Before entering the museum at Rotterdam, I think it will be opportune to make some observations on Dutch painting, naturally not for those "who know," understand, but for those who have forgotten. Dutch art possesses one quality that renders it particularly attractive to us Italians: it is that branch of the world's art which differs most from the Italian school,--it is the antithesis, or, to use a phrase that enraged Leopardi, "the opposite pole in art." The Italian and the Dutch are the two most original schools of painting, or, as some say, the only two schools that can honestly lay claim to originality. The others are only daughters or younger sisters, which bear a certain resemblance to their elders. So Holland even in its art offers us that which we most desire in travel and description--novelty. Dutch art was born with the independence and freedom of Holland. So long as the northern and southern provinces of the Netherlands were united under Spanish dominion and the Catholic faith, they had only one school of painting. The Dutch artists painted like the Belgians; they studied in Belgium, Germany, and Italy. Heemskerk imitated Michelangelo; Bloemaert copied Correggio; De Moor followed Titian; to mention a few instances. They were pedantic disciples who united with all the affectations of the Italian style a certain German coarseness, and the outcome was a bastard style inferior to the earlier schools--childish, stiff, and crude in color, with no sense of light and shade. But, at any rate, it was not a slavish imitation; it was a faint prelude to real Dutch art. With the war of independence came liberty, reform, and art. The artistic and religious traditions fell together. The nude, the nymphs, the madonnas, the saints, allegory, mythology, the ideal,--the whole ancient edifice was in ruins. The new life which animated Holland was revealed and developed in a new way. The little country, which had suddenly become so glorious and formidable, felt that it must tell its greatness. Its faculties, which had been strengthened and stimulated in the grand enterprise of creating a native land, a real world,--now that this enterprise was achieved, expanded, and created an imaginary world. The conditions of the people were favorable to a revival of art. They had overcome the supreme perils which threatened them: security, prosperity, a splendid future, were theirs: their heroes had done their part; the time had come for artists. After so many sacrifices and disasters Holland came forth victorious from the strife, turned her face upon her people, and smiled, and that smile was Art.