DEVELOPMENT OF THE HISTORY OF ART 581 



plausible. There is nothing wrong with the argument. But the con- 

 clusion is somewhat beside the truth. The imagination has imagined 

 entirely too much. 



It is not different with the reconstructors of the history of painting. 

 The higher criticism is more rampant there perhaps than elsewhere. 

 Painters long dead and forgotten are resurrected, galvanized into 

 life, or reconstructed on scientific principles; and panels and altar- 

 pieces are tossed about from painter to painter like balls in a 

 tennis-court. If an ichthyologist can reconstruct a fish from a single 

 bone, what prevents an archaeologist from writing the biography of 

 Rembrandt from his pictures. There are only two or three bones in 

 Rembrandt's life, but when put together by the aid of the life-giving 

 imagination they may produce something startling. We know no- 

 thing of importance about Rembrandt's youth, family, or bringing- 

 up; but here is a picture by him out of which we may be able to 

 distort some evidence. It was evidently painted when he was a 

 young man. It shows the portrait of a woman past middle life. 

 Rembrandt being a poor young man could not afford to hire sitters 

 or models and therefore it is probable that he painted the members 

 of his own family. This is doubtless his mother. She holds a book 

 in her hand. It is no doubt the Bible, because other books were scarce 

 in those days. From the fact that it is a Bible we may infer that 

 Rembrandt's mother was a religious woman. Ergo: she must have 

 brought Rembrandt up in the faith! And that, you see. accounts 

 for Rembrandt painting so many religious pictures! 



I do not think I am here exaggerating very much the line of argu- 

 ment followed in the most recent and the most important life of 

 Rembrandt. It is a very interesting way of building up a life, or a 

 house of cards, as you please. All you need to do is to keep on with 

 your inferences and you will surely arrive. And the result is what? 

 Why, the acceptance of the hypothesis as proven fact. On what 

 other ground can one explain the Vienna Gallery Catalogue naming 

 one of its portraits by Rembrandt. ''Rembrandt's Mother." or. the 

 Berlin Gallery Catalogue writing clown "'Hendrickje Stoffels" as 

 the subject of another Rembrandt portrait. There is not a scrap of 

 evidence that would be accepted in a police court for either title. 

 We have no facts about the looks of cither Rembrandt's mother or 

 his mistress; but the imagination of the critic can supply the vacancy. 

 And this is sometimes called scientific art-history, when it would 

 hardly pass muster as historical romance! 



And there is my friend. Mr. Berenson. who knows more, I believe, 

 about Italian painting than any one living, confusing history with 

 some of his conclusions while illuminating it with others. That 

 imagination, without which no historian's equipment is complete, 

 seems to be loading so many of them, like a will-o'-the-wisp, into 



