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The Ryks Museum at Amsterdam may be said to have been designed as a shrine for his Night Watch. Near by it hangs The Syndics of the Cloth Company, excelled, in this particular class of work, by no picture in the world; but it is by the portraits and the etchings that the sweep, profundity, and versatility of Rembrandt's genius is exemplified. Truly his imagination was inexhaustible.
Rembrandt, apparently, was in nowise restricted when he undertook the work for Banning Cock, and so, instead of the stupid, hackneyed arrangement, he made of the portrait of the company a picture of armed men marching forth to beating of drums and waving of banners, "The Night Watch," as it must ever be known more accurately, "The Sortie of the Company of Banning Cock" now in the Ryks Museum of Amsterdam.
Aunt Fay said, when I did, that she hated such places. They gave her a headache, a heartache, and a bad cold. But she did not hate the Ryks Museum, and delighted the Mariner by picking out the best Rembrandts. Then there were the Dutch rooms, and the rooms where the wax people live.
Dr. Tulp desired a picture of himself performing an operation, and Rembrandt gave it to him, painted in a way that pleased his contemporaries, and that has astonished the world ever since. Ten years later Rembrandt painted another Doelen or Regent picture which, under the erroneous title of The Night Watch, is to-day the chief attraction of the Ryks Museum at Amsterdam.
They declared that he trampled on all precedent and scorned the laws on which true art is built. However, he had friends, and they, to help him, went forth and secured the commission the famous "Night-Watch," now in the Ryks Museum at Amsterdam. The production of this fine picture resulted in a comedy of errors, that shaded off into a tragedy for poor Rembrandt.
"O dear, dear!" exclaimed Polly, as they ran back and bent over the portfolio again, "we haven't half seen Amsterdam, Jasper." "No, and you wouldn't if you stayed a year," observed Jasper, wisely. "We must go over to the Ryks Museum once more," said Polly. "Yes, let us go there directly after luncheon," proposed Jasper. "I know what you want to do, Polly, sit in front of 'The Night Watch' again."
With these simple materials Rembrandt produced the picture that the world has agreed to regard as his masterpiece. Contemporary criticism says nothing about it. The place of honour at the Ryks Museum at Amsterdam is given to The Night Watch, but it is The Syndics of the Cloth Hall a simple presentation of five grave men seated at a table that we remember with wonder and admiration.
There were a few mantel-pieces too, which the Chaperon thought she would accept from the Queen as presents; but as for the carpets, they were no less than tragic, and it would be better to go about opening bridges, or laying dull cornerstones, then stay at home and look at them. My way of showing Amsterdam was to work slowly up to a grand crescendo effect; and the crescendo was the Ryks Museum.
We had run almost continuously on our fourth speed; and even in Laren I came down to the second only long enough to let them all see the beauty of the Mauve country. Starr knows Anton Mauve's pictures, and his history; but the ladies had seen only a few delicious landscapes in the Ryks Museum. Still, they liked to hear that at Laren Corot's great disciple had found inspiration.
There was the finest Delacroix of its size that Priam had ever met with; also a Vermeer that made it unnecessary to visit the Ryks Museum. And on the more distant wall, to which Mr. Oxford came last, in a place of marked honour, was an evening landscape of Volterra, a hill-town in Italy. The bolts of Priam's very soul started when he caught sight of that picture.
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