4/15 But he obtains his single truth, and what picturesque and forcible expression is dependent upon it, with magnificent skill and subtlety. His love of darkness led also to a loss of the spiritual element, and was itself the reflection of a sombre mind.... I cannot feel it an entirely glorious speciality to be distinguished, as Rembrandt was, from other great painters, chiefly by the liveliness of his darkness and the dulness of his light. Glorious or inglorious, the speciality itself is easily and accurately definable. It is the aim of the best painters to paint the noblest things they can see by sunlight. |