Immediately from this proceeds the second point which the genre painters gained from Hals: namely, an inspiration for the composition of their pictures. It is marked no less by naturalness than propriety, and by an extraordinary feeling of unity. There is an excellent discretion alike in the choice and in the arrangement of details; everything is characteristic and made subservient to the general harmony. The latter results from the third point enforced by Hals’s example: the principle of relativity in the use of values. Color became the basis of the new genre, and color treated from the point of view of tone; hence again the incomparable unity of impression which examples of the best genre artists exhibit. Some mass of local color, either cool or warm in hue, affords a dominant note. To this, by means of contrasts and repetitions, the whole scheme is tuned. The contrasting values of other local colors are opposed to that of the dominant mass, and higher and lower values of all these colors repeated throughout the scheme. The harmony that ensues may be rich and low or high in key and sprightly, but in the finest examples, and they are very numerous, is always characterized by a choice refinement. This quality is due in no slight measure to the fourth way in which these artists were indebted to Hals, namely, their skill in brushwork. For they learned from him to lay the color on frankly and directly, without fumbling or indecision. They constructed their forms in color, building them up with layers of modulated values, working generally with a small brush, but one that was fully charged with pigment which was floated on to the surface. Thus the color has not only body and substance, but also a limpid transparency, a quality as of liquidized gems. It is this blend of lightness of touch, of purity of pigment, and withal of solid underpainting, that gives breadth and dignity to the delicacy of these harmonies. To assure one’s self of this it is but necessary to compare a Vermeer or Terborch with a Netscher. The last is felt at once to have less breadth and dignity, and altogether slighter charm; and an examination of his technique helps to explain the reason. There is less underpainting, and in the minute and dainty passages the pigment has not been floated but stippled over the surface. The result is a comparative tightness of feeling and, in place of limpid transparency, a suggestion rather of thinness and hardness.