In
short, art that so long had been at the service only of the Church
and the proud, became suddenly, without losing any of its divinity,
a fireside friend. That is what Holland did for painting.
It would have been a great enjoyment to me to have made this chapter a
companion to the Ryks Museum: to have said a few words about all the
pictures which I like best. But had I done so the rest of the book
would have had to go, for all my space would have been exhausted. And
therefore, as I cannot say all I want to say, I propose to say very
little, keeping only to the most importunate pictures. Here and there
in this book, particularly in the chapters on Dordrecht, Haarlem,
and Leyden's painters, I have already touched on many of them.
The particular shining glory of the Ryks Museum is Rembrandt's
"Night Watch," and it is well, I think, to make for that picture
at once. The direct approach is down the Gallery of Honour, where
one has this wonderful canvas before one all the way, as near life
as perhaps any picture ever painted. It is possible at first to be
disappointed: expectation perhaps had been running too high; the
figure of the lieutenant (in the yellow jerkin) may strike one as
a little mean. But do not let this distress you.
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