ndt never allowed his
fancy to carry him beyond the limits of fitness in sacred art. The
Venetian masters had represented the most solemn scenes of the New
Testament with a pomp and magnificence entirely at variance with their
meaning. Rembrandt understood better the real significance of
Christianity, and made no such mistake. His Supper at Emmaus is the
simple evening meal of three peasant pilgrims precisely as it is
represented in the Gospel. His Christ Preaching includes a motley
company of humble folk, such as the great Teacher loved to gather
about him.

It was perhaps the obverse side of his fondness for finery, that Rembrandt
had a strong leaning towards the picturesqueness of rags. A very
interesting class of his etchings is devoted to genre studies and beggars.
Here his disregard of the beautiful in the passion for expression reached
an extreme. His subjects are often grotesque--sometimes repulsive--but
always intensely human. Reading human character with rare sympathy, he was
profoundly touched by the poetry and the pathos of these miserable lives.
Through all these studies runs a quaint vein of humor, relieving the
pathos of the situations. The picturesque costume of the old Rat Killer
tickles the sense of humor, and conveys somehow a delightful suggestion of
his humbuggery which offsets the touching squalor of the grotesque little
apprentice. And none but a humorist could have created the swaggering
hostler's boy holding the Good Samaritan's horse.

As a revealer of character, Rembrandt reaches the climax of his power
in his portraits. From this class of his pictures alone one can
repeople Holland with the spirits of the seventeenth century. All
classes and conditions and all ages came within the range of his magic
brush and burin. The fresh girlhood of Saskia, the sturdy manhood of
the Syndics, and the storied old age of his favorite old woman model
show the scope of his power, and in Israel Blessing the Sons of Joseph
he shows the whole range in a single composition. He is manifestly at
his best when his sitter has pronounced features and wrinkled skin, a
face full of character, which he understood so well how to depict.
Obstacles stimulated him to his highest endeavor. Given the prosaic
and hackneyed motif of the Syndics' composition, he rose to the
highest point of artistic expression in a portrait group, in which a
grand simplicity of technical style is united with a profound and
intimate knowledge of