Frans Hals

HALS, FRANS (158o?-1666), Dutch painter, was born at Antwerp according to the most recent authorities in 158o or 1581, and died at Haarlem in 1666. As a portrait painter second only to Rembrandt in Holland, he displayed extraordinary talent and quickness in the exercise of his art coupled with improvidence in the use of the means which that art secured to him. He brought up and supported a family of ten children with success till 1652, when the forced sale of his pictures and furniture, at the suit of a baker to whom he was indebted for bread and money, brought him to absolute penury. The inventory of the property seized on this occasion only mentions three mattresses and bolsters, an armoire, a table and five pictures. This humble list represents all his worldly possessions at the time of his bankruptcy. Subse quently to this he was reduced to still greater straits, and his rent and firing were paid by the municipality, which afterwards gave him (1664) an annuity of 200 florins. We may admire the spirit which enabled him to produce some of his most striking works in his unhappy circumstances. Hals's pictures illustrate the various strata of society into which his misfortunes led him. His banquets or meetings of officers, of sharpshooters, and gildsmen are the most interesting of his works. But they are not more characteristic than his low-life pictures of itinerant players and singers. His portraits of gentlefolk are true and noble, but hardly so expressive as those of fishwives and tavern heroes. His first master at Antwerp was probably van Noort, as has been suggested by M. G. S. Davies, but on his removal to Haarlem Frans Hals entered the atelier of van Mander, the painter and historian, of whom he possessed some pic tures which went to pay the debt of the baker already alluded to.

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every form of his art we can distinguish his earlier style from that of later years. It is curious that we have no record of any work produced by him in the first decade of his independent activ ity, save an engraving by Jan van de Velde after a lost portrait of "The Minister Johannes Bogardus," who died in 1614. The earli est works by Frans Hals that have come down to us, "Two Boys Playing and Singing" in the gallery of Cassel, and a "Banquet of the officers of the `St. Joris Doele' " or Arquebusiers of St. George (1616) in the museum of Haarlem, exhibit him as a careful draughtsman capable of great finish, yet spirited withal. His flesh, less clear than it afterwards becomes, is pastose and burnished. Later he becomes more effective, displays more freedom of hand, and a greater command of effect. At this period we note the beau tiful full-length of "Madame van Beresteyn" at the Louvre in Paris, and a splendid full-length portrait of "Willem van Heythuy sen" leaning on a sword in the Liechtenstein collection at Vienna. Both these pictures are equalled by the other "Banquet of the offi cers of the Arquebusiers of St. George" (with different portraits) and the "Banquet of the officers of the 'Cloveniers Doelen' " or Arquebusiers of St. Andrew of 1627 and an "Assembly of the offi cers of the Arquebusiers of St. Andrew" of 1633 in the Haarlem Museum. A picture of the same kind in the town hall of Amster dam, with the date of 1637, suggests some study of the master pieces of Rembrandt, and a similar influence is apparent in a pic ture of 1641 at Haarlem, representing the "Regents of the Com pany of St. Elizabeth" and in the portrait of "Maria Voogt" at Amsterdam. But Rembrandt's example did not create a lasting impression on Hals. He gradually dropped more and more into grey and silvery harmonies of tone ; and two of his canvases, exe cuted in 1664, "The Regents and Regentesses of the Oudemannen huis" at Haarlem, are masterpieces of colour, though in substance all but monochromes. In fact, ever since 1641 Hals had shown a tendency to restrict the gamut of his palette, and to suggest col our rather than express it. This is particularly noticeable in his flesh tints which from year to year became more grey, until finally the shadows were painted in almost absolute black, as in the "Tymane Oosdorp," of the Berlin Gallery. As this tendency coin cides with the period of his poverty, it has been suggested that one of the reasons, if not the only reason, of his predilection for black and white pigment was the cheapness of these colours as compared with the costly lakes and carmines.

As a portrait painter Frans Hals had scarcely the psychological insight of a Rembrandt or Velazquez, though in a few works, like the "Admiral de Ruyter," in Earl Spencer's collection, the "Jacob Olycan" at the Hague Gallery, and the "Albert van der Meer" at Haarlem town hall, he reveals a searching analysis of character which has little in common with the instantaneous expression of his so-called "character" portraits. In these he generally sets upon the canvas the fleeting aspect of the various stages of merriment, from the subtle, half ironic smile that quivers round the lips of the curiously misnamed "Laughing Cavalier" in the Wallace Col lection to the imbecile grin of the "Hille Bobbe" in the Berlin Museum.

Though a visit to Haarlem town hall, which contains the five enormous Doelen groups and the two Regenten pictures, is as nec essary for the student of Hals's art as a visit to the Prado in Mad rid is for the student of Velazquez, good examples of the Dutch master have found their way into most of the leading public and private collections. In the British isles, besides the works already mentioned, portraits from his brush are to be found at the National Gallery, the Edinburgh Gallery, the Glasgow Corporation Gallery, Hampton Court, Buckingham Palace, Devonshire House, the collections of Lord Northbrooke, Lord Ellesmere and Lord Spencer and in the Lord Iveagh bequest at Kenwood House. At Amsterdam is the celebrated "Flute Player," once in the Dupper collection at Dort; at Brussels, the patrician "Heythuysen"; at the Louvre, "Descartes"; at Dresden, the painter "Van der Vinne." Hals's sitters were taken from every class of society—admirals, generals and burgomasters pairing with merchants, lawyers, clerks. To register all that we find in public galleries would involve much space. There are eight portraits at Berlin, six at Cassel, five at St. Petersburg, six at the Louvre, two at Brussels, five at Dresden, two at Gotha. In private collections, chiefly in Paris, Haarlem and Vienna, we find an equally important number.

For two centuries after his death Frans Hals 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.

The earliest record of a sale of a Frans Hals in Great Britain is that of 1769 when "A Music Conversation" was bought from the Schaub Collection for £28 by Lord Byron. The portrait of "Johannes Aeronius" now at the Berlin Museum realized five shillings at a sale in 1786. In 1885, Li,000 was still considered a very high price for a work by the master; but in 1913 a picture by him only IIin.x8in., "Portrait of a Lady," fetched while in 1908 the fine large family group from the collection of Lord Talbot of Malahide was acquired by the National Gallery for 125,000. The outcry at the time against this high price has since proved unworthy, for in 1919 at the Drummond sale a much smaller picture, "Portrait of Cozmans," made as much as Of the master's numerous family none has left a name except FRANS HALS THE YOUNGER, born about 1622, who died in 1669. His pictures represent cottages and poultry; and the "Vanitas" at Berlin, a table laden with gold and silver dishes, cups, glasses and books, is one of his finest works and deserving of a passing glance.

Quite in another form, and with much of the freedom of the elder Hals, DIRK HALS, his brother (born at Haarlem, died 1656), is a painter of festivals and ball-rooms. But Dirk had too much of the freedom and too little of the skill in drawing which charac terized his brother. He remains second on his own ground to Palamedes. A fair specimen of his art is a "Lady playing a Harpsichord to a Young Girl and her Lover" in the van der Hoop collection at Amsterdam, now in the Ryks Museum. More characteristic, but not better, is a large company of gentle-folk rising from dinner, in the Academy at Vienna.

See W. Bode, Frans Hals and seine Schule (Leipzig, 1871) ; W. Unger and W. Vosmaer, Etchings after Frans Hals (Leyden, 1873) ; Percy Rendell Head, Sir Anthony Van Dyck and Frans Hals (London, 2879) ; D. Knackfuss, Frans Hals (Leipzig, 1896) ; G. S. Davies, Frans Hals (London, 1902) . W. Bode and M. Binder, Franz Hals, sein Leben and seine Werke (Berlin, 1914) .