Rembrandt belongs to the breed of artists which can have no posterity. His place is with the Michelangelos, the Shaksperes, the Beethovens. An artistic Prometheus, he stole the celestial fire, and with it put life into what was inert, and expressed the immaterial and evasive sides of nature in his breathing forms. EMILE MICHEL.

REMBRANDT

I

In the Ryksmuseum of Amsterdam hangs a painting that is now generally considered one of the great pictures of the world; its completion in 1632 marked the turning-point in the career of the artist who painted it. It is the "March out of the Civic Guard," or, as it is commonly called, "The Night Watch," by Rembrandt. That a great painting should mark the turning-point in an artist's career seems natural and proper, but the famous masterpiece in this case, strangely enough, marks the turning-point from worldly prosperity to poverty and neglect.

And this is the story of how it came to pass: In Rembrandt's time it was customary for the many guilds and corporations to decorate the hall in which they met with a painting containing the portraits of the guild or corporation. Today many such pictures can still be found in Holland. Usually the artist painted the group in a conventional manner, with about as much originality in composition as a modern photographer would use in taking a snapshot of a baseball team. But when Rembrandt was offered

1600 florins, an unusually large sum for such a commission, to paint the company of the civic guard, he determined to produce something of which the civic guard would be extremely proud. He would break away from the conventional custom of painting a formal group of lifeless, self-conscious Hollanders who blankly stared into space while their portraits were being painted. And the result was a lively scene, men in action, who have heard the call to arms. This picture has been the object of profound study both by art critics and investigators. Its migrations, mutilations, and re-touchings have been numbered and recorded. The connoisseurs have bewailed the lack of preparatory sketching as indicated by the faults of proportion, they have noted the "motley costumes and heterogeneous weapons of the company, and the extraordinary confusion," the enigmatical presence of the two little girls, and the undiscoverable meaning of the sudden sortie.

"To us," writes M. Michel in his sumptuous edition of Rembrandt, "we must confess, the master's intention seems patent at the first glance. The incident is unquestionably a call to arms of the civic guard. The two officers have hastened to the domicile of the company; they seek to stimulate the zeal of their followers by pressing forward themselves. The captain gives his orders to the lieutenant; behind them the drum beats the alarm, and the ensign unfurls his standard. Every man snatches up a