It’s hard to recall a news photograph that has tickled our fancy as much as that which appeared on the home page of the New York Times today showing President Obama standing in front of what surely must be one of the greatest paintings ever to be put upon canvas, Rembrandt’s “The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq,” better known as “The Night Watch.” Ordinarily this wouldn’t have been all that remarkable, but stick with us here. It happens that we had but recently watched a video of a flash mob acting out “The Night Watch” in the setting of a modern European shopping mall, in which Cocq’s men run down a rascal who reminds us of no one so much as — let it never be said we lack for imagination — Vladimir Putin.

The flash mob, which is linked above, captures much of the famous imagery of Rembrandt’s masterwork. Franz Banning Cocq is the gent with the red sash; the figure in yellow is Willem van Ruytenburch. They are also said to represent the Protestants and Catholics against the Spaniards. The lass in yellow holds a dead chicken, for a defeated adversary, and the militia’s goblet; the oak leaves in the helmet of the fellow in front of her supposedly is said to be the symbol of the arquebusiers, as long-guns wielding soldiers were called. The video has a comic aspect that reminds us somehow of the running around all the Europeans (and Mr. Obama) are doing in an effort to hale Comrade Putin.

We wouldn’t want to carry the analogy too far — no more than a couple of microns, actually — but the painting is so magnificent and the flash mob so delightful and the Associated Press photo of the President against the background of the Night Watch so arresting that we couldn’t resist. We would never suggest that what Messrs. Obama and Putin and the Europeans are doing today is unimportant. It’ll be remembered for decades. But what are they next to Rembrandt, who dipped but a brush into but some ochre, umber, vermillion, and linseed oil and with a few strokes, painted himself (and Banning Cocq) into a pantheon that will yet be held in awe by young and old a thousand years hence? Let us just say it helps to put things in perspective.