Every year his treatment became rougher and bolder.

He transformed portraits of stolid Dutch burgomasters into pictures of fantastic beauty; but the likeness suffered, and the burgomasters were dissatisfied.

Their conservative taste preferred the smooth surface and minute treatment of detail which had been traditional in the Low Countries since the days of the Van Eycks.

Year after year more of their patronage was transferred to other painters, who pandered to their preferences and had less of the genius that forced Rembrandt to work out his own ideal, whether it brought him prosperity or ruin.

These painters flourished, while Rembrandt sank into ever greater disrepute.
It is certain, too, that he had been almost childishly reckless in expenditure on artistic and beautiful things which were unnecessary to his art and beyond his means, although those for a while had been abundant.