From this standpoint, the sight of the human form appeared absolutely conformable to aesthetics and philosophy, so much so that a whole generation of well-intentioned tutors, at whom Ulrich von Hütten pokes a little fun, set themselves ingeniously to explain to young people the religious significance of nudities. It was on the same principle that François de Moulins, the excellent cleric specially entrusted with the moral instruction of young Francis I., inserted in his manuscripts a picture of the Graces, and taught his young pupil that Charity is rightly represented as a nude figure, in order to symbolise her generosity, or rather to bring it more vividly home to one. It is hardly necessary to add that if the spiritualistic and platonist school derived these noble effects from the new aesthetic idea, there was another school of artists and amateurs, much more numerous, which saw in the exhibitions of the academies only an entertainment of a wholly different order. We cannot know (and we do not ask) what was Dürer’s secret feeling when he thought, as even he did, to imitate Michelangelo; but what can be affirmed is that he is not altogether successful; he cannot get away from domesticity; the good ladies he presents to us have nothing superhuman about them; far from it, they are women just escaped from their shop-counters (and their corsets!), or very matter-of-fact bathers, or a statuesque “Fortune,” who, despite her broad wings, yet appears ill at ease in what Montaigne calls her “animal’s costume.” The Italian artists, except for a few of the early ones, have not in similar cases allowed a like embarrassment to appear. By their own account, they moved with the greatest ease among these physical beauties, like perfect aesthetes. Undoubtedly many of them believed men, and more especially women, to be the loveliest of created things, and in fact they display them to us everywhere, with striking ability. Salons, public resorts, promenades, even the walls of churches and cathedrals in those days looked more or less like a pseudo-paradise. The triumph of the flesh was pealed forth with a brave clarion call. And we must not forget that this sort of painting formed a capital trade, which brought in both money and honour.