JUNE 363 



is not my purpose, to show how much other schools of 

 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — such as the 

 Flemish, led by Rubens, and the English, led by Rey- 

 nolds — owed to the Venetians. My endeavour has been 

 to explain some of the attractions of the school, and 

 particularly to show its close dependence upon the 

 thought and feeling of the Renaissance. This is per- 

 haps its greatest interest, for, being such a complete 

 expression of the riper spirit of the Renaissance, it helps 

 us to a larger understanding of a period which has in 

 itself the fascination of youth, and which is particularly 

 attractive to us because the spirit that animates us is 

 singularly like the better spirit of that epoch. We, too, 

 are possessed of boundless curiosity. We, too, have an 

 almost intoxicating sense of human capacity. We, too, 

 believe in a great future for humanity, and nothing has 

 yet happened to check our delight in discovery or our 

 faith in life.' 



The head of Rembrandt in his youth, painted by him- 

 self, in the Pitti (not either of those in the Uffizi) is 

 perhaps the most beautiful of his many self-painted por- 

 traits. None, certainly, in the Rembrandt Exhibition at 

 Burlington House this winter came near to it for beauty, 

 in my humble opinion. 



There is also an unusual portrait of Charles I. and 

 Henrietta Maria, painted together in one frame, divided 

 only by the twisted column of an Italian window. I 

 have never before seen a double portrait treated in quite 

 the same way. It is Van Dyke at his best — so finished, 

 so refined ! Perhaps he took extra pains, knowing it 

 was going to the young Queen's Medicean relations, in 

 the then far-away beautiful Florence. 



I find I am doing exactly what I meant not to do, and 

 must stop noticing pictures, as any guidebook describes 

 all the best pictures quite enough. 



