Frans Hals - Biography, Artistic career, Painting technique, Influence, Legacy, Trivia

Portrait and genre painter, probably born in Antwerp, N Belgium. Among his best-known works are ‘The Laughing Cavalier’ (1624, Wallace Collection, London) and ‘Gypsy Girl’ (c.1628–30, Louvre), and several portraits of militia groups, notable for their lively facial expressions, and bold use of colour. After 1640, his mood became more contemplative and sombre, as in ‘Man in a Slouch Hat’ (c.1660–6, Kassel). For most of his life, he lived in Haarlem.

Frans Hals (c.

Biography

Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp. It wasn't until he was 27 that Hals became a member of the Sint-Lucasgilde (St. Lucas Guild).

He took painting lessons from Flemish painter Karel van Mander (1548–1606), who had also fled from the Spaniards, but Mander's ideas are not visible in Hals' work.

Historians have reported that he mistreated his first wife, Anneke Hermansz (Annetje Harmensdochter Abeel), and she died in 1616.

Although Hals' work was in demand throughout his life, he experienced financial difficulties.

At a time when the Dutch nation fought for independence, Hals appeared in the ranks of its military guilds.

Frans Hals died in Haarlem in 1666 and was buried in the city's St. Bavo Church.

Artistic career

Hals is best known for his portraits, mainly of wealthy citizens.

In group portraits, such as the Archers of St. Hadrian, Hals captures each character in a different manner.

His first master at Antwerp was probably Van Noort but he then entered the atelier of painter and historian Carel van Mander. (Hals owned some Mander paintings, that were amongst the items sold to pay his bakery debt in 1652).

Hals was fond of daylight and silvery sheen, while Rembrandt used golden glow effects based upon artificial contrasts of low light in immeasurable gloom. Both men were painters of touch, but of touch on different keys — Rembrandt was the bass, Hals the treble. Hals seized, with rare intuition, a moment in the life of his subjects.

The only record of his work in the first decade of his independent activity is an engraving by Jan van de Velde copied from lost portrait of The Minister Johannes Bogardus. Early works by Hals, such as Two Boys Playing and Singing and a Banquet of the Officers of the St Joris Doele or Arquebusiers of St George (1616), show him as a careful draughtsman capable of great finish, yet spirited withal.

During this period he painted the full-length portrait of Madame van Beresteyn (Louvre), and a full-length portrait of Willem van Heythuysen leaning on a sword. Both these pictures are equalled by the other Banquet of the Officers of the Arquebusiers of St George (with different portraits) and the Banquet of the Officers of the Cloveniers or Arquebusiers of St Andrew of 1627 and an Assembly of the Officers of the Arquebusiers of St Andrew of 1633. A similar painting, with the date of 1637, suggests some study of Rembrandt masterpieces, and a similar influence is apparent in a picture of 1641 representing the Regents of the Company of St Elizabeth, and in the portrait of Maria Voogt at Amsterdam.

From 1620 till 1640 he painted many double portraits of married couples, on separate panels, the man on the left panel, his wife at his right. Only once did Hals portray a couple on a single canvas: Double Portrait of a Couple, (circa 1623, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam).

His style changed throughout his life.

As this tendency coincides with the period of his poverty, some historians have suggested that a reason for his predilection for black and white pigment was the low price of these colors as compared with the costly lakes and carmines.

As a portrait painter Hals had scarcely the psychological insight of a Rembrandt or Velazquez, though in a few works, like the Admiral de Ruyter, the Jacob Olycan, and the Albert van der Meer paintings, he reveals a searching analysis of character which has little in common with the instantaneous expression of his so-called character portraits.

Many of Hals' works have disappeared, but it is not known how many. According to the most authoritative present day catalogue, compiled by Seymour Slive in 1970-1974 (Slive's last great Hals exhibition catalogue followed in 1989), another 222 paintings can be ascribed to Hals. Another authority on Hals, Claus Grimm, believes this number to be lower (145) in his Frans Hals.

It is not known whether Hals ever painted landscapes, still lifes or narrative pieces, but it is unlikely. Many artists in the 17th century in Holland opted to specialise, and Hals also appears to have been a pure portrait specialist.

Painting technique

People often think that Hals 'threw' his works 'in one toss' (aus einem Guss) onto the canvas. It does seem that Hals usually applied his underpainting very loosely: he was a virtuoso from the beginning. Hals displayed tremendous daring, great courage and virtuosity, and had a great capacity to pull back his hands from the canvas, or panel, at the moment of the most telling statement.

'An unusual manner of painting, all his own, surpassing almost everyone,' ('Een onghemeyne [ongewone] manier van schilderen, die hem eyghen is, by nae alle [iedereen] over-treft'), wrote his first biographer, Schrevelius, in the 17th century on Hals' painting methods. For that matter, schematic painting was not Hals' own idea (the approach already existed in 16th century Italy), and Hals was probably inspired by Flemish contemporaries, Rubens and Van Dyck, in his painting method.

As early as the 17th century, people were struck by the vitality of Frans Hals' portraits. Centuries later Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo: 'What a joy it is to see a Frans Hals, how different it is from the paintings – so many of them – where everything is carefully smoothed out in the same manner.' Hals chose not to give a smooth finish to his painting, as most of his contemporaries did, but mimicked the vitality of his subject by using smears, lines, spots, lines, spots, large patches of colour and hardly any details.

It was not until the 19th century that his technique had followers, particularly among the Impressionists.

Influence

Frans influenced his brother Dirck Hals (born at Haarlem, 1591-1656) who was also a painter. Four of his sons followed in his path and became painters:

Harmen Hals (1611–1669) Frans Hals Junior (1618–1669) Reynier Hals (1627–1672) Nicolaes Hals (1628–1686)

Of the master's numerous family members only Franz Hals the Younger (1622–1669) is notable, with paintings of cottages and poultry.

Quite in another form, and with much of the freedom of the elder Hals, Dirk Hals, his brother, painted festivals and ballrooms.

Other contemporary painters who took inspiration from Frans Hals were:

Jan Miense Molenaer (1609–1668) Judith Leyster (wife of Molenaer) (1609–1660), Haarlem Adriaen van Ostade (1610–1685), Haarlem Adriaen Brouwer (1605–1638), South Low Countries Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck (1597–1662), Haarlem Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613–1670), Amsterdam

Often it is suggested that many painters were students of Hals. Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne, according to his son, and Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraten, according to a notarised document (he also became a son-in-law of Hals) were students of Hals. The Haarlem portrait painter, Johannes Verspronck, one of about 10 competing portraitists in Haarlem at the time, possibly studied for some time with Hals.

In terms of style, the closest to Hals' work is the handful of paintings that are ascribed to Judith Leyster, which she often signed.

Two centuries after his death, Hals received a number of 'posthumous' students. Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Charles-François Daubigny, Max Liebermann, James Whistler, Gustave Courbet, and in the Netherlands, Jacobus van Looy and Isaac Israëls are some of the Impressionists and realists who have delved deeply into the work of Hals by making study copies of his work and further building on his techniques and style. Many of them travelled to the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem (since 1913 on the Groot Heiligland, and before that in the Town Hall), where several of his most important works were, and are, kept.

Legacy

Hals' reputation waned after his death and for two centuries he was held in such poor esteem that some of his paintings, which are now among the proudest possessions of public galleries, were sold at auction for a few pounds or even shillings.

Starting at the middle of the 19th century his prestige rose again.

Hals' works have found their way to countless other cities all over the world and into museum collections.

A primary collection of his work is displayed in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem.

Trivia

Frans Hals was pictured on the Dutch 10-guilder banknote.