Rembrandt;

f>ic Libcr/^^^^^

Sx Libris ^ ^ ^ ^

B» Oahlcy Baldwin

';

o^

REMBRANDT

AGENTS IN AMERICA

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, New York

PORTRAIT OF A SLAV PRINCE
1637. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

BY

MORTIMER MENPES

WITH AN ESSAY ON THE LIFE AND WORK
OF REMBRANDT

BY

C. LEWIS HIND

LONDON

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

1905

3^S3'73

PREFACE

Although I am familiar with Rembrandt's work,
through photographs and black and white reproduc-
tions, I invariably experience a shock from the colour
standpoint whenever I come in touch with one of his
pictures. I was especially struck with that masterpiece
of his at the Hermitage, called the S/av Prince, which,
by the way, I am convinced is a portrait of himself ;
any one who has had the idea suggested cannot doubt
it for a moment ; it is Rembrandt's own face without
question. The reproductions I have seen of this
picture, and, in fact, of all Rembrandt's works, are so
poor and so unsatisfactory that I was determined,
after my visit to St. Petersburg, to devise a means
by which facsimile reproductions in colour of Rem-
brandt's pictures could be set before the public. The
black and white reproductions and the photographs I
put on one side at once, because of the impossibility
of suggesting colour thereby.

Rembrandt has been reproduced in photograph

1924749

vi REMBRANDT

and photogravure, and by every mechanical process
imaginable, but all such reproductions are not only
disappointing, but wrong. The light and shade have
never been given their true value, and as for colour,
it has scarcely been attempted.

After many years of careful thought and con-
sideration as to the best, or the only possible, manner
of giving to those who love the master a work which
should really be a genuine reproduction of his pictures,
I have adapted and developed the modern process of
colour printing, so as to bring it into sympathy with
the subject. For the first time these masterpieces,
with all the rich, deep colouring, can be in the posses-
sion of every one — in the possession of the con-
noisseur, who knows and loves the originals but can
scarcely ever see them, and in that of the novice,
who hardly knows the emotions familiar to those
who have made a study of the great masters, but is
desirous of learning.

At the Hermitage in St. Petersburg I was
specially privileged — I was allowed to study these
priceless works with the glass off and in moments of
bright sunlight — to see those sweeps of rich colour, so
full, so clear, so transparent, and broken in places,
allowing the undertones to show through.

I myself have made copies of a hundred Rem-

PREFACE vii

brandts in order to understand more completely
his method of work. And in copying these pictures
certain qualities have been revealed to me which
no one could possibly have learnt except by this
means. Rembrandt worked more or less in two
stages : first, by a carefully-painted monochrome,
handled in such a way as to give texture as well
as drawing, and in which the masses of light and
shade are defined in a masterly manner; second, by
putting on the rich, golden colour — mostly in the form
of glazes, but with a full brush. This method of
handling glazes over monochrome has given a gem-
like quality to Rembrandt's work, so much so that
you might cut out any square inch from any portion
of his pictures and wear it as a jewel. And in all
his paintings there is the same decorative quality that
I have before alluded to : any picture by Rembrandt
arrests you as a decorative patch — the grouping and
design, and, above all, the balance of light and shade,

are perfect.

MORTIMER MENPES.

July 1905.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

The Recoverers of Rembrandt . . . i

CHAPTER H

The Appeal of the Paintings . . .10

CHAPTER HI

The Appeal of the Etchings . . .22

CHAPTER IV

Epochs in Rembrandt's Life . . . .31

CHAPTER V

The Great Triumvirate . . . .42

IX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PACING PAGE

2

4

6

lO

1 . Portrait of a Slav Prince . . . Frontispiece

2. Portrait of a Woman of Eighty-three .

3. A Rabbi Seated, a Stick in his Hands and a High

Feather in his Cap

4. The Holy Family with the Angels

5. P ortrait of a Savant ....

6. An Old Man with a Long White Beard, Seated, wearing

a Wide Cap, his Hands folded

7. Rembrandt leaning on a Stone Sill

8. Reconciliation between David and Absalom

9. An Old Woman in an Arm Chair, with a Black Head

cloth .....

10. Minerva .....

1 1. Titus in a Red Cap and a Gold Chain
I 2. Portrait of an Old Lady, Full Face, her Hands folded

1 3. Portrait of an Old Lady in a Velvet Hood, her Hands

folded .....

14. Flora with a Flower-trimmed Crook

15. The Descent from the Cross .

16. A Young Woman in a Red Chair holding a Pink in her

Right Hand .....

xi

14
16
18

20
24
26

28

32
34
40

44

The illustrations ir: this •vo/ume hai't been
engraved ar.d printed at the Menpa Press.

REMBRANDT

CHAPTER I

THE RECOVERERS OF REMBRANDT

Imagine a man, a citizen of London, healthy, middle-
aged, successful in business, whose interest in golf
is as keen, according to his lights and limitations,
as the absorption of Rembrandt in art. Suppose
this citizen, having one day a loose half- hour of
time to fill in the neighbourhood of South Ken-
sington, remembers the articles he has skimmed in
the papers about the Constantine lonides bequest :
suppose he strolls into the Museum and asks his way
of a patient policeman to the lonides collection.
Suppose he stands before the revolving frame of
Rembrandt etchings, idly pushing from right to
left the varied creations of the master, would he
be charmed ? would his imagination be stirred ?
Perhaps so : perhaps not. Perhaps, being a man of
importance in the city, knowing the markets, his eye-
brows would unconsciously elevate themselves, and
his lips shape into the position that produces the

2 REMBRANDT

polite movement of astonishment, if some one
whispered in his ear — "At the Holford sale the
Hitndred Guilder Print fetched ^^1750, and Ephraini
Bonus with the Bhick Ring, £i9S'^ \ ^'^d M.
Edmund de Rothschild paid ;^ii6o for a first
state of the Dr. A. Tholinx." Those figures might
stimulate his curiosity, but being, as I have said, a
golfer, his interest in Rembrandt would certainly
receive a quick impulse when he observed in the
revolving frame the etching No. 683, 2f inches wide,
51^ inches high, called The Sport of Kolef or Golf.

Is it fantastical to assume that his interest in
Rembrandt dated from that little golf etching? Great
events ofttimes spring from small causes. We will
follow the Rembrandtish adventures of this citizen of
London, and golfer. Suppose that on his homeward
way from the Museum he stopped at a book shop
and bought M. Auguste Brdal's small, accomplished
book on Rembrandt. Having read it, and being a
man of leisure, means, and grip, he naturally invested
one guinea in the monumental tome of M. fimile
Michel, Member of the Institute of France — that mine
of learning about Rembrandt in which all modern
writers on the master delve. Astonishment would
be his companion while reading its packed pages,
also while turning the leaves of L'CEuvre de Rem-
brandt, ddcrit et comments, par M. Charles Blanc, de
I'Academie Fran^aise. This sumptuous folio he

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN OF EIGHTY-THREE
1634. National Gallery, London.

THE RECOVERERS OF REMBRANDT 3

picked up second hand and conveyed home in a cab,
because it was too heavy to carry. Now he is fairly
started on his journey through the Rembrandt
country, and as he pursues his way, what is the
emotion that dominates him ? Amazement, I think.

Let me illustrate the extent and character of
his amazement by describing a little incident that
happened to him during a day's golfing at a seaside
course on the following Saturday.

The approach to the sixteenth green is undeniably
sporting. Across the course hangs the shoulder of
a hill, and from the fastnesses of the hill a brook
gushes down to the sea through the boulders that
bestrew its banks. Obliged to wait until the pre-
ceding couple had holed out, our citizen and golfer
amused himself by upturning one of the great lichen-
stained boulders. He gazed into the dank pit thus
disclosed to his eyes, and half drew back dismayed
at the extraordinary activity of insect life that was
revealed. It was so sudden, so unexpected. Beneath
that grey and solemn boulder that Time and man
accepted as a freehold tenant of the world, that our
citizen had seen and passed a hundred times, a
population of experts were working, their deeds un-
seen by the wayfarer. Now what is the meaning of
this little story? How did the discovery of that
horde of capable experts strike the imagination of
our golfer? The boulder was Rembrandt. The

4 REMBRANDT

busy insects were the learned and patient students
working quietly on his behalf — his discoverers
and recoverers. He had passed that boulder a
hundred times, his eyes had rested cursorily upon
it as often as the name of Rembrandt in book or
newspaper had met his indifferent gaze. Now he
had raised the boulder, as he had lifted the Rem-
brandt curtain, and lo ! behind the curtain, as beneath
the boulder, he had discovered life miraculously
active.

Reverence for the students of art, for the specialists,
for the scientific historians, was born within him
as he pursued his studies in Rembrandt lore. Also
he was conscious of sorrow, anger, and pride : sorrow
for the artist of genius who goes down to his grave
neglected, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung : anger
at the stupidity and blindness of his contemporaries :
pride at the unselfish industry and ceaseless activity
of the men who, born years after, raise the master,
to his throne.

In the year 1669 an old Dutchman called
Rembrandt dies in obscurity in Amsterdam. So
unmemorable was the death deemed that no con-
temporary document makes mention of it. The pass-
ing of Rembrandt was simply noted, baldly and briefly,
in the death-register of the Wester Kerk : " Tuesday,
October 8, 1669; Rembrandt van Ryn, painter on
the Roozegraft, opposite the Doolhof. Leaves two

A RABBI SEATED, A STICK IN HIS HANDS AND A HIGH

FEATHER IN HIS CAP

1645. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

THE RECOVERERS OF REMBRANDT 5

children." Yet once, while he was alive, before he
painted The Night IVatcJi, he had been the most
famous painter in Holland. Later, oblivion encom-
passed the old lion, and little he cared so long as he
could work at his art. Forty years after his death,
Gerard de Lairesse, a popular painter, now forgotten,
wrote of Rembrandt — "In his efforts to attain a
yellow manner, Rembrandt merely achieved an effect
of rottenness. . . . The vulgar and prosaic aspects of
a subject were the only ones he was capable of noting."
Poor Gerard de Lairesse !

To-day not a turn or a twist of his life, not a facet
of his temperament, not an individual of his family,
friends, or acquaintances, not the slightest scrap of
paper bearing the mark of his hand, but has been
peered into, scrutinised, tracked to its source, and
written about voluminously. The bibliography of
Rembrandt would fill a library. Several lengthy and
learned catalogues of his works have been published
in volumes so large that a child could not lift one of
them. His 450 pictures, his multitudinous drawings,
his 270 etchings, their authenticity, their history, their
dates, the identification of his models, have been the
subjects of innumerable books and essays. Why, it
would have taken our golfer three months just to read
what has been written about one of Rembrandt's
pictures — that known as The Night IVatch. He
might have begun with Bredius and Meyer of Holland,

6 REMBRANDT

and M. Durand-Greville of France, and would then
have been only at the beginning of his task. People
make the long journey to St. Petersburg for the sake
of the 35 pictures by Rembrandt that the Hermitage
contains. He is hailed to-day as the greatest etcher
the world has ever known, and there are some who
place him at the head of that noble triumvirate who
stand on the summit of the painters' Parnassus, Velas-
quez, Titian, and Rembrandt. Having browsed and
battened on Rembrandt, and noted the countless
cosmopolitan workers that for fifty years have been
excavating the country marked on the art map
Rembrandt, you can perhaps understand why our
golfer likened the work of his commentators to the
incessant activity that his upturning of that grey,
lichen-covered boulder revealed.

But had our golfer, brimming with the modern
passion for efficiency, learned foreign tongues, and
browsed in the musty archives, he would have dis-
covered that there was much to unlearn. The early
scribes piled fancy upon invention, believing or pre-
tending that Rembrandt was a miser, a profligate, a
spendthrift, and so on. " Houbraken's facts," we read,
"are interwoven with a mass of those suspicious
anecdotes which adorn the plain tale of so many
artistic biographies. Campo-Weyermann, Dargen-
ville, Descamps, and others added further embellish-
ments, boldly piling fable upon fable for the amuse-

THE HOLY FAMILY WITH THE ANGELS
1645. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

THE RECOVERERS OF REMBRANDT 7

ment of their readers, till legend gradually ousted
truth."

All this and much more he would have had to
unlearn, discovering in the end the simple truth that
Rembrandt lived for his art ; that he loved and was
kind to his wife and to the servant girl who, when
Saskia died, filled her place ; that he was neither
saint nor sinner ; that he was extravagant because
beautiful things cost money ; that being an artist
he did not manage his affairs with the wisdom of a
man of the world ; that he was hot-headed, and played
a hot-headed man's part in the family quarrels ; and
that he was plucky and improvident, and probably
untidy to the end, and that he did his best work when
the buffets of fate were heaviest.

The new era in Rembrandt literature began with
Kolloff's Rembrandt's Leben und Werke, published in
1854. This contribution to truth was followed by
the works of Messrs. Burger and Vosmaer, by the
lucubrations of other meritorious bookworms, by the
studies of Messrs. Bode and Bredius, and finally by
M. fimile Michel's Life, which is the definitive and
standard work on Rembrandt. Our golfer, whose
French is a little rusty, was delighted to find
when he gave the order for this book that it had
been translated into English under the editorship
of Mr. Frederick Wed more. It was in the third
edition.

8 REMBRANDT

He learned much from M. fimile Michel — among
other things the herculean labour that is necessary
if one desires to write a standard and definitive book
on a subject. Not only did M. Michel visit and
revisit all the galleries where Rembrandt's pictures
are displayed in Russia, France, England, Sweden,
Denmark, and North Germany, but he lived for several
years with Rembrandt, surrounded by reproductions
of his pictures, drawings, and etchings, and by docu-
ments bearing on their history, his mind all the while
intently fixed on the facts of Rembrandt's life and the
achievements of his genius. Gradually the procession
of dates and facts took on a new significance ; the
heterogeneous threads of information wove themselves
into the fabric of a life. M. Michel is the recoverer-in-
chief of all that truly happened during the sixty-three
years that Rembrandt passed upon this earth.

Every dead painter, poet, or writer of genius, has
had his Recoverer. A searchlight has flashed upon
all that Charles Lamb said, did, or wrote. Every
forerunner who inspired Keats, from the day when he
took the Faerie Qiteene like a fever, and went through
it " as a young horse through a spring meadow,
romping," has been considered and analysed. You
could bury Keats and Lamb in the tomes that have
been written about them. With the books of his
commentators you could raise a mighty monument
of paper and bindings to Rembrandt.

THE RECOVERERS OF REMBRANDT 9

All this is very right and most worthy of regard.
We do not sing "For they are jolly good fellows"
in their honour, but we offer them our profound
respect and gratitude. And our golfer, in his ama-
teurish way, belongs to the tribe. He has approached
Rembrandt through books. His temperament en-
joyed exploring the library hive marked Rembrandt.
Now he feels that he must study the works of the
master, and while he is cogitating whether he shall
first examine the 35 pictures at St. Petersburg, or
the 20 in the Louvre, or the 20 at Cassel, or the 17
at Berlin, or the 16 at Dresden, or the 12 in the
National Gallery, or the etchings and drawings in
the print room of the British Museum, or the frame
of etchings at South Kensington, so accessible, I
drop him. Yes : drop him in favour of another who
did not care two pins about the history or the politics
of art, or the rights or wrongs of Rembrandt's life, but
went straight to his pictures and etchings, wondered
at them, and was filled with an incommunicable joy.

CHAPTER II

THE APPEAL OF THE PAINTINGS

Suppose our citizen and golfer, deliberately dropped
in the preceding chapter, had a child, a son, who by
a freak of heredity was brooding and imaginative,
fond, in a childish way, of pictures and books,
but quite indifferent to scientific criticism and the
methods of the analytic men. During his school
holidays his mother would take him to the panto-
mime, and to the National Gallery. Dazed, he would
scan the walls of pictures, wondering why so many of
them dealt with Scriptural subjects, and why some
were so coloured, and others so dim.

But after the third or fourth visit this child began
to recognise favourites among the pictures, and being
somewhat melancholy and mystical by nature, liking
trees, beechwood glades, cathedral aisles, and the end
of day, he would drag upon his mother's arm when
they passed two pictures hanging together in the
Dutch room. One was called The Woman taken in
Adultery, the other. The Adoration of the SJiepherds.

PORTRAIT OV A SAVANT
1631. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

THE APPEAL OF THE PAINTINGS li

These pictures by Rembrandt attracted him : they were
so different from anything else in the gallery. He did
not trouble to understand their meaning ; he did not
dwell upon the beauty of the still figure of Christ, or
note that the illumination in The Adoration of the
Shepherds proceeded from the supernatural light that
shines from the Infant Jesus. What captivated him
was the vastness contained in these small pictures,
and the eerie way in which the light was separated
from the dark. He had never seen anything like it
before, but these pictures made him long to be grown
up and able to seek such sights. He could see the
lurking shadows alone in his bed at night, and held
his breath when he thought of the great darkness
that stretched out to the frames of the pictures. He
wondered if temples were really as mysterious and
dim as the great building that loomed above the
small dazzling figure of the kneeling penitent and
that horrid man who, his mother told him, was one
of her accusers.

When she came into his bedroom to see that he
was safely tucked up for the night, this child asked
his mother why Rembrandt's pictures were so dif-
ferent from the pictures of other painters.

She explained that Rembrandt was a great master
of chiaroscuro, making a valiant attempt to pronounce
the uncomfortable word.

"What does that mean?" asked the little boy.

12 REMBRANDT

"It — er — means — One moment, dear; I think I
hear your father calling."

She ran downstairs and consulted the dictionary.

"A chiarosctivist" she told her little boy when
she returned to the bedroom, "is a painter who cares
for and studies light and shade rather than colour.
Now go to sleep. You're too young to bother about
such things."

This child's mother was an ardent Ruskinian.
Observing that her husband, the citizen and golfer,
was asleep in his chair when she returned from her
son's bedroom, she stepped into the library, picked
Modern Painters from the shelf, and read the
following passages, gravely shaking her head occa-
sionally as she read.

"... Rembrandt always chooses to represent
the exact force with which the light on the most
illumined part of an object is opposed to its obscurer
portions. In order to obtain this, in most cases, not
very important truth, he sacrifices the light and colour
of five-sixths of his picture; and the expression of
every character of objects which depends on tender-
ness of shape or tint. But he obtains his single truth,
and what picturesque and forcible expression is de-
pendent upon it, with magnificent skill and subtlety.

"... His love of darkness led also to a loss of
the spiritual element, and was itself the reflection of a
sombre mind. . .

THE APPEAL OF THE PAINTINGS 13

"... I cannot feel it an entirely glorious speciality
to be distinguished, as Rembrandt was, from other
great painters, chiefly by the liveliness of his dark-
ness and the dulness of his light. Glorious or
inglorious, the speciality itself is easily and accurately
definable. It is the aim of the best painters to paint
the noblest things they can see by sunlight. It was
the aim of Rembrandt to paint the foulest things he
could see — by rushlight. . ."

Had Ruskin, one wonders, ever seen The Syndics
at Amsterdam, or the Portrait of his Mother, and
the Singing Boy at Vienna, or The Old Woman at
St. Petersburg, or the Christ at Emniaus at the
Louvre, or any of the etchings ?

The time came when the child was allowed to
visit the National Gallery unattended ; but although he
never lost his affectionate awe for the two dim interiors,
he did not really begin to appreciate Rembrandt until
he had reached manhood. Rembrandt is too learned
in the pathos of life, too deeply versed in realities, to
win the suffrages of youth. But he was attracted by
another portrait in the National Gallery — that called
A JewisJi Rabbi. This was the first likeness he had
seen of a Rabbi, a personality dimly familiar to him
through the lessons in church and his school Scripture
class. Remembering what his mother had told him
about chiaroscuro, he noted how the golden-brown
light is centred upon the lower part of the face ; how

14 REMBRANDT

the forehead is in shadow, and how stealthily the
black hat and coat creep out from the dark back-
ground. He had never seen, and never could have
imagined, such a sad face. This Rabbi seemed to be
crouching into the picture as he dimly understood
that Jews in all ages, except those who owned
diamond mines in South Africa, had cringed under
the hand of their oppressors.

He wondered how Rembrandt knew what a Rabbi
was like. His father might have told him that Rem-
brandt's pencil and brush were never idle, that he
was for ever making pictures of himself, of his father,
of his mother, of his wife, of his children and rela-
tions, of every interesting type that came within the
ken of his piercing eyes ; that one day, when he was
prowling about the Jews' quarter at Amsterdam, he
saw an old, tired, wistful Hebrew sitting in the door
of his shop, engaged him in conversation, persuaded
him to sit for his portrait, and lo ! the nameless
Amsterdam Jew became immortal.

His father might also have told him (perhaps he
did) that the artist, wherever he goes, sometimes
hardly aware of his preoccupation, is always select-
ing subjects to paint, and brooding over the method
of treatment ; that one day Rembrandt noted with
amusement a man in the street shaking his fist at
the skull-capped head of an older man bobbing angrily
from a window. Rembrandt chuckled, remembered

AN OLD MAN WITH A LONG WHITE BEARD, SEATED,
WEARING A WIDE CAP, HIS HANDS FOLDED

1654. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

THE APPEAL OF THE PAINTINGS 15

the incident, painted it, and called it, for a picture
must have a title, Samson threatening his Father-
in-law \ that one day Rembrandt saw a fair-haired,
chubby boy learning his lessons at his mother's knee.
The composition appealed to his artist eye, he painted
it, and the result is that beautiful and touching picture
in the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg called
Hannah teaching Samuel his Lessons.

To a child, the portrait of a painter by himself
has a human interest apart altogether from its claim
to be a work of art. Rembrandt's portrait of himself
at the National Gallery, painted when he was thirty-
two, is not one of his remarkable achievements. It
is a little timid in the handling, but that it is an excel-
lent likeness none can doubt. This bold-eyed, quietly
observant, jolly-looking man was not quite the pre-
sentment of Rembrandt that the child had imagined ;
but Rembrandt at this period was something of a
sumptuous dandy, proud of his brave looks and his
fur-trimmed mantle. Life was his province. No
subject was vulgar to him so long as it presented
problems of light and construction and drawing.
Rembrandt, like Montaigne, was never didactic. He
looked at life through his eyes and through his
imagination, and related his adventures. One day it
was a flayed ox hanging outside a butcher's shop,
which he saw through his eyes ; another day it was
Christ healing the sick, which he saw through his

i6 REMBRANDT

imagination. You can imagine the healthy, full-
blooded Rembrandt of this portrait painting the
Carcase of a Bullock at the Louvre, or that prank
called The Rape of Ganymede, or that delightful,
laughing picture of his wife sitting upon his knee at
Dresden, which Ruskin disliked.

The other portrait of Rembrandt by himself at
the National Gallery shows that he was not a vain
man, and that he was just as honest with himself as
with his other sitters. It was painted when he was
old and ailing and time-marked, five years before his
death. His hands are clasped, and he seems to be
saying — " Look at me ! That is what I am like now,
an old, much bothered man, bankrupt, without a home,
but happy enough so long as I have some sort of a
roof above me under which I can paint. I am he of
whom it was said that he was famous when he was
beardless. Observe me now ! What care I so that
I can still see the world and the men and women
about me — 'When I want rest for my mind, it is
not honours I crave, but liberty.' "

Twenty-eight seemed a great age to the child ;
but he thought it wonderful that the portrait of an
Old Lady at the National Gallery should have been
painted when Rembrandt was but twenty-eight. She
was too strong and determined for his liking, and he
wondered why some of Rembrandt's pictures, like
The Woman taken in Adultery, should be so

REMBRANDT LEANING ON A STONE SILL
1640. National Gallery, London.

THE APPEAL OF THE PAINTINGS 17

mysterious and poetical, and others like this old
lady so lifelike and straightforward. He was too
young to understand that the composition of the
fortuitous concourse of atoms called Rembrandt,
included not only the power that Velasquez possessed
in so supreme a degree of painting just what his eyes
saw, exemplified by this portrait of An Old Lady,
aged 83, and by the portrait of Elizabeth Bas at
Amsterdam, but that it also included the great gift
of creative imagination, exemplified by the Christ at
Emmaus, and The Good Samaritan of the Louvre,
and in a way by the Portrait of a Slav Prince at
the Hermitage, where a man in the alembic of
Rembrandt's imagination has become a type. Also
in The Reconciliation of David and Absalom at the
Hermitage, where behind the sham trappings of the
figures shine the eternal motives of reconciliation
and forgiveness.

When the child was much older he saw the Christ
at Emmaus, and The Good Samaritan in the little
room at the Louvre, hanging side by side, and he
never forget the hour that he spent with them. He
had seen, year by year, many of the \vorld's pictures ;
but at the sight of these two works, his childish
predilection for Rembrandt became a deep-rooted
reverence and admiration, which was never to pass
from him.

Here was Rembrandt the seer, the man who had

1 8 REMBRANDT

suffered. Saskia was dead, his popularity gone ; but
the effect of these things was but to fill his heart
with a world sympathy, with pity for all who sorrow.
Again and again he treated the Christ at Emmaiis,
The Good Samaritan, and The Prodigal Son themes.
"Some strange presentment of his own fate," says
M. Michel, " seems to have haunted the artist,
making him keenly susceptible to the story of
The Good Samaritan. He too was destined to be
stripped and wounded by Life's wayside, while many
passed him by unheeding."

The Christ at Enmiaus is a small picture, and
small the figures appear in that vast, dimly lighted
chamber where the three are seated at table. The
spiritual significance of Christ is suggested by most
simple means. Light, and intensity of emotion, are
the only aids. Rembrandt disdains all other effects.
Intense feeling pervades the picture, even in the bare
feet of Christ, even in the astonished hand of the
disciple resting upon the chair ; even in the back of
the other disciple who gazes, with clasped hands,
transfixed with amazement and love at the face
of his Master, who has just broken bread and thus
revealed Himself.

Of all Rembrandt's pictures, this was the one that
made the profoundest impression upon the child when
he had become a man. Other works, such as The Ship-
builder and his Wife at Buckingham Palace, The

RECONCILIATION BETWEEN DAVID AND ABSALOM

1642. The Hennitage, St. Petersburg.

THE APPEAL OF THE PAINTINGS 19

Syndics of the Drapers at Amsterdam, that ripe
expression of Rembrandt's ripest powers, convinced
him of the master's genius. He was deeply im-
pressed by the range of portraits and subject-pictures
at the Hermitage Gallery, many of which, by the
art of Mr. Mortimer Menpes, have been brought
to the fireside of the untravelled ; but the Christ
at Emmatis revealed to him the heart of Rembrandt,
and showed him, once and for all, to what heights
a painter may attain when intense feeling is allied
with superb craftsmanship.

He found this intensity of emotion again in the
Portrait of his Mother at Vienna. The light falls
upon her battered, wrinkled face, the lips are parted
as in extreme age, the hands, so magnificently painted,
are folded upon her stick. When we look at Rem-
brandt's portrait of An Old Woman at the Hermitage
Gallery, with that touch of red so artfully and fittingly
peeping out from between the folds of her white scarf,
we feel that he can say nothing more about old age,
sad, quiescent, but not unhappy ; when we look at the
portrait of An Old Lady in the National Gallery (No.
1675) we feel that he can tell us no more about old
age that still retains something that is petty and eager ;
but in the portrait of his mother at Vienna, Rembrandt,
soaring, gives us quite another view of old age. It is
the ancient face of a mother painted by a son who
loved her, who had studied that face a thousand times,

20 REMBRANDT

every line, and light, and aspect of the features, and
who stated all his love and knowledge upon a canvas.

Rembrandt was always inspired when he painted
his own family. There is a quality about his portraits
of father, mother, Saskia, Titus, and Hendrickje,
yes ! and of himself, that speaks to us as if we were
intimates. It is a personal appeal. We find it in
every presentment that Rembrandt gives us of another
figure which constantly inspired his brush — the figure
of Christ. In The IVoman taken in Adultery, it is
His figure that is articulate : it is the figure of Christ
in the Emmaus picture that amazes : it is the figure
of Christ that haunts us in a dozen of the etchings.

Slowly the child, now become a man, began, as
he thought, to understand Rembrandt. Why did The
Singing Boy at Vienna, apart from the quality of the
painting, and the joy depicted on that young smiling
face, make a personal appeal to him ? Because he is
Rembrandt's son, Titus ; or if Titus was not actually
the model, the features and the smile of Titus hovered
between the father and the canvas.

He found an authentic portrait of Titus in the
Wallace collection, painted in 1657, the year after
Rembrandt had become bankrupt. It is one of the
most charming portraits the master ever produced,
a picture that even the most casual frequenter of
galleries must pause before and love. A red cap
crowns his curly hair, which falls to his shoulders.

AN OLD WOMAN IN AN ARM CHAIR, WITH A BLACK

HEAD-CLOTH

1654. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

THE APPEAL OF THE PAINTINGS 21

The face has a sweet expression ; but the observant
can detect traces of ill-health upon it. Titus died
before his father. Father, mother, Saskia, Hendrickje,
Titus, had all gone when the old man passed to his
rest.

On the opposite wall at the Wallace collection
is The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, a fine
example of Rembrandt the chiarosciirist, straight-
forward, but touched with that mystery so rare in
painting, but which, under certain conditions, was
as natural to Rembrandt as drawing. It is not
always present in his work. None can say that there
is any mystery about the sober portrait pictures called
The Wife of Jan Pellicorne with her Daughter, and
Burgomaster Jan Pellicorne with his Son, in the
Wallace collection. A scriptural subject was needed
to inspire Rembrandt's brush with the sense of
mystery.

It was the mystery of two pictures at the National
Gallery that first drew the child to Rembrandt : it
was the etchings that gave him a deeper insight into
Rembrandt's sense of mystery, and made of him a
willing Gamaliel at the master's feet.

CHAPTER III

THE APPEAL OF THE ETCHINGS

The citizen and golfer, whose commerce with Rem-
brandt was narrated in the first chapter, approached
the master through the writings of his Recoverers,
certain art historians and scholars, who frequent
libraries, search archives, and peruse documents ; men
to whom a picture is a scientific document rather than
an emotional or intellectual experience. He was well
content to end his commerce with Rembrandt there.
History interested him : to art he was apathetic.

His son, as was indicated in the second chapter,
was indifferent to art history, and he would not have
walked across the road to read an unedited document ;
but I see him tramping ten miles to seek a picture
that promised to stir his emotions and stimulate his
imagination. Rembrandt, the maker of pictures, had
become a vivid personality, a master whom he rever-
enced ; but Rembrandt the etcher was unknown to him.

There are authorities who assert that in etching
Rembrandt's art found its amplest and most exquisite

22

THE APPEAL OF THE ETCHINGS 23

expression. None will deny that his is the greatest
name in etching. If all Rembrandt's pictures were
destroyed, if every record of them by photograph or
copy was blotted out, the etchings alone would form
so ample a testimony to his genius that the name of
Rembrandt would still remain among the foremost
artists of the world.

Rembrandt enjoyed a period of popularity with
his pictures, followed by years of decline and neglect,
when lesser and more accommodating men ousted
him from popular favour. But from first to last the
products of his needle were appreciated by his con-
temporaries, even if he himself did not set great store
by them. He began to etch early in life : he ceased
only when his eyesight failed. He found in etching
a congenial and natural means of self-expression.
His artistic fecundity threw them off in regal pro-
fusion. The mood seized him: he would take a
prepared plate, and sometimes, having swiftly spent
his emotion, he did not trouble to do more than
mdicate the secondary incidents in a composition.
Often he gave them away to friends and fellow-artists,
or tossed them, when they had answered their purpose
m his art life, so continuously experimental, into one
of the sixty portfolios of leather recorded in the in-
ventory of his property.

The history of Christ Healing the Sick, known as
The Hiuidred Guilder Print, now the most prized

24

REMBRANDT

of all the etchings, shows that he did not attach much
value, either artistic or monetary, to this plate. He
did not even receive a hundred guilders (under £c))
for it, but gave the etching to his friend Jan Zoomer
in exchange for The Pest, by M. Anthony. At the
Holford sale, as has already been noted, £1750 was
given for the Hundred Guilder Print.

It is supposed that only two of the etchings were
made expressly for publication — the Descent from
the Cross, and the Ecce Homo ; but Rembrandt may
have benefited from the sale of them through the
partnership that was formed in 1660 between his son
Titus and Hendrickje Stoftels.

In the eighteenth century certain connoisseurs had
already made collections of his etchings. Catalogues
began to be published, and in 1797 Adam Bartsch,
keeper of the prints in the library at Vienna, issued
the well-known catalogue that bears his name in two
octavo volumes. Since Bartsch's monumental work
many students of the etchings have striven to sift the
authentic from the false. Needless to say, they dis-
agree. Here are the figures : —

Bartsch . . . .

375 authentic

etchings

Wilson

366

))

Claussin .

36s

1)

Blanc

353

»

Middleton-Wake

329

})

de Seidlitz

260

)i

Legros

71-113

»

MINERVA

1655. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

THE APPEAL OF THE ETCHINGS 2$

M. de Seidlitz's list of 260 was arrived at through
consultation with several authorities, and that number
is now accepted as approximately correct.

Our enthusiast knew nothing of the work of the
labourers in Rembrandt's etching vineyard. He was
quite ignorant of the expert contributions of Sir
Francis Haden, P. G. Hamerton, and Mr. Frederick
Wedmore, although his father, had he been a com-
municative man, could have discoursed learnedly on
their efforts. Fate so willed it that he came to
Rembrandt's etchings by chance, and, being sensi-
tively alive to beauty and idealism, they merged into
his life, and became as it were a personal possession.

On a certain day, in the window of one of those
delightful London shops where first editions, prints,
pieces of pottery, and odds and ends tempting to the
virtuoso, are exposed for sale, he saw a small opulent
picture by Monticelli. Entering to inquire the price,
he discovered, as he had feared, that it was far
beyond his bank balance. At the invitation of the
proprietor, who seemed delighted that his goods
should be admired, he stayed to "look round."
Strewn upon a rosewood, inlaid table were a hundred
and more etchings. Many were quite small, heads
of men and women minutely and beautifully wrought ;
others, larger in size, were Biblical subjects ; some
were weird and fantastical ; one, for example, showed
a foreshortened figure lying before an erection, upon

26 REMBRANDT

which a skinny bird stood with outstretched wings,
flanked by ugly angel boys blowing trumpets.
" The best are sold," said the gentle proprietor.
The enthusiast was about to ask the name of the
artist, when he suddenly caught sight of the Christ
at Enwimts. His blood stirred in him. That little
shop became an altar of art, and he an initiate. It
was not the same version as the Louvre picture, but
only one mind — the mind of Rembrandt, only one
heart — the heart of Rembrandt, could have so felt
and stated the pathos and emotion of that scene.
Controlling his excitement, he turned over the prints
and paused, startled, before Abrahams Sacrifice.
What was it that moved him ? He could hardly say.
But he was moved to an extraordinary degree by that
angel standing, with outstretched wings, by Abraham's
side, hiding the kneeling boy's eyes with his hand,
staying the knife at the supreme moment. He
turned the prints, and paused again before The Prodigal
Son. Some might call the face of the kneeling
prodigal hideous, might assert that the landscape
was slight and unfinished, that the figure in the door-
way was too sketchy. Not so our enthusiast. This
was the Prodigal Son, and as for the bending, for-
giving father, all that he could imagine of forgiveness
and pity was there realised in a few scratches of the
needle. He turned the prints and withdrew Tobit
Blind. In every line of this figure of the wandering

TITUS IN A RED CAP AND A GOLD CHAIN

1657. The Wallace Collection, London.

THE APPEAL OF THE ETCHINGS 27

old man, tapping his stick upon the pavement, feeling
his way by the wall, was blindness, actual blindness —
all the misery and loneliness and indignity of it.

" Are these for sale ? " he asked the smiling pro-
prietor, without the slightest hope that he could
afford one.

"Oh yes! Tobit Blind you can have for two
shillings and sixpence. Abrahanis Sacrifice, Christ
at Emmaus, and The Prodigal Son are four shillings
each."

The enthusiast could not conceal his astonish-
ment. " I thought Rembrandt's etchings cost
hundreds of pounds," he said.

"They do, but these are merely reproductions.
Only a millionaire could hope to possess a complete
collection of first states. These are the reproductions
that were issued with M. Blanc's catalogue. He
made them from the best proofs in his own collec-
tions, and from the public museums. You should
compare them with the originals. The difference
will astonish you. It's candle-light to sunlight,
satinette to the finest silk."

" But where can I see the originals? I don't know
any millionaires."

" Nothing easier ! Go to the Print Room of the
British Museum or to the lonides Collection."

A day or two later the enthusiast, carrying under
his arm the roll of four Rembrandt's etchings that he

28 REMBRANDT

had purchased for fourteen shillings and sixpence,
ascended the stairs of the British Museum, and
timidly opened the door marked, " Print Room.
Students only."

His reception agreeably surprised him. He, an
obscure person, was treated as if he were a M.
Michel. An obliging boy requested him to hang
his hat and coat upon a peg, and to sign his name
in a book. An obliging youth waved him to a noble
desk running at a right angle to a noble window,
and begged him to indicate his needs upon a slip of
paper. He inscribed the printed form with the
words — " Rembrandt's Etchings and Drawings."

The obliging youth scanned the document and
said — " Which do you wish to see ? There are many
portfolios. I can bring you one at a time."

" Do so, if you please," said the enthusiast. " I
should like to examine them all, even if it takes a
week."

The obliging youth inclined his head and departed.

There is a delightful air of leisure and learning
about the Print Room, and an entire absence of
hustle. Two students besides himself were the only
other members of the public, one studying Holbein,
the other Blake.

The first portfolio that was brought to him con-
tained the Christ Healing tJie Sick, known as The
Hundred Guilder Print, in several states. It was

PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY, FULL FACE, HER HANDS

FOLDED
1641. The Hermitage. St. Petersburg.

THE APPEAL OF THE ETCHINGS 29

the first large etching by Rembrandt that he had
seen, and he gazed with astonishment, admiration,
and awe at the almost miraculous characterisation of
the figures, at the depth and richness of the blacks,
and the nobility of the conception. He passed from
that to The Three Crosses, and was even more
moved by the dramatic intensity and realism of
those burdened crosses against the profound gloom,
and the dim, poignantly realised figures in the fore-
ground. He saw the Christ before Pilate and The
Death of the Virgin, lingering before them, studying
every detail, realising to the full, through these
splendid impressions, the height and significance of
Rembrandt's genius. He compared the four prints
he had purchased with their originals, and understood
why collectors were eager to pay enormous prices for
fine states, probably printed by the master himself.

As soon as he had finished one portfolio, the
watchful attendant carried it away, and substituted
another. It was so easy, so restful, and so invigorat-
ing to study a master under these conditions, that he
wondered the public did not flock to the Print Room
as to a first night at a popular theatre.

On another day he studied the drawings and

landscape etchings — that dark, spacious design called

The Three Trees, and a perfect little drawing of

Joseph Consoling the Prisoners. The large plates

inspired him with reverence and profound admiration

30 REMBRANDT

for Rembrandt's genius as an etcher, but it was the
smaller etchings that won his love and held it. He
promised himself, when he came into certain family
monies of which there was some prospect, that instead
of buying an automobile, he would make himself the
proud owner of The Three Trees, The Prodigal Son,
Abrahams Sacrifice, and Tobit Blind — perhaps one,
perhaps two, perhaps three, perhaps all four.

CHAPTER IV

EPOCHS IN REIMBRANDT's LIFE

Suppose the admiration of our enthusiast for
Rembrandt had been noted in the select suburb
where he lived: suppose his mother was one of
those estimable ladies who hold monthly Dorcas
meetings in their drawing-rooms : suppose that while
the ladies were working at useful garments for
the poor, she persuaded her son to discourse on
Rembrandt: suppose, because the petition came
from his mother that he, very much against his will,
consented.

It was not an easy task, as he took little or no
interest in the life of Rembrandt ; his interests were
entirely with the aesthetic appeal of his work. What,
he asked himself, can one say about the life of a man
when that life was wholly one with his art — mingling
with it, ministering to it at every point. A boy, the
fifth child of a miller living at Leyden, is born into
the world, takes to art as a duck to water, becomes

one of the greatest painters of the world, dies in

31

32 -^ ■ REMBRANDT

obscurity, is forgotten, and long after his death is
placed among his peers. What is there to say about
such a life? He made the attempt.

At the age of fourteen Rembrandt entered at
Leyden University, but showed little inclination for
books. He preferred Lucas van Leyden to Virgil,
and his parents, accepting the situation, allowed him
to study painting under Swanenburch, and later in
the studio of Lastman at Amsterdam. After a few
months with Lastman he returned to Leyden, "to
practise painting alone and in his own way." So
much for his schooling. At the age of twenty-one
he produced a picture called 5"/. Paul in Prison, and
Gerard Dou became his pupil. In 1631 he left
Leyden and settled in Amsterdam. In 1634 he
married Saskia van Uylenborch, who bore him three
children, and Titus was the youngest. Some years
later he had two daughters by his servant, Hendrickje
Stoffels. Perhaps he married her. She was a kind,
good soul, faithful and loyal to her master. His
friends do not seem to have disapproved of this
irregular union, but the Consistory of her church
summoned Hendrickje before them and forbade her
to communicate. At the age of fifty Rembrandt was
declared bankrupt. From that date until his death
troubles encompassed him ; but he was happy so
long as he could paint undisturbed. His son Titus
died when he was sixty-two, and the following year

PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY IN A VELVET HOOD, HER
HANDS FOLDED

1650. The Heniiilage, St. Petersburg.

EPOCHS IN REMBRANDT'S LIFE 33

Rembrandt died, and was buried at a cost of thirteen
florins.

Our enthusiast did not find it easy to manipulate
these facts, and he elected to slur over the Hendrickje
episode ; but he was able to interest the ladies of the
Dorcas meeting by showing them some of Rembrandt's
pictures. He collected a series of photographs of
the portraits and paintings, including his favourite
pictures, such as The Jewish Rabbi in the National
Gallery, Titits and The Parable of the Unmerciful
Servant in the Wallace collection, Rembrandt' s Mother
and The Singing Boy at Vienna ; and he invested six-
pence in a little manual recently published, called The
Masterpieces of Rembrandt, containing sixty excellent
reproductions of his portraits and pictures.

He also displayed photographs of the remarkable
series in the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg :
The Descent from the Cross, with the brilliant light
focussed on the body and winding sheet, and fading
away into the darkness of the background ; that
radiant portrait of Saskia painted just before her
marriage to Rembrandt, known as Flora with a
Flower-trijnmed Crook, standing at the opening of
a grotto, with a wreath of flowers upon her head, and
the light falling upon her face and gay attire ; The
Holy Family, the father working at his daily task in
the background, and the Virgin, who has laid down
her book, drawing aside the curtain from the cot to

34 REMBRANDT

gaze upon the Child. He explained that Rembrandt,
in placing this scene in a humble Dutch cottage, knew
that he could express the Biblical story better that
way than if he had painted an imaginary scene after
the manner of the Italians.

"This great Dutch master" (he quoted from Mr.
Colvin) " succeeded in making as wonderful pictures
out of spiritual abjectness and physical gloom as the
Italians out of spiritual exaltation and shadowless
day."

At this point of his discourse he began to feel more
confidence, and he proceeded to focus his remarks upon
four periods in Rembrandt's life — epochs that lend
themselves to separate treatment, each epoch marked
by the production of a masterpiece, and one remark-
able portrait that has a particular and pathetic interest.
Those four pictures are The Anatomy Lesson, painted
in 1632, when he was twenty -six; the Sortie of a
Company of Amsterdam Musketeers, known as The
Night Watch, painted in 1642, when he was thirty-
six ; The Syndics of the Cloth Hall, painted in 1662,
when he was fifty-six ; and his own portrait, painted
in 1667, two years before his death. "His Anatomy
Lesson',' says M. Michel, " was the glorification of
Science itself; in his Sortie of a Company of
Amsterdam Musketeers he embodied that civic hero-
ism which had lately compassed Dutch independence ;
and in a group of five cloth merchants seated round

FLORA WITH A KLOWER-TRIMMED CROOK
1634. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

EPOCHS IN REMBRANDT'S LIFE 35

a table, discussing the affairs of their guild, he summed
up, as it were, in a few immortal types, the noble
sincerity of Dutch portraiture."

The Anatomy Lesson was the picture that gave
Rembrandt his opportunity, and proclaimed his pre-
eminence among the painters in Amsterdam. It
was the custom in those days for corporations, civic
bodies, and associations of various kinds, to com-
memorate their period of office by commissioning
portrait groups which should hand down their worthy
faces to posterity. The desire of the less prominent
members of the associations thus painted was that
each head should be a likeness, plainly recognisable,
— that one burgher should not be treated with more
importance than another. This desire for present
and posthumous commemoration extended to medical
circles. Portraits and portrait groups of famous
physicians and surgeons were painted and hung in
the theatres where they lectured or operated. Dr.
Tulp, an eminent surgeon of the day, commissioned
Rembrandt to represent him performing an operation,
proposing to present the picture to the Surgeons'
Guild in memory of his professorship. The grave,
realistic picture called The Anatomy Lesson, now
hanging at the Hague Museum, was the result. The
corpse lies upon the dissecting table ; before it stands
Dr. Tulp, wearing a broad-brimmed hat ; around
him are grouped seven elderly students. Some are

36 REMBRANDT

absorbed by the operation, others gaze thoughtfully
at the professor, or at the spectator. Dr. Tulp
indicates with his forceps one of the tendons of the ^ '

subject's left arm, and appears to be addressing the
students, or practitioners, for these seven bearded *

men have long passed the age of studentship. This
picture made Rembrandt's reputation. He was
but twenty-six; the world seemed to be at his
feet ; in the two following years he painted forty
portraits.

It was not easy for our enthusiast to explain to
the ladies of the Dorcas meeting that the dissection
of a body was a suitable subject for the brush of a
painter. The Dutchmen of Rembrandt's day were
not so squeamish as we have become since. They
had a passion for the literal painting of literal things,
and this picture was destined not for a Tate Gallery,
but for the wall of an operating theatre. Dr. Tulp
desired a picture of himself performing an operation,
and Rembrandt gave it to him, painted in a way that
pleased his contemporaries, and that has astonished
the world ever since.

Ten years later Rembrandt painted another Doelen
or Regent picture which, under the erroneous title of
The Night JVatch, is to-day the chief attraction of
the Ryks Museum at Amsterdam. This time it was
not a group of surgeons, but a company of Amsterdam
musketeers marching out under the leadership of their

EPOCHS IN REMBRANDT'S LIFE 37

captain, Frans Banning Cocq. In all these civic or
military Regent pictures, each member subscribed a
sum towards the artist's fee, and consequently each
individual wished to have his money's worth in the
shape of an accurate presentation of his face and
form. It is an old quarrel between artist and public.
Mr. Abbey had to face it in his Coronation picture ;
Mr. Bacon had to face it in his Return of the C.I. V:s ;
perhaps the only folk who solved the problem were
the complaisant gentlemen who designed panoramas
of cricket matches in the last century, where each
member of the company blandly faces the spectator.
Much water had flowed under Burgomaster Six's
bridge since Rembrandt painted The Anatomy
Lesson. Then he was the obedient student. Now
he was an acknowledged master. He painted The
Sortie of the Company of Frans Banning Cocq as
an artist who was profoundly interested in problems
of light and shade, with strong views as to the
composition of a picture, not as a methodical and
mediocre painter desirous of carrying out the com-
mission in a way to please his patrons. They wanted
a presentment of the face and figure of each member
of the company who had subscribed a hundred florins.
Rembrandt gave them a work of art. No doubt
the captain and his lieutenant were well enough
pleased, for they stride forth in the forefront of the
picture, but the rank and file were bitterly hostile.

38 REMBRANDT

From the painting of The Night Watch his popu-
larity began to wane.

The history of this picture, after it had been
hung in the Doelen or assembly hall belonging to
Captain Cocq's company, was as troublous as the
later life of Rembrandt. Years afterwards when,
blackened with smoke and ill-usage, it was removed
from the Doelen to the Hotel de Ville, the authori-
ties, finding that it was too large for the space it was
destined to occupy, deliberately cut a piece away from
each side. This is proved by a copy of the picture
made by Lundens before the mutilation, now in the
National Gallery. When M. Hopman undertook
the restoration of The Night Watch he discovered,
when he had removed the surface of dirt, that the
sortie is taking place by daylight, and that the work
contained something that Rembrandt evidently in-
tended should represent a ray of sunlight. But the
popular name of the picture is still The Night
Watch.

The ladies of the Dorcas Society expressed in eyes
and gestures their disapproval of the Amsterdam
vandals who mutilated The Night Watch. One of
them remarked : " It happened a long time ago.
So gross a barbarity could not be perpetrated now."

Twenty years later, at the age of fifty-six, Rem-
brandt, having known what it was to be homeless
and penniless, painted his masterpiece, The Syndics

EPOCHS IN REMBRANDT'S LIFE 39

of the Cloth Hall, merely five figures grouped round
a table, with a servant, uncovered, in attendance. It
is an extraordinarily real picture, the final statement of
Rembrandt's knowledge of painting, combined with
that rare power of seeing things just as they are — the
hundred subtleties that the untrained eye never sees,
as well as the accents that all see. It is the perfect
painter's vision — a scene grasped as a whole, character
searched out but not insistent, the most delicate
suggestion of equally diffused light knitting the
figures together. He made no attempt to be pictur-
esque as in The Night Watch ; he was content just
to paint five men dressed in black, with flat white
collars and broad-brimmed hats, and a servant. With
these simple materials Rembrandt produced the picture
that the world has agreed to regard as his master-
piece. Contemporary criticism says nothing about it.
The place of honour at the Ryks Museum at Amster-
dam is given to The Night Watch, but it is The
Syndics of the Cloth Hall — a simple presentation of
five grave men seated at a table — that we remember
with wonder and admiration.

Our enthusiast, having dwelt upon these three
masterpieces, marking epochs in Rembrandt's life,
referred again to the magnificent array of portraits
scattered in such regal profusion through the thirty
years that passed between the painting of The
Anatomy Lesson and The Syndics. Then noticing.

40 REMBRANDT

while enlarging upon the etchings, that his mother
was casting anxious glances at the clock, he hurriedly-
referred to the last portrait that Rembrandt painted
of himself, two years before his death. He could
not describe this portrait, which is in a private collec-
tion in Berlin, as he had never seen it, so he quoted
M. Michel's description : " This extraordinary work,
perhaps the last Rembrandt painted, is modelled
with prodigious vigour and freedom. With superb
audacity, the master shows us once more the familiar
features, on which age and sorrow have worked their
will. They are distorted, disfigured, almost un-
recognisable. But the free spirit is still unbroken.
The eyes that meet ours are still keen and piercing ;
they have even the old twinkle of good-humoured
irony, and the toothless mouth relaxes in frank
laughter. What was the secret of this gaiety? In
spite of his poverty, he had still a corner in which to
paint. Beside him stand an easel and an antique
bust, perhaps a relic of his former wealth. He holds
his maul-stick in his hand, and pauses for a moment
in his work. He is happy because he can give him-
self up to his art."

It was the last of half a hundred portraits of him-
self, painted and etched without vanity ; painted
because a man's self is such an accommodating model,
always ready and willing ; painted because Rembrandt
loved to experiment with himself before a mirror,

THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS

1634. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

EPOCHS IN REMBRANDT'S LIFE 41

grimacing, angry, stern, "as an officer," "with a
casque," "with a gorget," or, as we see him in the
National Gallery, on one wall with the bloom of
youth and health upon his face, on the other, dulled,
stained, and marked by the finger of time. This we
can say : that he was always true to himself.

CHAPTER V

THE GREAT TRIUMVIRATE

It is generally acknowledged that the greatest

masters of painting that the world has known are

Titian, Velasquez, and Rembrandt, and to each of

the triumvirate we apply the word genius. Among

the many definitions of that abused word is one

which states that genius consists not in seeing more

than other people, but in seeing differently. We

acknowledge genius in a painter when, over and

above masterly technical power, he presents to us a

view of life or of nature which we may never have

seen, but which we are convinced is the vision of

deeper eyes than our own, and is true. The seer has

seen it, and it is only because of the dimness or

narrowness or worldliness of our outlook that we do

not perceive it also.

A great painter writes us a letter, tells us of the

things he has seen or heard or felt, gives us news

of the world wherein he lives. He expresses his

personality to us, and personality in art is a thing

42

THE GREAT TRIUMVIRATE 43

incalculable. Corot's Arcadia landscape delights us
because it is the distilled essence of the vision, heart,
and character of the personality called Corot. Person-
ality may be expressed by a Rembrandt, abundantly.
It may also be expressed by a Velasquez, negatively.

We must be vigilant, in judging a painter, to
distinguish between his own personality and the
personality of those who interpret him to us. The
more we give of ourselves to a painter or an author,
the greater is the return of his appeal and interest.
Cleave the wood of your brain and you find him
brimming with communications, raise the stone of
your imagination and he is revealed.

A certain critic, who had devoted his life to the
study of Reynolds, while lecturing upon the achieve-
ment of that master, threw upon the screen a certain
large subject-picture, not one of Reynold's happiest
efforts, but a laboured and unattractive design which,
we know, gave Reynolds an infinity of trouble.

So scientific, so interesting was this critic's analysis
of the picture, so absorbing the attributes he read
into it, that many of his audience were persuaded
that they were looking upon a Reynolds masterpiece,
whereas they were but hypnotised by the subtleties
of the critic's mind working upon Reynolds.

Conversely the criticism of some writers tends
towards depreciation because of their predilection for
objective as opposed to subjective criticism. The

44 REMBRANDT

late p. G. Hamerton, writing upon Rembrandt, says,
" The chiaroscuro of Rembrandt is often false and
inconsistent, and in fact he relied largely on public
ignorance. But though ajrbitrary, it is always con-
ducive to his purpose."

" Conducive to his purpose ! " There is much
virtue in those four words, Rembrandt probably
knew as well as anybody that his lighting of a picture
was not a facsimile of the lighting of nature, or rather
not the chiaroscuro as seen by the average eye ; but
he had an aim, a vision before him, and he did not
hesitate to interpret that vision in his own way.
Who dares to say that Rembrandt was disloyal to
nature? Our concern is not what we should have
done, but what Rembrandt did, seeing with his own
eyes. And the questions we should ask ourselves
are : — Is the interpretation of the world as seen
through his eyes beautiful, suggestive, profound, and
stimulating? Does the statement of his personality
in paint add to our knowledge, educate our aesthetic
perceptions, and extend our horizon by showing us
things that our imperfect vision does not see except
through him ?

Comparisons are not only odious, but foolish.
No sensible critic attempts a comparison between
Titian, Velasquez, and Rembrandt. He accepts
them as they are, and is grateful. But even the
most obscure of mortals may have his preferences,

A YOUNG WOMAN IN A RED CHAIR HOLDING A PINK IN
HER RIGHT HAND

1656. The Hermitage, ^t. Petersburg.

THE GREAT TRIUMVIRATE 45

and a curious chapter in the lives of individuals who
have concerned themselves with painting would be
the bewildering way in which the pendulum of their
appreciation and admiration has swung backwards
and forwards from Titian to Velasquez, from Velas-
quez to Rembrandt, and sometimes back to Titian.
It is often a question of mood.

There are moods when the regal abundance, the
consummate craftsmanship of Titian, the glow and
splendour of his canvases, the range of them from The
Man with the Glove in the Louvre to the Bacchus and
Ariadne, force us to place him on the summit of
Parnassus. We are dazzled by this prince of painters,
dominating Venice at the height of her prosperity,
inspired by her, having around him, day by day, the
glorious pictures that the genius of Venice had
produced. We follow his triumphant career, see
him courted and feted, recognise his detachment
from the sorrow and suffering of the unfortunate
and unclassed, and amid the splendour of his
career note his avidity for the loaves and fishes of
the world. Unlike Rembrandt, fortune favoured
Titian to the end. His career was a triumphal pro-
gress. We stand in that small room at the Prado
Museum at Madrid and gaze upon his canvases,
sumptuous and opulent, diffusing colour like a sun-
set, indifferent to their story or meaning, happy and
content with the flaming feast outspread for our

46 REMBRANDT

enjoyment. We stand before his Entombment at the
Louvre, dumb before its superlative painting, with
hardly a thought for the tragedy that it represents.
Titian accepts the literary motive, and the artist in
him straight forgets it. We walk from The Entomb-
ment to the little chamber where Rembrandt's Christ
at Emmaus hangs, and the heart of Rembrandt is
beating there. To Titian the glory of the world, to
Rembrandt all that man has felt and suffered, part-
ing and sorrow, and the awakening of joy. We do
not compare the one painter with the other ; we say :
" This is Titian, that is Rembrandt ; each gives us his
emotion." Foolish indeed it seems in the face of these
two pictures, and a thousand others, to say that art
should be this or that, — that a picture should or
should not have a literary or a philosophical motive.
Painters give us themselves. We amuse ourselves
by placing them in schools, by analysing their achieve-
ment, by scientific explanations of what they did just
by instinct, as lambs gambol — and behind all stands
the Sphinx called Personality.

There are moods when the appeal of Velasquez is
irresistible. Grave and reticent, a craftsman miracu-
lously equipped, detached, but not with the Jovian
detachment of Titian, this Spanish gentleman stalks
silently across the art stage. Hundreds of drawings
of Rembrandt's exhibit evidence of the infinite extent
of his experiments after perfection. The drawings of

THE GREAT TRIUMVIRATE 47

Velasquez can be counted on the fingers of one
hand. He drew in paint upon the canvas. From his
portraits and pictures we gather not the faintest idea
of what he felt, what he thought, what he believed.
One thing we know absolutely — that he saw as keenly
and as searchingly as any painter who has ever lived.
What he saw before him he could paint, and in the
doing of it he was unrivalled. His hand followed
and obeyed his eye. When the object was not before
him, he falls short of his superlative standard. The
figures of Philip IV., of Olivares, and of Prince
Baltazar Carlos in the three great equestrian portraits
are as finely drawn as man could make them. Velas-
quez saw them ; he did not see the prancing horses
which they ride, consequently our eyes dropping from
the consummate figures are disappointed at the con-
ventional attitudes of the steeds. Velasquez, like
Titian, moved from success to success ; both were
friends of kings, both basked in royal favour, neither
had the disadvantage, or perhaps the great advan-
tage, like Rembrandt, of the education of adversity.
Velasquez made two journeys into Italy ; he knew
what men had accomplished in painting, and if he
was not largely influenced by Titian and Tintoretto,
their work showed him what man had done, what
man could do, and indicated to him his own dormant
powers.

Rembrandt was sufficient unto himself. There

48 REMBRANDT

are moods when one is sure that he stands at the head
of the painting hierarchy. In spite of his greatness,
we feel that he is very near to our comprehension.
What a picture of the old painter towards the end of
his life that saying of Baldinucci presents. We are
told that near the close of his career, absorbed in his
art, indifferent to the world, " when he was painting
at his easel he had come to wipe his brushes on the
hinder portions of his dress."

Rembrandt looms out like some amorphous
boulder, stationary, lichen-stained, gathering time
unto itself. He travelled so little that it can be said
he was untravelled. The works of other painters
affected him not at all. We are without proof that
he was even interested in the work of his contem-
poraries or predecessors. Life was his passion. One
model was as good as another. He looked at life,
and life fired his imaginations. He painted himself
fifty times ; he painted his friends, his relations, and
the people he met while prowling about the streets.
His pencil was never idle. Imagination, which con-
fuses the judgment of so many, aided him, for his
imagination was not nourished by vanity, or the
desire to produce an effect, but flowed from the
greatness of his brooding heart. He stood alone
during his life, an absorbed man, uninfluenced by any
school ; he stands alone to-day. The world about
him, and his thoughts and reflections, were his only

THE GREAT TRIUMVIRATE 49

influences. He read few books, and the chief among
them was the Bible. Mr. Berenson has written
an exhaustive and learned work on Lorenzo Lotto,
analysing his pictures year by year, and exhuming
the various painters who influenced Lotto at the
different periods of his life. Mr. Berenson's book ex-
tends to nearly three hundred pages. The influences
of the painting fraternity upon Rembrandt would not
provide material for the first paragraph of the first
page of such a book.

His fame is assured. He is one of the great
triumvirate. " He was greater, perhaps," says Mr.
Clausen, "than any other painter in human feeling
and sympathy, in dramatic sense and invention ; and
his imagination seemed inexhaustible."

The Ryks Museum at Amsterdam may be said to
have been designed as a shrine for his Night IVatcJi.
Near by it hangs The Syndics of the Cloth Company,
excelled, in this particular class of work, by no picture
in the world ; but it is by the portraits and the
etchings that the sweep, profundity, and versatility
of Rembrandt's genius is exemplified. Truly his
imagination was inexhaustible.

It is an education to stand before his portraits in
the National Gallery. Observe the Old Lady, aged 83,
the massive painting of her face, and the outline of her
figure set so firmly against the background. Here is
Realism, frank and straightforward, almost defiant in

«■■.*:

SO REMBRANDT

its Strength. Turn to the portrait of A JewisJi Rabbi.
Here is Idealism. You peer and peer, and from the
brown background emerges a brown garment, relieved
by the black cap, and the black cloak that falls over
his left shoulder. Luminous black and luminous
brown ! Brown is the side of the face in shadow, ^

brown is the brow in shadow. All is tributary to the -f

glory of the golden brown on the lighted portion of
the face. The portrait composes into a perfect whole.
The dim blacks and browns lead up to the golden
brown illuminating the old weary head, that wonder-
ful golden brown — the secret of Rembrandt. This
old Jew lives through the magic art of Rembrandt.
He crouches in the frame, wistful and waiting, the
eternal type, eternally dreaming the Jews' dream
that is still a dream.

THE END

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh,

"to--

The Retnbrandt Tercentenary

t

AMERICAN SECTION

Copyright, 1906, by John Lane Company

THE REMBRANDT TERCENTE-
NARY
On the fifteenth of this month it will
he, on the authority of the good old
burgomaster Orlers, three hundred years since
" " 'as hf His nativ country will

He I. I'as^Vn. In iSq.';, it
ioi ff Queen Wilhel-
'J-en of attachment to
ijcfeii found than the in-
., (/urate an exhibition of the
to-day, with the purpose of
dignity to the rejoicings that are
to take oiacf I^Ay 15, Leyden, the artist's native
city, and ' .n^tcrdajTi, where he spent the greater
part of his life, extend an invitation not only to all
the master's comj)atriots, but to the host of his ad-
mirers throughout the civilised world.

Rembrandt was a true son of his land and age.
His most important works still remain at the Hague
and at Amsterdam. But none of the richly and
variously endowed representatives of the Dutch
School was his equal in the universality of gifts, the
poetry, the novelty and the nobility of his aspira-
tions. Names such as Frans Hals,Terborch,Metsu,
Steen, Vermeer, Cuyp, -Adriaen van de Velde, Paul
Potter, van Goyen, Ruisdael, and many others,
would no doubt suffice to shed lustre on the school.
Yet without Rembrandt it would admittedly be
shorn of its greatest glory. But with him as its
head; with etchings such as the Hundred Guilder
Piece, the Christ Preaching, the FausI; with por-
traits such as the Shipbuilder and H is Wije, The
Preacher Anslo, Elizabeth Bas, Titus, a Young
Rabbi, the Burgomaster Six, and the Lady with a
Fan, the Saskia at Cassel, and the Hendrickjc in
the Lou\Te; with the Danae and the Bathsheba, and
many portraits of himself, painted or engraved,
which he has left us; with his epi.sodes from the
Scriptures, such as the Tobias, Christ and the
Magdalene, The Presentation in the Temple, The
Workers in the Vineyard, the Supper at Emmaus;
with large canvases such as the Anatomy Lesson
and the Night Watch, the Syndics and many other
masterpieces that might swell this list, the Dutch
School may challenge comparison with any other,
and claim its place in the very first rank.

Rembrandt's career is one of those strange mix-
tures of high achievement and troubled existence
which lie at the beginning of some undying names.
His celebrated painting The Night Watch, which

we reproduce in [jhotogravure in this issue, marks,
perhaps, the turning point in his personal fortunes.
His student days had been spent under the guid-
ance of well-regarded artists and had given the
high promise he fulfilled. But his ideas were more
original than his masters and he .soon set up his
own studio "to study," as Orlers says, "and prac-
tise painting alone in his t wn way." His first cor-
poration picture. Lesson in Anatomy, was painted
when he was twenty -ix. Coming of a well-to-do
family himself, he married, in 1634, a lady of
means, who at her death, eight years later, left him
a comfortable estate in trust. Yet The Nighl Watch
as the sortie of the Company of Banning Cocq has
long been called, completed in 1642, failed to satisfy
the subscribers, less easily pleased than posterity,
and Rembrandt's material success began to wane.
By 1653 he was borrowing right and left, and
though loyal friends did not fail him, financial and
domestic troubles thickened round him till his death
in i66g.

Besides his work as a painter — and in jiainting
he is held equally great in conception and execu-
tion, excelling in every branch to which he laid
his hand — Rembrandt is, of course, preeminent in
etching, an art which he raised from comparative
insignificance to a height that has not since been
surpassed. His delight in the printed plate readily
suggests the thought that the various rej)roductive
processes that give the artist to-day so greatly
multiplied an audience would have interested him
profoundly. Such a probability makes all the more
appropriate the memorial, described in more de-
tail elsewhere in this magazine, which five publish-
ing houses in five countries have combined to issue
— Rembrandt: A Memorial, a quarto volume with
seventy plates in colour and photogravure, of
which the plate facing this page is a representa-
tive example. The reproductive process used is
that which, known as the "Rembrandt process,"
has been perfected for the very jjurpose of render-
ing this master's technique.

The colour plates, being reproductions of Rem-
brandt's drawings, studies and etchings, have been
made in Paris. Among these are reproductions of
red chalk drawings, such as the study of an old
man and the study for The Philosopher, both from
the Louvre, red and black chalk work from the
Holford collection, pen and bistre work as The Re-
turn oj the Prodigal, from the Teyler Museum, etc.,
etc. Emile Michel who contributes an introduction
and commentary is, with Dr. Bode, whose monu-
mental work is accessible only to the wealthy
minority, the accredited historian of Rembrandt.

m

American Water Colour Society

T

HE THIRTY-NINTH EXHIBITION
OF THE AMERICAN WATER
COLOUR SOCIETY

The limits within which painters iu
water r':iloiu-s should confine themselves make a
prcbler .i no little interest. We fii.d the artists
being told not to obtrude- the mere chai-acteristi( '
of their medium and, on the other hand, not to
their medium to lack its own unmistakabh
ture. But whatever a pa'...ter m water colours
shoi;id not do technically, it is at least plain, if the
recent exhibition of the American Water Colour
Society in the American Fine Arts Galleries, New
York, may be taken as criterion, that he is, in point
of subject, doing everything. At an exhibition of
oils one observes at present certain grooves in
which the stage is set. There is precious little
story-telling, for instance, next to no "still life" or
genre, and the heroic, historical and allegorical
only where the work is designed for an architec-
tural use. But in viewing a collection of water
colours one notes that all interests find expression
on the walls — unless the study of the nude be the
exception. Little domestic comedies of the broom
and dust pan, dramatic moments from the times
of Captain Miles Standish, veiled ladies of the
Orient, prim industrious housewives in Dutch
or Swedish interiors, wedding parties on Colonial
doorsteps, hussars over their afternoon wine,
little boys solemnly fishing, and fish of rare colour
leaping into the sunlight — ^pots and pans and fruit,
all find their places among subjects more responsive
to the current modes. How far this condition may
he due to the state of the market, for water colours
have not an identical outlet with oils, and how
far it may point to the influence of the illustration
of fiction, for which the medium has certain
advantages, might be difficult to determine. It
certainly introduces an element in the total effect
that gives the water colour show in itself a char-
acter apart, a dissimilarity not based upon mere
technical differences.

In the matter of illustration at this recent exhi-
bition two of the rooms were devoted to the work
of the goodlv companv of painters who have
brought our magazines and current books into an
artistic rank that at least equals their literary
standing. This collection of "originals" offered
an interesting suggestion, that might well repay
study, of the effect of our bookmaking upon our art.
The splendour and beauty of the old illuminations
had an essentially tj'pographical inspiration, the
conscience of the copyist, the passing of which

is frequently lamented by the bibliophile. With
the opening of books to the freer play of boxwootl,
to the rapid bite of the mordant, and finally by
the camera to the many facilities of the easel
itself, publication has shared with building in
subsidising art. The ''apanese colour print was
hardly more po.. -o.-ila'- 'vel and

)e"iodicaI. .\nd i.,^^* '' ^'^

^tra.i n m'S' >' !ie ^ce

(.. le incrc ' >f

this branch of \ f

the illustrati s

are at least

A rtxiex uei es

for mural purpose tive"

is often affixed, mi^ 'S, in

such work as Charle limal

studies. But we can <_ mention

the rich colour and spirited u»... ui _ in Abbey's
Shakesperean scenes, the specimens of engraving
l3_\- Henry Wolf, still standing, with a meagre
company, in the mastery of a direct reproductive
process, and pass on — not without a word for the
etchers, noting here particularly the metropohtau
records of Joseph Pennell, the valuable and de-
lightful studies of New York streets and river
fronts by C. F. W. Mielatz and C. H. White and
the satirical notes on social foibles by John Sloan.

Leonard Ochtman's large study of the delicate
tones of a snowclad landscape -l); A/lcr>ioon in
Winter; Horatio \\'alker's more deliberate record
of incidental detail The First Siiou;- another of
Paul King's scenes from the native labour of the
French coast, High Tide; F. S. Church's dainty
and jocund humour in The Tourist; S. R. Bur-
leigh's composition of full colour and vigorous
masses In the Irish Highlands, were character-
istic works from among those artists who were
represented by few entries. Interesting effects in
manipulation of sheer colour were frequent.
Edward H. Potthast in The Lone Fisherman and
.4 Fresh Breeze, studies of the poise of dory and
sloop, was mainly intent on the brilliant effects of
sunlight and sea. W. J. \Miittemore made a strik-
ing essay in sensuous display of clear colours in
his painting of a head, Im Walde. Thick, solid
colour, boldly swept on, marked the water's edge
scenes and renderings of storm by Alexander
Robinson. Henry B. Snell and Charles E. Dana
chose to render difficult asjjects of intense sunlight,
the first in Passing Sails finding his task at the
rocky beach, the second in the knife-edge altitudes
of the Matterhorn. Florence Este's entries showed
growing command and delicacy.

WHISTLER AS I KNEW HIM

BY MORTIMER MENPES

SQUARE IMPERIAL 8vO (ll X 8J INCHES), BOUND IN CLOTH, WITH TOP EDGE GILT, CONTAINING

125 FULL-PAGE FACSIMILE REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR AND TINT OF WHISTLER'S OIL-COLOURS,

WATER-COLOURS, PASTELS, AND ETCHINGS. (tHE EDITION DE LUXE CONTAINS AN ORIGINAL

WHISTLER ETCHING NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED.)

ORDINARY EDITION, 408. NET. EDITION DE LUXE (limited to 500 Copies), S GUINEAS NET

SOME PRESS OPINIONS

Haldane Macfall in The Academy. — "No one who
loves the .%t of Whistler should be without this handsoine
book ; it contains works of Art of exquisite beauty ; it contains
a delightful picture of the outward Whistler that the man
himself wished to be mistaken for the real thing — half butterfly,
half wasp, wholly laughing enigma."

The Observer. — "A singularly illuminating and intimate
monograph,"

The Week's Survey, — " Mr. Menpes gives us an extra-
ordinarily vivid account of the technical methods which
Whistler employed. This in itself must make his book a
text-book for all time."

The Magazine of Art. — " It is all wonderfully true to life,
obviously sincere and convincing, and vastly entertaining."

The Bystander. — " One of the most delightful biographical
sketches which has appeared for a long time."

To-day. — "A deeply interesting and an extremely

entertaining volume."

The Daily News. — "A quite miraculous study that, like
Shallow, ought to provide the world with laughter for the
wearing out of six fashions. And after that the pictures will
still remain a permanent joy."

A. M. B. in The King. — "By far the most valuable and
interesting book on Whistler which has been written, or, indeed,
is ever likely to be written."

T. P.'s Weekly.— ".\n honest and dear study of the
great artist."

A. C. R. C. in The Outlook.— "It bears the impress of
actuality, and is probably the truest chain of living pictures of
Whistler's personality that any ' follower' could have made."

Dundee Advertiser —" Told in a most fascinating
manner.

The World. — "An extremely interesting and valuable

historical document."

Truth. — " .At once a superb and an amazing book — superb
in the number and excellence of its reproductions of Whistler's
work, amazing in its characteristic anecdotes of the Master."

The Connoisseur. — " The illustrations form an invaluable
record of Whistlers art, and the>- in themselves make Mr.
Menpes's book a desirable possession."

The Studio. — ' ' Full of deeply interesting data respecting
Whistler's methods, of real revelation of his remarkable
personality, and of pathetic instances of the devotion of his
followers."

The Globe. — ' ' Eminently amusing and very instructive to
boot."

Aberdeen Free Press. — "As literature it is vastly enter-
taining ; as art it is an extraordinarily brilliant and abundant
collection representative of the work of a remarkable man, in
himself a ' school,' "

The N on- Illustrated Edition

WHISTLER AS I KNEW HIM

By MORTIMER MENPES

SQUARE DEMY 8vo BOUND IN CLOTH

/6

PRICE 2/0 "^^^

PUBLISHED BY ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK ■ SOHO SQUARE ■ LONDON • W.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

EACH WITH FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

PRICE 20Sa NET

VENICE

Publishers' Note. — This book treats of Venice not only at one
time of the day, but at all times. There is Venice at night ; Venice
in sunshine ; Venice in grey : it is a colour record of Venice, full of
actuality. There are all sides of Venice — old doorways ; the Riva ;
the Rialto ; St. Mark's before and after the fall of the Campanile ; the
Doge's Palace ; the Salute at dawn and the Salute at sunset ; Market
Places ; Fishing Villages, with their vividly-coloured Fishing Boats —
rich orange sails splashed with yellows and vermilions ; the Piazza ;
Churches ; and the Islands of the Lagoon.

THE DURBAR

Morning Post. — ' ' This splendid book will be accepted by all as
the best realisation of an epoch-making ceremony that we are ever
likely to get."

The Academy.— " Unquestionably the best pictorial representa-
tion of the Durbar which has appeared."

The Globe. — "Likely to be the most brilliant and lasting record
of the historical occasion."

WORLD'S Children

The Times.— " Of the cleverness, both of the pictures and letter-
press, there can be no doubt. Miss Menpes's short papers on the
children of different lands are full of insight, human and fresh experi-
ence ; and Mr. Menpes's loo pictures ... are above all remarkable
for their extraordinary variety of treatment, both in colour scheme
and in the pose and surroundings of the subject."

World Piciures

The Scotsman. — " Mr. Menpes has been a wanderer over the face
of the earth armed with brush and pencil, and he has brought back with
him portfolios filled with samples of the colour and sunshine, and of the
life and form, quaint or beautiful, of the most famous countries of the
East and of the West, and his charming book is a kind of album into
which he has gathered the cream of an artist's memories and impres-
sions of the many countries he has visited and sketched in."

JAPAN

The Times. — " Mr. Menpes's pictures are here given in most
perfect facsimile, and they form altogether a series of colour impres-
sions of Japan which may fairly be called unrivalled. Even without
the narrative they would show that Mr. Menpes is an enthusiast for
Japan, her art and her people ; and very few European artists have
succeeded in giving such complete expression to an admiration in
which all share."

War Impressions

Daily Telegraph. — "One hardly knows which to admire the
more— the skill of the artist or the skill with which his studies have
been reproduced, for the colours of the originals are shown with mar-
vellous fidelity, and the delicate art of the impressionist loses nothing
in the process. The book, therefore, is a double triumph, and will
therefore be prized by collectors."

BRiriANY

Publishers' Note. — Mr. Menpes is perhaps exceptionally capable
of producing a true and vivid description of Brittany. He has lived
and painted there for many years. Every aspect of the country has
been faithfully depicted by him ; every mood of Breton life, every trait
of character. 'Whether it is a pig-market that is portrayed, or a digni-
fied Breton surrounded by his household gods of oak and blue china
in the atmosphere of his own home — whether it is a fleet of fishing
boats hung with cobalt-blue nets, or group of mediseval houses in some
ancient town — each and every picture bears the impress of actuality.

published by

A.

&

c.

BLACK

SOHO

SdUARE

• LONDON

w.

AND

OBTAINABLE FROM ALL BOOKSELLERS AT

HOME OR ABROAD

»

#1

k.

^v%t

V I

D 000 189 027

i

■a