Frans Hals

Hals’ first major commission dates from 1616, the monumental Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Militia of Haarlem (Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem) depicts his own superiors who were leading citizens of Haarlem. It was the first of six large group portraits of militia men ultimately commissioned three years before Rembrandt’s Night Watch in 1639 on the cusp of its declining popularity. Hals’ dynamic composition was by far the most inventive departure from the stiff and stylized treatment of precursors, exemplified by Dirck Jacobsz (1529; Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam). Stylistically Hals took cues from Flemish prototypes which were readily available through prints while his three-month visit to Antwerp, his birth city, in 1616 had a decisive impact. Post-Italy Rubens and the young Jacob Jordaens impressed him, especially the head studies of Jordaens modeled after real sitters and executed with vivacity. Following the earliest example of Merry Makers at Shrovetide (1616; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Hals’ genre scenes mostly date from the 1620s and 30s and employ the Flemish type of merry making commoner type. However, Hals’ sensibility was never threatened by the middle-class obsession with ostentation and material wealth. He was interested in the institution of marriage, family, social milieu, and many of his portrayal of individuals were a ‘tronie’ — a character study representing a certain type — rather than an individualized portrait. Some of his best known works fall into this category: the Laughing Cavelier (1624; Wallace Collection, London), Malle Babbe (ca. 1633-35; Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), Fisherboy (ca. 1630; musée Royal des Beaux-Arts, Antwerp,) and Boy with a Lute (ca. 1625; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).  Many of these single-figure portraits feature a consistent individual light source from the left, casting a shadow behind. With the rise of the art market, the demand for such works peaked in the 1630s and 40s when Rembrandt (1606­–69) took the helm in neighboring Amsterdam. Hals is indebted to Gerrit van Honthorst (1592–1656), the Utrecht Caravaggist for introducing the subject of music players into his repetoire. Hals’ students include Adriaen Brouwer (1605–38) and Adriaen van Ostade (1610–85), Dirck van Delen (1605–71), Philips Wouwerman (1619–68), Judith Leyster (1609–60) – the leading female painter of the seventeenth century – and possibly her husband Jan Miense Molenaer (1610–68).  In the 1650s, the highly finished stillness of Verspronck was the antithesis of Hals. The spontaneity remains constant in his oeuvre but Hals tones down the bright hints of orange and yellows to sober shades of greys in his late works.

In the 1860s Hals was rescued from obscurity by the French critic Theophile Thore, who also rediscovered Vermeer. As a result, Hals was on the shopping list of all gilded-age plutocrats notably the Marquess of Hertford and newly minted Earl of Iveagh in Europe and Henry Clay Frick and Joseph Widener in the United States.