There is one point that has always forced itself upon me strongly in
comparing the portrait-painting qualities of Rembrandt and Velasquez. In
Rembrandt I see a delightful human sympathy between himself and his
sitters; he is always more interested in that part of them which
conforms to some great central human type, and is comparatively
uninterested in those little distinctions which delight the caricaturist
and are the essence of that much applauded quality, "the catching of a
likeness." I don't believe he was a very good catcher of likenesses, but
I am sure his rendering was the biggest and fullest side of that
man--there is always a fine ironical appreciation of character moulded
by circumstance; whereas in Velasquez I find the other thing.
_C. W. Furse._