apes, as we often perceive in a
first sketch of a work, where the eye of the spectator chooses, out of
the multiplicity of outlines, those forms most agreeable to his taste.
The next step to improvement, and giving the work a more natural
appearance, is the influence of shadow, so as to make the outlines of
the prominent more distinct, and those in the background less harsh
and cutting, and consequently more retiring. The application of shadow,
however, not only renders works of art more natural, by giving the
appearance of advancing and retiring to objects represented upon a flat
surface--thus keeping them in their several situations, according to the
laws of aerial perspective--but enables the artist to draw attention to
the principal points of the story, and likewise to preserve the whole in
agreeable form, by losing and pronouncing individual parts. Coreggio was
the first who carried out this principle to any great extent; but it was
reserved for Rembrandt, by his boldness and genius, to put a limit to
its further application. Breadth, the constituent character of this mode
of treatment, cannot be extended; indeed, it is said that Rembrandt
himself extended it too far; for, absorbing seven-eighths in obscurity
and softness, though it renders the remaining portion more brilliant,
yet costs too much. This principle, however, contains the greatest
poetry of the art, in contradistinction to the severe outline and harsh
colouring of the great historical style.

COMPOSITION.

To arrive at a true knowledge of the inventions and compositions of
Rembrandt, it is necessary, in the first instance, to examine those
of Albert Durer, the Leonardo da Vinci of Germany. The inventions of
this extraordinary man are replete with the finest feelings of art,
notwithstanding the Gothic dryness and fantastic forms of his figures.
The folds of his draperies are more like creased pieces of paper than
cloth, and his representation of the naked is either bloated and
coarse, or dry and meagre. His backgrounds have all the extravagant
characteristics of a German romance, and are totally destitute of aerial
perspective; yet, with the exception of the character of the people and
scenery of Nuremburg, he is not more extravagant in his forms than the
founder of the Florentine school, and had he been educated in Italy, he
in all probability would have rivalled Raffaelle in the purity of his
design. In his journal, which he kept when he trav