FRANS HALS was a Baroque painter who practised intimate realism and was one of the most sought-after painters of his generation. Now, a new exhibition – the first major retrospective of Hals in more than 30 years – means a new generation can discover why he deserves his place as one of the greatest painters in Western art. By Adrian Mourby
F RANS HALS THE ELDER is one of the reasons we know what the Dutch Golden Age looked like. This famous trading era began in 1588, when the free Dutch Republic was established, and ended in 1672 with the Rampjaar (Disaster Year) when France and its allies overran the most prosperous and advanced country in Europe.
By this time Hals (1582-1666) and Rembrandt (1606-1669) were dead. Vermeer would die three years later. Between them, these men – and a few others – left behind a detailed visual account of how the wealthy Dutch middle classes lived, and looked, at a time when their trade, science and art dominated Europe.
Frans Hals was born in Antwerp when it was still part of the Spanish Netherlands. Six years later, the Dutch Republic was declared. By the time Hals was a young adult, the occupation of a painter in Holland had changed radically. Historical canvases had fallen out of fashion and, with the departure of the Catholic Spanish, so had religious art.
The National Gallery’s new exhibition concentrates on Hals as a portraitist and recorder of domestic life. Among the self-confident middle-class Dutch there was a huge market for art that held up a mirror to their daily lives.
“Hals was one of the greatest portrait painters of all time,” says Bart Cornelis, Curator of this Credit Suisse Exhibition. It is very exciting to be able to present the first major monographic show devoted to him in the past 30 years. No museum has, during that time, attempted to present a survey of his work. This means that no one under the age of 40 has been able to acquaint themselves with his genius.”
Like Rembrandt, his junior by 24 years, Hals was often commissioned to paint groups of gentlemen. In 1627 his Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard captures 11 ▶
gentlemen of Haarlem in what appears to be a frozen moment of conviviality. However, Hals’ seeming realism and informality are illusions as the painting was roughed out in a studio and then each member of the militia came in subsequently to have his features added. Nevertheless, Hals created the impression that the members of this group were talking amongst t
