Not one of the six
men could have had any fault to find with the way in which he was
portrayed. Each looks equally prominent in vivid life. Yet they are
not a row of six individual men, but an organic group held together
you hardly know how. At last you realize that all but one are looking
at you. _You_ are the unifying centre that brings the whole picture
together, the bond without which, metaphorically speaking, it would
fall to pieces.
This picture of six men in plain black clothes and black hats, sitting
around a table, is by some considered the culmination of Rembrandt's
art. It shows that, in spite of misfortune and failure, his ardour
for new artistic achievement remained with him to the end.
In 1662 Rembrandt seems to have paid a brief and unnoticed visit to
England. If Charles II. had heard of him and made him his court painter,
we might have had an unrivalled series of portraits of court beauties
by his hand instead of by that of Sir Peter Lely. As it was, a hasty
sketch of old St. Paul's Cathedral, four years before it was burnt
down, is the sole trace left of his visit.
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