By degrees, however, his personality emerges, as one becomes conscious of a trait that is shared by all his pictures. It is their liveliness of characterization, exhibited not only in the individual figures, but also in the inventiveness of grouping and in the peculiar vivacity with which the spirit of the scene has been rendered. He is of all the genre artists the supreme delineator of Dutch life among the lower middle classes in the Leyden and Haarlem of his day; depicting it, by turns, with something of the large-heartedness of a Shakspere, the wit and satire of a Molière, and the coarseness of a Rabelais. But in every vein, whether of broad survey or trenchant scrutiny, he is human; for the most part genial in his outlook, and always fresh in observation. It is probably because of this that Waagen characterizes him as “next to Rembrandt certainly the greatest genius among the painters of the Dutch School,” an opinion which is shared by W. Bürger (Thoré), while Dr. Bredius styles him “the greatest genre painter of the seventeenth century, one of the wittiest delineators of human folly, the character painter _par excellence_.” The standard, in fact, by which these and other admirers test him, and which must be applied by every one who would reach a just estimate of this many-sided artist, is bigger than that of technique. Steen drew well, but could be slipshod and incorrect in drawing; exhibited an extraordinary gift of improvised and occasionally studied composition, yet could huddle his canvases with a superabundance of material; in one picture would display a fine sense of color, to lose it in another; now would work with a juicy and limpid brushstroke, now in a thin method as dry as brick-dust, and could be indifferent to tonality, while at other times a tonalist of choice distinction. Therefore you cannot measure him as you do a Terborch or a Vermeer, or, indeed, range him for comparison alongside of any of the other genre artists. With them, at their best, the pictorial representation is the chief concern, and they invite you to judge them by their technique. But it is otherwise with Steen. You cannot hold him to so narrow a test, any more than you can Shakspere. Both are technicians who at times throw technique to the winds. You may regret it or resent it; but, to be just, must condone the fact in face of the bigness that looms behind.