touch more spirited and distinct.
Later, that is to say from about 1654 onwards, the golden flesh tones
become still more intense, passing sometimes into a brown of less
transparency, and accompanied frequently with grey and blackish shadows
and sometimes with rather cool lights. The chief picture of this epoch,
dated 1661, is _The Syndics_, also at Amsterdam, a group of six men.
This, in the depth of the still transparent golden tone, in the
animation of the heads, and in body and breadth of handling, is a true
masterpiece.

With respect to his treatment of Biblical subjects, two older writers,
Kolloff and Guhl, accord him an honour which, as we shall see, Kugler
gives to Duerer a century earlier, namely that of being the painter of
the true spirit of the Reformed Church. Though it is certain, Kugler
admits, that no other school of painting in Rembrandt's time--neither
that of Rubens, nor that of the Carracci, nor the French nor Spanish
schools--rendered the spiritual import of Biblical subjects with the
purity and depth exhibited by the great Dutch master. Here the kindly
element of deep sentiment combines most happily with his feeling for
composition, as in the _Descent from the Cross_, at Munich, in _The Holy
Family_, in the Louvre, and above all in _The Woman taken in Adultery_,
in the National Gallery. In this last, a touching truthfulness and depth
of feeling, with every other grand quality peculiar to Rembrandt, are
seen in their highest perfection. Of hardly less excellence, also, is
our _Descent from the Cross_.

Endowed with so many admirable qualities, it follows that Rembrandt was
a portrait painter of the highest order, while his peculiar style of
lighting, his colouring and treatment, distinguish his portraits from
those by all other masters. Even the works of his most successful
pupils, who followed his style in this respect, are far behind him in
energy of conception and execution. The number of his admirable
portraits is so large that it is difficult to know which to mention as
most characteristic. No other artist ever painted his own portrait so
frequently, and some of these may first be mentioned. That in the
Louvre, dated 1633, represents him in youthful years, fresh and full of
hope. It is spiritedly painted in the bright tone of his earlier period.
Another in the same gallery, of the year 1660, painted with
extraordinary breadth and certainty of hand of that later period, shows
a man weighed do