ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the state of religious art in France and the ways in which, considering the localized context of the Wars of Religion, this art did, and did not, correspond to the Council's decrees. It focuses on the Society of Jesus, for which Henry had shown himself favorable both through his desire for a Jesuit to serve as his Royal Confessor and by providing the Society with an annual grant. The chapter discusses the art work of Jean Cousin's Last Judgment, which is linked to the rise of an ascetic, penitential piety under Henry III and his association with the religious orders that grew in prominence in the final decades of the sixteenth century. Nudity as a visual device in depictions of the Last Judgment is not uncommon and is actually in keeping with a literal translation of the Latin version of the Apostle's Creed, where "resurrection of the body" is instead "resurrection of the flesh".
