tacle which attracted the eye of the artist. He began to observe
and to reproduce all this agitation of the heavens, this struggle which
animates with varied and fantastic life the solitude of nature in
Holland; and in representing it, the struggle passed into his soul, and
instead of representing he created. Then he caused the two elements to
contend under his hand; he accumulated darkness that he might split and
seam it with all manner of luminous effects and sudden gleams of light;
sunbeams darted through the rifts, sunset reflections and the yellow
rays of lamp-light were blended with delicate manipulation into
mysterious shadows, and their dim depths were peopled with half-seen
forms; and thus he created all sorts of contrasts, enigmas, play and
effect of strange and unexpected chiaroscuro. In this field, among many,
stand conspicuous Gerard Dow, the author of the famous four-candle
picture, and the great magician and sovereign illuminator Rembrandt.

Another marked feature of Dutch painting was to be color. Besides the
generally accepted reasons that in a country where there are no
mountainous horizons, no varied prospects, no great _coup d'oeil_,--no
forms, in short, that lend themselves to design,--the artist's eye must
inevitably be attracted by color; and that this might be peculiarly the
case in Holland, where the uncertain light, the fog-veiled atmosphere,
confuse and blend the outlines of all objects, so that the eye, unable
to fix itself upon the form, flies to color as the principal attribute
that nature presents to it,--besides these reasons, there is the fact
that in a country so flat, so uniform, and so gray as Holland, there is
the same need of color as in southern lands there is need of shade. The
Dutch artists did but follow the imperious taste of their countrymen,
who painted their houses in vivid colors, as well as their ships, and in
some places the trunks of their trees and the palings and fences of
their fields and gardens; whose dress was of the gayest, richest hues;
who loved tulips and hyacinths even to madness. And thus the Dutch
painters were potent colorists, and Rembrandt was their chief.

Realism, natural to the calmness and slowness of the Dutch character,
was to give to their art yet another distinctive feature,--finish,
which was carried to the very extreme of possibility. It is truly said
that the leading quality of the people may be found in their pictures;
viz., patience. Everythi