es appear to be laboring men, accustomed to "plain living and
high thinking." They are coarsely dressed, and their feet are bare, as
are also the feet of Jesus. One seems to have grasped the situation
more quickly than the other, for he folds his hands together,
reverently gazing directly into the face of Jesus. His companion,
an older man, at the other end of the table, looks up astonished and
mystified. The boy who is bringing food to the table is busy with his
task, and does not notice any change in Jesus.

[Illustration: CHRIST AT EMMAUS
_The Louvre, Paris_]

In the midst is Christ, "pale, emaciated, sitting facing us, breaking
the bread as on the evening of the Last Supper, in his pilgrim robe,
with his blackened lips, on which the torture has left its traces, his
great brown eyes soft, widely opened, and raised towards heaven, with
his cold nimbus, a sort of phosphorescence around him which envelops
him in an indefinable glory, and that inexplicable look of a breathing
human being who certainly has passed through death."

This description is by a celebrated French critic,[10] himself a
painter, who knows whereof he speaks. He says that this picture alone
is enough to establish the reputation of a man.

[Footnote 10: Fromentin, in _Old Masters of Belgium and Holland._]

There is one artistic quality in the picture to which we must pay
careful attention, as it is particularly characteristic of Rembrandt.
This is the way in which the light and shadow are arranged, or what a
critic would call the chiaroscuro of the picture. The heart of the
composition glows with a golden light which comes from some unseen
source. It falls on the white tablecloth with a dazzling brilliancy as
if from some bright lamp. It gleams on the faces of the company,
bringing out their expressions clearly. The arched recess behind the
table is thrown into heavy shadow, against which the centrally lighted
group is sharply contrasted.

This singular manner of bringing light and darkness into striking
opposition makes the objects in a picture stand out very vividly. Some
one has defined chiaroscuro as the "art of rendering the atmosphere
visible and of painting an object enveloped in air." The art was
carried to perfection by Rembrandt. You will notice it more or less in
every picture of this collection, but nowhere is it more appropriate
than here, where the appearance of Christ, as the source of light,
emphasizes the mystery of the event a