Who would ever say that his Eve in the Sistine chapel is yielding, through any languor whatever, to the suggestions of the serpent! This woman of his has assuredly strength enough to withstand a serpent unaided! She goes resolutely to meet the knowledge of good and evil, with the perfect freedom of an accomplished athlete, with more determination than curiosity, because she feels that her body is capable of every endurance; and besides, no one has yet told her that children are brought forth in anguish. Michelangelo has clothed with purity even the lamentable mother of mankind! And assuredly when an artist of the same school pushes the audacity of realism so far as to stretch openly on the royal tomb in the cathedral of St. Denis nude effigies of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany, of Henri II. and Catherine de’ Medici, he is giving a lesson in morality, lofty, stern, admirable, and of splendid eloquence.