His pictures remained unsold, and his revenue dwindled.
Rembrandt was 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.
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