And Van Dyck
raised portrait painting to unthought-of excellence: his portraits of
the English royal children and of King Charles I are world-famous.
[Sidenote: Velasquez]
[Sidenote: Murillo]
Within the last century, many connoisseurs of art have been led to
believe that Velasquez formerly has been much underrated and that he
deserves to rank with the foremost Italian masters. Certainly in all
his work there is a dignity, power, and charm, especially in that well-
known Maids of Honor, where a little Spanish princess is depicted
holding her court, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting, her dwarfs and
her mastiff, while the artist himself stands at his easel. The last
feat of Velasquez was to superintend the elaborate decorations in honor
of the marriage of the Spanish Infanta with King Louis XIV of France.
Murillo, the youngest of all these great painters, did most of his work
for the Catholic Church and naturally dealt with ecclesiastical
subjects.
A somewhat different type of painter is found in the Dutchman,
Rembrandt (1606-1669), who lived a stormy and unhappy life in the towns
of Leyden and Amsterdam.
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