ealms of art as well as elsewhere. We
moderns feel that the apparent shortcomings and exaggerations are
nothing but the inevitable peculiarities attendant upon genius. And we
even go so far that we would not have him be without a single one of
them, for fear of losing the slightest trait in the character of the
great man whose every movement roused our intellectual faculties.

So Rembrandt has been raised in our days to the pinnacle of fame which
is his by right; the festival of his tercentenary was acknowledged by
the whole civilised world as the natural utterance of joy and pride of
our small country in being able to count among its children the great
Rembrandt.

I finish,--"with the pen, but not with the heart!" For if I should go on
until the inclination to add more to what I have written here should
fail me, my readers would have tired of me long before I had tired of my
subject. I am thinking of that rare gem, the portrait of Jan Six--of the
Louvre, of Cassel, of Brunswick, of what not!

May these pages convey to the reader the fact that I have always looked
upon Rembrandt as the true type of an artist, free, untrammelled by
traditions, genial in all he did; in short, a figure in whom all the
great qualities of the old Republic of the United Provinces were
concentrated and reflected.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The "Trippenhuis" was used as a picture gallery before the
Ryksmuseum was built. It was an old patrician family mansion belonging
to the Trip family. Several members of this family filled important
posts in the government of the old Republic of the United Provinces, and
some were burgomasters of Amsterdam.]

[Footnote 2: "Arti et Amicitiae" is a society of modern Dutch painters.
Occasionally the members organise exhibitions of the work of
contemporary countrymen or of foreign artists, and every year there is
an exhibition of their own works. These shows are held in the society's
own building in Amsterdam at the corner of the "Rokin" and "Spui."]

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