ves untold the detail
of the story for the imagination of the audience to supply. He was not
ready to sacrifice everything else to that light and atmosphere of which
he made his own world in his later years. Characteristic of his most
winning use of this light that he created for his own purposes is the
portrait of Nicholas Bruyningh, Secretary of one of the divisions of the
Courts of Justice at Amsterdam: one of the most salient and brilliant of
the Rembrandts in the Cassel Gallery. This portrait belongs to the year
1652 when the artist was about forty-five years old, and it is a superb
example of matured genius. The subject offered an opportunity for daring
handling and pictorial arrangement upon which Rembrandt seized with a
full understanding of its possibilities. The beautiful gay face with its
suggestion of irresponsibility glows from a mist of atmosphere that
veils all minor detail, leaving in strong relief the mass of curling
hair, the smiling dark eyes, the smiling mouth unconcealed by the slight
moustache, the firmly modeled nose and pliant chin, with the tasseled
collar below catching the point of highest light. It is the poetry of
good humor, of physical beauty, of content with life and life's
adventures. It also marks what Herr Knackfuss calls Rembrandt's "softer
manner" in which all sharp outlines of objects are effaced, and the
lights gleam from a general darkness. More than "The Sentinel," which
sometimes is given as the starting point for this departure in style, it
has the appearance of a dramatic emergence from shadow. From having been
a painstaking craftsman Rembrandt at this time had become a dramatist
selecting from his material those elements best adapted to sway the
emotions. He has lost himself--or found himself--in the expression of
character; not merely character as one element in a picture's interest,
but character as _the_ element. In this picture of Nicholas Bruyningh we
cannot escape from the merry careless temperament. We cannot as in the
early portrait of Saskia linger in dalliance over charming accessories
and beautifully discriminated textures until we reach by moderate
degrees the eloquence of the profoundly studied face. Bruyningh's face
is like the "_tirade_" of a French play--it is rendered at white heat
and in one inconceivably long breath. Its significance is so intensified
as to produce a profound feeling in a sympathetic spectator.

[Illustration: Courtesy of Berlin Photographic