IIALS, FRANS, 1584-1666; a Dutch painter second only to Rembrandt. At the time when the Dutch nation fought for independence and won it, Hals appears in the ranks of its military guilds. He was also a member of the chamber of rhetoric, and chairman of the painters' corporation at Haarlem. But irregularities of life marred his success, and in 1654 the forced sale of his pictures and furniture for debt brought him into absolute penury. At one time his rent and firing were paid by the municipality, which afterwards gave him an annuity of 200 forms.ls's pictures illustrate the various strata of society into which his misfortune led him. His banquets or meetings of officers, of sharpshooters, and guildsmen 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 arc true and noble, but hardly so expressive as those of fish wives and tavern heroes. His first master was Van dander, the painter and historian.
Of his numerous children, the best known is FRANS HALS, the Younger, 1622-69. llis 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 Mils, DIRK IIALS, his brother, 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 characterized his brother. He remains second on his own ground to Palamedes. A fair specimen of his art is a "Lady playing ma Harpsichord to a Young Girl and-her Lover" in the Van der Hoop collection at Amsterdam. More characteristic. but not better, is a large company of gentlefolk rising from dinner, in the academy at Vienna.