Page:EB1911 - Volume 23.djvu/98

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REMEDIOS—REMIREMONT
81


difficulty attends the classification of one than of the other.” Indeed Vosmaer points out in his Life of Rembrandt that there is a marked parallelism between Rembrandt’s painted and etched work, his early work in both cases being timid and tentative, while he gradually gains strength and character both with the brush and the graver’s tools.

In his L’Œuvre complet de Rembrandt (Paris, 1885), Eugene Dutuit rejects the classification of C. Blanc as dubious and unwarranted, dismisses the chronological arrangement proposed by Vosmaer and adopted by Seymour Haden and Middleton as open to discussion and lacking in possibility of proof, and reverts to the order established by Gersaint, ranging his materials under twelve heads: Portraits (real and supposed), Old Testament and New Testament subjects, histories, landscapes, &c. Sir Seymour Haden originated the theory that many of the etchings ascribed to Rembrandt up to 1640 were the work of his pupils, and seems to make out his case, though it may be carried too far. He argues (in his monograph on the Etched Work of Rembrandt, 1877) that Rembrandt’s real work in etching began after Saskia’s death, when he assumes that Rembrandt betook himself to Elsbroek, the country house of his “powerful friend” Jan Six. But it must be remembered that the future burgomaster was then but a student of twenty-four, a member of a great family it is true, but unmarried and taking as yet no share in public life. That Rembrandt was a frequent visitor at Elsbroek, and that the “Three Trees” and other etchings may have been produced there, may be admitted without requiring us to believe that he had left Amsterdam as his place of abode. The great period of his etching lies between 1639 and 1661, after which the old painter seems to have renounced the needle. In these twenty years were produced his greatest works in portraiture, landscape and Bible story. They bear the impress of the genius of the man.

In addition to the authors named, the reader is referred to W. Bürger, (the nom de plume of T. Thoré), Musées de la Hollande (1858–60), E. Fromentin, Maitres d'autrefois; H. Havard, L’École Hollandaise; Scheltema, Rembrandt, discours sur sa vie (1866); Ath. Cocquerel fils, Rembrandt, son individualism dans l’art (Paris, 1869); Dr Langbehn, Rembrandt als Erzieher (Leipzig, 1890); Emile Michel, Rembrandt, sa vie, son œuvre, et son temps (Paris, 1893); P. G. Hamerton, Rembrandt’s Etchings (London, 1894); Malcolm Bell, Rembrandt van Rijn and his Work (London, 1899); Adolf Rosenberg, Rembrandt, des Meisters Gemälde (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1906), a useful work, admirably reproducing 565 of the artist’s pictures, and its companion volume, Hans Wolfgang Singer, Rembrandt, des Meisters Radierungen. (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1906), reproducing 402 etchings. The chronological, geographical and classifying indexes in both books are of particular utility.  (J. F. W.; P. G. K.) 

REMEDIOS, or San Juan de Los Remedios, town of Santa Clara province, Cuba, in the municipality of San Juan de Los Remedios. Pop. of the town (1907), 6988; of the municipality, 21,573. The town is served by a branch of the Cuban Central railway, extending from Caibarién to Camajuani, where it connects with the main line. The site is low and flat, and unhealthily wet in the rainy season. The port of Remedios is Caibarién pop. in 1907, 8333), on the N. coast, about 5 m. E. Both are in the sugar country, and sugar is the base of their economic interests. The first settlement on the site of the present town was made in 1515–16, and in 1545 Remedios was created a villa with an ayuntamiento (council).


REMEMBRANCER, the name originally of certain subordinate officers of the English Exchequer. The office itself is of great antiquity, the holder having been termed remembrancer, memorator, rememorator, registrar, keeper of the register, despatcher of business (Maddox, History of the Exchequer). There were at one time three clerks of the remembrance, styled king’s remembrancer, lord treasurer’s remembrancer and remembrancer of first-fruits. The latter two offices have become extinct, that of remembrancer of first-fruits by the diversion of the fund (Queen Anne’s Bounty Act 1838), and that of lord treasurer’s remembrancer on being merged in the office of king’s remembrancer (1833). By the Queen’s Remembrancer Act 1859 the office ceased to exist separately, and the queen’s remembrancer was required to be a master of the court of exchequer. The Judicature Act 1873, s. 77, attached the office to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court of Judicature (Officers) Act 1879 transferred it to the central office of the Supreme Court. By s. 8 the king’s remembrancer is a master of the Supreme Court, and the office is usually filled by the senior master. The king’s remembrancer department of the central office is now amalgamated with the judgments and married women’s acknowledgments department. The king’s remembrancer still assists at certain ceremonial functions—relics of the former importance of the office—such as the nomination of sheriffs, the swearing-in of the lord mayor of London, the trial of the pyx and the acknowledgments of homage for crown lands. Other duties are set out in the Second Report of the Legal Departments Commission, 1874.

“Remembrancer” is also the title of an official of the corporation of the city of London, whose principal duty is to represent that body before parliamentary committees and at council and treasury boards.


REMIGIUS, ST (c. 437–533), bishop of Reims and the friend of Clovis, whom he converted to Christianity. According to Gregory of Tours, 3000 Franks were baptized with Clovis by Remigius on Christmas Day, 496, after the defeat of the Alamanni. With the growing power of the papacy a good many fictions grew up around his name, e.g. that he anointed Clovis with oil from the sacred ampulla, and that Pope Hormisdas had recognized him as primate of France. The Commentary on the Pauline Epistles (ed. Villalpandus, 1699) is not his work, but that of Remigius of Auxerre.

For authorities see H. Jadart, Bibliographie des ouvrages conc. la vie et le culte de S. Remi . . . (Reims, 1891), which contains 126 references.

REMINGTON, FREDERICK (1861–1909), American artist, was born at Canton, New York, on the 4th of October 1861. He was a pupil of the Yale Art School, and of the Art Students’ League, New York, and became known as an illustrator, painter and sculptor. Having spent much time in the West, whither he went for his health, and having been with the United States troops in actual warfare, he made a specialty of rendering the North American Indian and the United States soldier as seen on the western plains. In the Spanish-American War he was with the army under General Shafter as war correspondent. He died on the 26th of December 1909, near Ridgefield, Connecticut. His statuettes of soldiers, Indians, cowboys and trappers are full of character, while his paintings have been largely reproduced. He wrote several volumes of stories, including Pony Tracks (1895), Crooked Trails (1898), Sundown Leflare (1899), and John Ermine of the Yellowstone (1902).


REMINISCENCE (from Lat. reminisci, to remember), the recognized translation of the Greek ἀνἀμνησις, which is used technically by Plato in his doctrine that the soul recovers knowledge of which it had direct intuition in a former incorporeal existence. The doctrine may be regarded as the poetical precursor of modern a priori theories of knowledge and of “race-memory” and the like. In common language “reminiscence” is synonymous with “recollection.”


REMIREMONT, a town of eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Vosges, 17 m. S.S.E. of Épinal by rail, on the Moselle, a mile below its confluence with the Moselotte. Pop. town, 8782; commune, 10,548. Remiremont is surrounded by forest-clad mountains, and commanded by Fort Parmont, one of the Moselle line of defensive works. The abbey church, consecrated in 1051, has a crypt of the 11th century in which are the tombs of some of the abbesses, but as a whole belongs to the late 13th century. The abbatial residence (which now contains the mairie, the court-house and the public library) has been twice rebuilt in modern times (in 1750 and again after a fire in 1871), but the original plan and style have been preserved in the imposing front, the vestibule and the grand staircase. Some of the houses of the canonesses dating from the 17th and 18th centuries also remain. Remiremont is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first instance, communal college, a board of trade-arbitration and a chamber of arts and manufactures. Its industries include cotton-spinning and weaving, the manufacture of hosiery and embroidery, iron and copper founding and the manufacture of boots and shoes and brushes.

Remiremont (Romarici Mons) derives its name from St Romaric, one of the companions of St Columban of Luxeuil, who in the 7th century founded a monastery and a convent on the hills above the present town. In 910 the nuns, menaced