Whistler, on the other hand, with no less subtlety, rendered also the impression that the things seen had made on his imagination. He was an _idealistic impressionist_. He painted, for example, a number of night-scenes, or “nocturnes,” as he called them. The actual objects in them are of less importance than Monet’s haystack, because in the dim light of twilight or night they are only faintly visible. Whistler did not wish us to be aware of the form of the bridge, or the boat, the sea and shore, or whatever the objects may be. He wished us to be conscious of them only as Presences looming up like spirit-forms in the mystery of the uncertain light. Such nocturnes as _Battersea Bridge_ and the sea-shore picture, _Bognor-Nocturne_, appeal to us like Rembrandt’s _Visit to Emmaus_. Just as the latter’s forms were humble, so the bridge itself is an ordinary sort of structure, and the sea-shore and the boats are without any unusual distinction. Yet in each case the scene has been idealised through the mystery of light, and appeals to our spiritual imagination. After two hundred years Rembrandt’s new principle of _idealisation_, founded upon the abstract beauty of light instead of on the abstract perfection of form, has been accepted by modern artists.