Professor Hind's constant aim in these lectures, delivered when he held the Charles Eliot Norton Chair of Poetry in 1930-31, was not to add to the general sum of knowledge about Rembrandt; but to stimulate and further enjoyment in his works. And for this reason the lectures avoid the stiff formality of a thesis, and present an attitude as delightful as it is rare toward the work of the greatest of the Flemish school.

As the author himself says, the book gathers together certain thoughts about art around a figure whose work is eminently human in its appeal and comprehensive in character. In a lifetime almost completely devoted to the study of Rembrandt, he has discovered many interesting things about the artist which were never adapted to his more detailed studies. And so in this work he has limited himself to a few seemingly unconnected topics, Rembrandt's Academy and the work of his followers, his treatment of portraits and landscape painting, his draughtsmanship, and his genius.

Throughout Professor Hind is thorough and scholarly, but never so technical that the book becomes incomprehensible or uninteresting to a novice. The format of the book is admirable, the printing excellent, and the hundred or more illustrations beautifully reproduced.