ABSTRACT
It is probably true to say that the lines of Hoogstraten’s Inleyding which have been quoted most often in the literature on Dutch art are those which discuss Rembrandt’s Night Watch [Fig. 31 and 32]. These lines appear in an absorbing passage, which treats of pictorial composition and the balance of imitation and invention within the artwork. Hoogstraten tells us that the painter should not line up figures in rows, as has happened in too many Dutch militia portraits. True masters, he tells us, manage to make their whole work into a compositional unity. 1 He goes on:
Rembrandt achieved this very well in his piece in the Doelen at Amsterdam, but in the opinion of some too well, making more of the overall image he had designed, than of the individual portraits which he had been commissioned to paint. Nevertheless that same work, however much one may find fault with it, will in my opinion outlast those of his co-workers, being so pictorial in thought, so sinuous of step, and so forceful, that, in the opinions of some, all the other pieces there stand like playing cards next to it. Though I do wish that he had added more light. 2
