ART.
REMBRANDT AT THE ACADEMY.
THE transition from Burne-Jones at the New Gallery to Rembrandt at the Academy seems at first sight to be the passing from pure literature to pure painting. The English painter illustrates, suggests, and tells stories. The Dutchman works on our emotions with the force and mystery of instrumental music. Burne - Jones painted all the things it is easy to talk about. Knights and forlorn damsels, enchantresses and angels, and general pictorial psychology, are all things which a person of ordi- nary intelligence and with a taste for poetry can appreciate and reason about. But when it comes to Rembrandt the case is different. Take, for instance, his intense sympathy for old age. This sympathy is not shown by any symbolic appeal to sentiment or by the opposition of age to youth. By the sheer force of his sympathy, and by the astonishing power of the purely painter's gifts, the artist can make us feel the long life, tired but not despairing, wise with experience, but reticent from knowing much. Look, for example, at the portrait of An Old Man (No. 54). Could any- thing better characterise the form and gesture of age than this ? The old man is resting his head on his hand ; the massive skull has become a little .heavy for the neck to support, but mere physical weakness is not insisted upon. The old man has not only the weight of years, but of experience and wisdom. A deeper perception of the meaning of life has brought about the result we see as much as mere weight of years. How, it may be asked, has the painter suggested all this without making use of symbolism; in other words, picture-writing P That is the painter's magic. We ass accomplished modelling, and beautiful and subtle light, shade, and colour, but we feel the underlying poetry, and though we cannot point out the connection between the means and the end, we know it is there. An equally fine representation is to be found in the Old Woman (No. 8). In this picture the face is relieved from its dark surroundings by the light reflected off the book the old woman is reading. No doubt the prosaically minded will see nothing more than a curious study of reflected light. Those, too, who are accustomed to pictures which call up poetic literature by association are apt to underrate the deep poetry of Rembrandt. To consider this painter as a rather sordid Dutchman who made realistic experiments in light and shade is to commit a capital error. Many who appreciate Italian art do make this mistake, they miss so completely all they hold dear. The grand generalisation of form, the architectural dignity of composition, and the decorative splendour of colour,—these qualities, so prominent in Italian painting, play such a small part in the art of Rembrandt. Again, he whose sympathies are with the painting found on the south side of the Alps finds in the Dutchman the evident marks of the realist. That is, the man who paints what he sees before him, not for the sake of conveying a poetic impression or transferring to others the emotion raised in him by something seen. The realist tries simply to reproduce the visual image, the shape and colour of the object, and not its inner and emotional life. But Rembrandt must never be mistaken for a realist. Go round the present exhibition, and allow yourself to receive a general impression, and you will realise what a poet this painter was.
It is in the portraits of Rembrandt that the idealism shows itself most clearly. In such pictures as Belshazzar's Feast (No. 58) the strange and clumsy setting of the picture is not attractive. There is something both grotesque and uncouth in the figures. The draperies have a prominence and realism which they never have in the great portraits. Biblical history is best treated by Rembrandt in his etchings and drawings, for here, with the greater simplicity of the material, the wonderfnl dramatic power of the artist is most visible. When the ideas were clothed in all the rich but clumsy splendour of Dutch studio properties, subtle characterisation and appropriateness of action were apt to get swamped in furred gowns and gigantic turbans.
Not all Rembrandt's portraits are poems. Some are very prosaic even when the painting is masterly in the extreme. Compare the Duke of Westminster's Nicholas Berchem (No. 25)—with its splendid, if somewhat obvious, technique— with that mysteriously beautiful picture belonging to Lord Feversham of A Merchant (No. 74). The difficulty of writing about pictures such as these is that the finer the picture the less there is that can be said about it. What use is it to speak about the modelling of the lips, and the way the cool lights of the flesh melt into the black of the shadows ? These things must be seen and felt. If he who looks on them has any poetry in his being he will be thrilled by such a master. piece as this portrait, assuredly one of the finest things here.
At all periods of his career Rembrandt painted his own portrait. This series forme a wonderful record of technical evolution. From the smooth golden surface of the early works, to the rugged impasto of the latest manner, every step can be traced in these presentments of the artist's own face. The finest of these in the present exhibition is Lord Iveagh's late picture of The Painter (No. 20). This work was done after Fortune had turned her back upon the artist, and when he had lost his wife and was plunged into poverty. Though external affairs may have saddened the face, they had not dimmed the eye. The astonishing originality and power of vision were left unimpaired, and it is in this last sad period of his life that the master produced some of his greatest works.
In his early and in his later works Rembrandt showed himself a great colourist, but in the former he sometimes pushed warmth to the extent of hotness, and in the latter sombreness occasionally became blackness. The golden hue of the Shipbuilder and his Wife (No. 67) is rather overpowering, as it is in many of the pictures. Far more beautiful in colour are the cool harmonies of which the Man in Armour (No. 85), lent by the Corporation of Glasgow, is such a magnificent example. This picture, too, shows the romantic side of the artist, for it is no mere costume picture painted for the sake of the flashing metal and dull red cloak. It is as true a romance as Diirer'e Knight with Death and the Devil.
No attempt has been made in this article to give a com- plete review of this truly wonderful exhibition, which shows the resources of private collections in England. Every one who cares about pictures must be most grateful for such an oppor. tunity of studying a master. A regret has been expressed that all the portraits of Rembrandt by himself have not been hung together. As there are ten of these portraits here, cover- ing the whole of the painter's career, it would have been most interesting to have had them ranged side by side in chrono- logical order. The demonstration of the development of Rembrandt's technique would have been most interesting.
The reason why the art of Rembrandt must always be interesting is that he was one of those rare geniuses who could lift the veil that hides the soul. Mankind never tires of speculating and inquiring as to what lies beneath the sur- face of the mind. Lionardo explored regions of the soul unknown to ordinary people, and so did Rembrandt. The regions the two men travelled in were different, but each added largely to that little we know of the mysterious depths of the mind. The Dutchman's astonishing command over the resources of the art of painting would have been of little avail had he not had that profound imagination which can apprehend the things unknown to ordinary men. It is this power of seeing into the soul, and also the power of com- municating to others the revelation, that makes Rembrandt take his place among the greatest of the interpreters of the
[In the notice of the Burne-Jones Exhibition in last week's Spectator, the Avalon was referred to as an instance of the painter's tendency to isolate colours. This picture should not have been selected, as it was, unfortunately, never finished.—H.S.]
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