done in his earlier days when still under
the influence of Rembrandt. _The Card Players_, close beside it, has
marked affinities in style, and especially in the very natural
characterization of the faces, which is also apparent in that of the
child in the other picture, and another on the extreme left of the
picture. That it cannot be Rembrandt's is quite evident; the grouping
and the lighting of it proclaim the picture seen on the canvas, and not
felt within the artist's own consciousness.

The realistic tendency which, as has already been pointed out, was so
characteristic of the whole art of the Netherlands, showed the most
remarkable and original results in the work of an idealist like
Rembrandt. Sandrart, one of the earliest writers on painting, says that
Rembrandt "usually painted things of a simple and not thoughtful
character, but which were pleasing to the eyes, and
picturesque"--_schilderachtig_, as the Netherlanders called it. This
combination of realism and picturesqueness, assisted by his marvellous
technical power, put him far above and apart from all his compeers. In
the absence of any pictures by his masters Van Swanenburg and Pinas, it
is difficult to ascertain what, if anything, he learnt from them. From
Peter Lastman we may be sure he learnt nothing in the way of technique.
Kugler--who in these paragraphs is my principal authority--suggests that
it is highly probable that in this respect he formed himself from the
pictures of Frans Hals, with which he must have been early acquainted in
the neighbouring town of Haarlem. At all events unexampled freedom,
spirit, and breadth of his manner is comparable with that of no other
earlier Dutch master. But all these admirable qualities would offer no
sufficient compensation for the ugly and often vulgar character of his
heads and figures, and for the total subversion of all the traditional
rules of art in costume and accessory, and would fail to account for the
great admiration which his works enjoy, if he had not been possessed,
besides, of an intensely artistic individuality.

In his earliest pictures his touch is already masterly and free, but
still careful, while the colour of the flesh is warm and clear and the
light full. _Dr Tulp's Anatomy_, painted in 1632, is the most famous of
this period. In _The Night Watch_, at Amsterdam, dated 1642, the light
is already restricted, falling only on isolated objects; the local tone
of the flesh is more golden; the