Estelle M. Hurll

It seemed understood among the twelve disciples of Jesus that John was the one of their number especially beloved by the Master. He and his brother, James, were the sons of the fisherman Zebedee, and all three men earned their living in their fishing-boats on the sea of Galilee. It was while they were busy with their nets that Jesus one day called the two brothers to be fishers of men. "And they straightway left their nets and followed him."[13]

It is a bright clear day, and a baby boy is having a rare frolic out of doors, on his mother's knee. It is the little Christ-child, and his visitors are St. Jerome and Mary Magdalene. Overhead a red cloth drapery has been stretched from tree to tree, making a sort of canopy to protect the company from the direct rays of the sun. St. Jerome has brought as an offering the books which represent the scholarly toil of many years. Mary Magdalene has her jar of ointment for the anointing of the Saviour's feet.

The church of S. Giovanni Evangelista (St. John the Evangelist), in Parma, is built with a dome-shaped cupola which Correggio filled with a fresco decoration. The subject is drawn from the life of the apostle whose name is given to the church: it is the vision of St. John on the isle of Patmos. Looking up into the dome, one seems to be looking directly into the open sky, upon the figure of Christ ascending into heaven. The apostles sit in a circle on the clouds, and beneath them the aged St. John kneels on the mountain top, gazing upwards upon the vision.

In the imagination of the ancient Greeks all human love was inspired by the goddess Aphrodite, Venus, aided by her son, the little archer Cupid. It was Cupid's office to shoot the arrows of affection. Being a mischievous fellow, he took delight in aiming his shafts at the unsuspecting. Often his victims were so oddly chosen that it seemed as if the marksman had shot at random. Some believed that he did his work blindfolded.

The story is told of a little child who, upon being introduced to a kind-faced lady, looked up brightly into her eyes with the question, "Whose mother are you?" When we look into the wrinkled old face of this picture, the same sort of a question springs to mind, and we involuntarily ask, "Whose grandmother are you?" We are sure that children and grandchildren have leaned upon that capacious lap. The name of the subject is not known, though the same face appears many times in Rembrandt's works.

The word syndic is a name applied to an officer of a corporation, and this is its meaning in the title of the picture, The Syndics of the Cloth Guild. In Holland, as in England and France and elsewhere in Europe, guilds were associations of tradesmen or artisans united for purposes of mutual help and for the interests of their respective industries.

by Estelle M. Hurll

Holland, as is well known, is a country built upon marshes, which have been drained and filled in by the patient industry of many generations of workers. The land is consequently very low, almost perfectly level, and is covered by a network of canals. It lacks many of the features which make up the natural scenery of other countries,—mountains and ravines, rocks and rivers,—but it is, nevertheless, a very picturesque country. Artists love it for the quiet beauty of its landscape. Though this is not grand and awe-inspiring, it is restful and attractive.

The choice of pictures for this collection has been made with the object of familiarizing the student with works fairly representative of Rembrandt's art in portraiture and Biblical illustration, landscape and genre study, in painting and etching. Admirers of the Dutch master may miss some well-known pictures. For obvious reasons the Lecture in Anatomy is deemed unsuitable for this place, and the Hundred Guilder Print contains too many figures to be reproduced here clearly.

In studying the fifteen pictures of this collection, we have seen something of the work of the great Dutch master, Rembrandt, and have learned a little of the man himself, of his love for the sweet wife, Saskia, of his friendship with the cultured burgomaster, Jan Six, of his faithful and reverent study of the Bible, of his rare insight into people's character. We are ready now to look directly into the artist's own face, in a portrait by his own hand.