Rembrandt | Page 7

better.
[Illustration: PLATE VI.--PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN

This portrait may be seen to-day in the Pitti Palace at Florence. It is
said to be one of Rembrandt's portraits of himself, painted about 1635.]
At last I stopped before one of the heads in the "Syndics of the Cloth
Merchants' Guild." The man in the left-hand corner, with the soft grey
hair under the steeple-hat, had arrested my fancy. I felt that there was
something in the portrait's beauty I could grasp and reproduce, though I
saw at once that the technical treatment was entirely different from
what I had attempted hitherto. However, the desire to reproduce this
breadth of execution tempted me so much that I resolved to try my
hand at it. I forget now what the copy looked like; I only remember that
for years it hung on my studio wall.
So I tried to grasp the colour scheme, and the technique of the different
artists, until the beauties of the so-called "Night Patrol" and the
"Syndics" took such hold of me that nothing attracted me but what had
come from the hand of the great master, the unique Rembrandt. In his
work I found something which all the others lacked. Freedom and
exuberance were his chief attractions, two qualities utterly barred and
forbidden in the drawing class and in my teacher's studio.
Although Frans Hals impressed me more than any other painter with
the power with which he wielded the brush, even he was put in the
shade by Rembrandt's unsurpassable colour effects.
When I had looked at Rembrandt's pictures to my heart's content, I used
to go down to the ground floor in the "Trippenhuis" to the print cabinet.
Here I found his etchings beautifully arranged. It was a pleasant room
overlooking a garden, and in the centre stood a long table covered with
a green cloth, on which one could put down the portfolio and look at
the gems they contained at leisure.
I often sat there for hours, buried in the contemplation of these two
hundred and forty masterpieces. The conservator never ceased urging
me to be careful when he saw me mix them up too much in my efforts
to compare them. How astonished I was to find in the painter who, with
mighty hand, had modelled in paint the glorious "Night Patrol," an
accomplished engraver, not only gifted with the power and freedom of

a great painter, but thoroughly versed in all the mysteries of the use of
the etching needle on the hard, smooth copper.
Still it was not the extraordinary skill which attracted me most in these
etchings. It was rather the singular inventive power shown in the
different scenes, the peculiar contrast between light and shade, and the
almost childlike manner in which the figures had been treated. The
artist's soul not only spoke through the choice of subject, but it found
an expression in every single detail, conveyed by the delicate handling
of the needle.
Many Biblical subjects are represented in the Amsterdam collection;
they are full of artistic imagination and sentiment in their composition
in spite of their seeming incongruity. The conception is so highly
original, and at the same time betrays such a depth of understanding,
that other prints, however beautifully done, look academic and stilted
beside them.
Among those etchings were excellent portraits, wonderfully lifelike
heads of the painter's friends and of himself; but when one has looked
at the little picture of his mother, he is compelled to shut the portfolio
for a moment, because the unbidden tears rise to the eyes.
It is impossible to find anything more exquisite than this engraving.
Motherly kindness, sweetness, and thoughtfulness are expressed in
every curve, in the slightest touch of the needle. Each line has a
meaning; not a single touch could have been left out without injury to
the whole.
Hokusai, the Japanese artist, said that he hoped to live to be very old
that he might have time to learn to draw in such a way that every stroke
of his pencil would be the expression of some living thing. That is
exactly what Rembrandt has attained here, and, in this portrait, he
realised at the age of twenty-four the ideal of the old Japanese; it is one
of his earliest etchings.
I re-open the portfolio to have a look at the pictures of the wonderful
old Jewish beggars. They were types that were to be found by the score

in the Amsterdam of those days, and Rembrandt delighted to draw
them. One is almost inclined to say that they cannot be beggars,
because the master's hand has endowed them with the warmth and
splendour with which his artistic temperament clothed everything he
looked at.
When I had looked enough at the etchings, I used to