There is a great difference, even in the point of view, between the Dutch master and his modern rival. Both approached their subject, if one may say so, in a reverential way; but the former with an absorption in the scene and a desire to reproduce it faithfully. Whistler, on the other hand, with more aloofness of feeling, selecting the mood or phase of it on which he chooses to dwell that he may inform it with his own personal sense of significance. The Rembrandt print--to borrow De Quincey’s distinction--is rather a triumph of knowledge; the Whistler a triumph of power. While the method of both represents the highest degree of pregnant succinctness, Rembrandt drew the landscape while Whistler transposes from it. The visible means, in his later etchings, become less and less, their significance continually fuller; and in his study of phases of nature he has carried the interpretation of light and atmosphere beyond the limits of Rembrandt. In the “Thames Series,” which has perpetuated the since vanished characteristics of the old river side, he came nearest to the Dutch etcher, recording the scenes with a comprehension of detail as complete as that of Rembrandt’s “Mill.” Seeking always the significance of his subject, he seems to have felt that here the significance lay in the curious, dilapidated medley of details; that even a weather-worn timber and the very nails in it contributed their share to the impression, so that, while he must needs select and omit, the problem was one of how much to _avoid_ omitting. On the other hand, in his later prints, the problem is reversed. Following his own personal evolution toward more complete abstraction, both in sense and expression, it is how little he may put in and yet express the full significance.