to beautifully highlight one thing
by obscuring the other” was, however, not something everyone was happy with, as Samuel van
Hoogstraten would later make clear.19
11

When devising the larger version, which he did, as suggested above, in response to Breenbergh’s
work, Rembrandt would have been prompted by Breenbergh’s even larger number of people and
greater variety of types and costumes to add numerous exotic figures, among them a man clad in
Japanese armor at the left and a Turkish warrior, an East Asian, and several turbaned Arabs at the
right. He also added, as in Breenbergh’s painting, a woman with a child in the right foreground
below Saint John. In the dark shadow to the right he painted a fishing boy, a woman holding a
child that relieves itself, and in the shadow at the lower left two fighting dogs and two copulating
dogs. Much later Samuel van Hoogstraten still remembered the latter, giving this as an example
of an unforgivable breach of decorum: “yet one saw also a dog that in a most scandalous manner
was mounting a bitch. One might well say that this is something that can happen and is natural;
but I say that it is an abhorrent indecency in the context of this story. such scenes betray the
artist’s lack of judgment.”20 From this sentence it is evident that some people must, indeed, have
been saying “that this is something that can happen and is natural” (it is not unlikely that he
heard such words from the master himself), but that for others this was unacceptable. Breenbergh
demonstrated how to stay entirely within the rules of decorum: the figures are as differentiated as
possible and neatly characterized in age, gender, type, and degree of attention, but no one is ugly
and no one stands or sits in an ungainly pose. They all possess a certain conventional gracefulness
in attitudes and gestures. In contrast, Rembrandt depicted none of his figures with conventional
poses or gestures, and he deliberately did away with any sign of gracefulness. The attitudes of his
figures are emphatically studied from life and express all kinds of emotions, which he underlined
by such motifs as the angry man growling at two fighting brats (below Saint John), in what was
originally the right foreground. 
### Language ###
English

### Assessment ###
The text mentions a specific criticism about dogs in a painting, so we could ask about Van Hoogstraten's opinion on this element.

### Query ###
What did Samuel van Hoogstraten think about the depiction of mating dogs in religious art?
What did Samuel van Hoogstraten think about the depiction of mating dogs in religious art?