poetry is lost, for
it would be impossible to imitate it without a direct plagiarism. It
may, however, have given a turn to his thoughts, in representing many of
his subjects under the influence of night in place of day, such as his
"Taking down from the Cross," by torch light; his "Flight into Egypt,"
with the lantern; the "Burial of Christ," &c. While other men were
painting daylight, he turned the day into night, which is one of the
paths that sublimity travels through. The general idea most people have
of Rembrandt is, that he is one of the dark masters: but his shadows
are not black, they are filled with transparency. The backgrounds to his
portraits are less dark than many of either Titian or Tintoret. His
landscapes are not black, they are the soft emanations of twilight; and
when he leads you through the shadows of night, you see the path, even
in the deepest obscurity. As colour forms a constituent part of
chiaro-scuro, I must, in this division, confine myself more particularly
to black and white, both in giving examples from his etchings, and
explaining the various changes he made upon them in order to heighten
the effect. The etching I have here given is the "Nativity," in the
darkest state; in the British Museum there are no less than seven
varieties, and the first state is the lightest. But in order to render
his mode of proceeding more intelligible, I shall explain the progress
of his working. His first etchings are often bit in with the aquafortis,
when the shadows have but few ways crossed with the etching point: these
are often strongly bit in, that, when covered over with finer lines, the
first may shine through, and give transparency. In the next process he
seems to have taken off the etching ground, and laid over the plate a
transparent ground, (that is to say, one not darkened by the smoke of a
candle;) upon this he worked up his effect by a multiplicity of fresh
lines, often altering his forms, and adding new objects, as the idea
seemed to rise in his mind. After which, when the plate was again
subjected to the operation of the acid, the etching ground was removed,
and the whole worked up with the greatest delicacy and softness by means
of the dry needle, to the scratches of which the aquafortis is never
applied. This process it is that gives what is termed the _burr_, and
renders the etchings of Rembrandt different from all others. Now this
_burr_ is produced, not by the ink going into the lines, b