Perhaps some day the world will discover that Rembrandt is a much
greater painter than Raphael. I write this blasphemy--one to make the
hair of the Classicists stand on end--without definitely taking a side;
only I seem to find as I grow older that the most beautiful and most
rare thing in the world is truth.
Let us say, if you will, that Rembrandt has not Raphael's nobility. Yet
perhaps this nobility which Raphael manifests in his line is shown by
Rembrandt in the mysterious conception of his subjects, in the profound
naïveté of his expressions and gestures. However much one may prefer the
majestic emphasis of Raphael, which answers perhaps to the grandeur
inherent in certain subjects, one might assert, without being stoned by
men of taste--I mean men whose taste is real and sincere--that the great
Dutchman was more a born painter than the studious pupil of Perugino.
_Delacroix._