The majority of seventeenth-century Dutch artists specialized in certain types of painting. Only Rembrandt and Vermeer seem truly universal in the sense that they ventured into every aesthetic and spiritual field. While Rembrandt's brilliance has always been generally accepted, Vermeer was for a long time practically indistinguishable from his contemporaries. The more one examines Vermeer, the more one realizes that here is an artist who, though less explicitly; is probably as great as Rembrandt.