thirty-six years of age and at the very height of his
powers, at the time of the failure of this his greatest picture. His
mature style of painting continued to displease his contemporaries,
who preferred the work of less innovating artists who painted good
likenesses smoothly. Every year his treatment became rougher and
bolder. He transformed portraits of stolid Dutch burgomasters into
pictures of fantastic beauty; but the likeness suffered, and the
burgomasters were dissatisfied. Their conservative taste preferred
the smooth surface and minute treatment of detail which had been
traditional in the Low Countries since the days of the Van Eycks. Year
after year more of their patronage was transferred to other painters,
who pandered to their preferences and had less of the genius that forced
Rembrandt to work out his own ideal, whether it brought him prosperity
or ruin. These painters flourished, while Rembrandt sank into ever
greater disrepute.

It is certain, too, that he had been almost childishly reckless in
expenditure on artistic and beautiful things which were unnecessary
to his art and beyond his means, although those for a while had been
abundant. At the time of the failure of the 'Night Watch,' his wife
Saskia died, leaving him their little son, Titus, a beautiful child.
Through ever-darkening days, for the next fifteen years, he continued
to paint with increasing power. It is to this later period that our
picture of the 'Man in Armour' belongs.

[Illustration: A MAN IN ARMOUR
From the picture by Rembrandt, in the Corporation Art Gallery, Glasgow]

The picture is not a portrait, but rather a study of light upon armour.
No man came to Rembrandt and asked to be painted like that; but
Rembrandt saw in his mind's eye a great effect--a fine knightly face
beneath a shadowing helmet and set off against a sombre background.
A picture such as this is a work of the imagination in the same sense
as the 'Saint George and the Dragon' of Tintoret. It was an effect
that only Rembrandt could see, painted as only he could paint it. The
strongest light falls upon the breastplate, the next strongest upon
the helmet, and the ear-ring is there to catch another gleam. When
you look at the picture closely, you can see that the lights are laid
on (we might almost say 'buttered on') with thick white paint. More
than once Rembrandt painted armour for the sake of the effects of light.
In one of the portraits of himself he wears a helme