o indignity in
painting Dutch sots as well as Dutch sots could be painted; De Hooch
introduced miracles of sunlight into Dutch cottages; Maes painted
old Dutch housewives, and Metsu young Dutch housewives, to the life;
Vermeer and Terburg immortalised Dutch ladies at their spinets; Albert
Cuyp toiled to suffuse Dutch meadows and Dutch cows with a golden
glow; Jan Steen glorified the humblest Dutch family scenes; Gerard
Dou spent whole weeks upon the fingers of a common Dutch hand. In
short, art that so long had been at the service only of the Church
and the proud, became suddenly, without losing any of its divinity,
a fireside friend. That is what Holland did for painting.

It would have been a great enjoyment to me to have made this chapter a
companion to the Ryks Museum: to have said a few words about all the
pictures which I like best. But had I done so the rest of the book
would have had to go, for all my space would have been exhausted. And
therefore, as I cannot say all I want to say, I propose to say very
little, keeping only to the most importunate pictures. Here and there
in this book, particularly in the chapters on Dordrecht, Haarlem,
and Leyden's painters, I have already touched on many of them.

The particular shining glory of the Ryks Museum is Rembrandt's
"Night Watch," and it is well, I think, to make for that picture
at once. The direct approach is down the Gallery of Honour, where
one has this wonderful canvas before one all the way, as near life
as perhaps any picture ever painted. It is possible at first to be
disappointed: expectation perhaps had been running too high; the
figure of the lieutenant (in the yellow jerkin) may strike one as
a little mean. But do not let this distress you. Settle down on one
of the seats and take Rembrandt easily, "as the leaf upon the tree";
settle down on another, and from the new point of view take him easily,
"as the grass upon the weir". Look at Van der Helst's fine company of
arquebusiers on one of the side walls; look at Franz Hals' company of
arquebusiers on the other; then look at Rembrandt again. Every minute
his astounding power is winning upon you. Walk again up the Gallery
of Honour and turning quickly at the end, see how much light there is
in the "Night Watch". Advance upon it slowly.... This is certainly
the finest technical triumph of pigment that you have seen. What a
glow and greatness.

After a while it becomes evident that Rembrandt was the only