taverns, hospitals, and
death; who in short, reviewed heaven and earth, and enveloped everything
in a light so mysterious that it seems to have issued from his brain. His
work is at the same time grand and minute. He is at once an idealist and a
realist, a painter and an engraver, who transforms everything and conceals
nothing--who changes men into phantoms, the most ordinary scenes of life
into mysterious apparitions; I had almost said who changes this world into
another that does not seem to be and yet is the same. Whence has he drawn
that undefinable light, those flashes of electric rays, those reflections
of unknown stars that like an enigma fill us with wonder? What did this
dreamer, this visionary, see in the dark? What is the secret that
tormented his soul? What did this painter of the air mean to tell us in
this eternal conflict of light and shadow? It is said that the contrasts
of light and shade corresponded in him to moods of thought. And truly it
seems that as Schiller, before beginning a work, felt within himself an
indistinct harmony of sounds which were a prelude to his inspiration, so
also Rembrandt, when about to paint a picture, beheld a vision of rays and
shadows which had some meaning to him before he animated them with his
figures. In his paintings there is a life, a dramatic action, quite
distinct from that of human figures. Flashes of brilliant light break
across a sombre surface like cries of joy; the frightened darkness flies
away, leaving here and there a melancholy twilight, trembling reflections
that seem to be lamenting, profound obscurity gloomy and threatening,
flashes of dancing sunlight, ambiguous shadows, shadows uncertain and
transparent, questionings and sighs, words of a supernatural language like
music heard but not understood, which remains in the memory like a dream.
Into this atmosphere he plunged his figures, some of them enveloped by the
garish light of a theatrical apotheosis, others veiled like ghosts, others
revealed by a single ray of light darting across their faces. Whether they
be clothed with pomp or in rags, they all are alike strange and fantastic.
The outlines are not clear; the figures are loaded with powerful colors,
and are painted with such bold strokes of the brush that they stand out in
sculpturesque relief, while over all is an expression of impetuosity and
of inspiration, that proud, capricious, profound imprint of genius that
knows neither restraint nor fear.