Portraiture is necessarily on a lower scale of art than historical painting (using this term in its higher application), firstly because ideals are not possible therein, and secondly in that the imagination of the artist is very restricted. The greatest portrait ever painted is immeasurably below a picture where a beautiful ideal form, with ideal expression is depicted; as far below in fact as the best ancient sculptured busts were inferior to the gods of Praxiteles. Neither Rembrandt nor Velasquez was capable of idealization of form, and so neither left behind him a single painted figure to take its place as a type. Rembrandt was a master of human expression, and in the representation of character he was perhaps unsurpassed by any painter, but if we analyze the feeling that is at the bottom of the appreciation of his portraits, we find that it largely consists of something apart from admiration of them as things of beauty. There enters into consideration recognition of the extraordinary genius of the artist in presenting character in such a way that the want of corporeal beauty seems to be unfelt. Instead of observing that the expression in a countenance harmonizes with the features, we involuntarily notice that the features harmonize perfectly with the expression, which seems in itself to be the picture. Of course inasmuch as the expression invariably appeals to the good side of our nature, it means intellectual beauty, but as the depth of any impression of this kind of beauty depends upon the development of the mind, the admiration must, except where the artist presents corporeal beauty, be confined generally to the cultivated section of the community. From the point of view of pure art, his fame as a great painter can only rest upon those of his pictures which are also appreciated for the corporeal beauty exhibited.