# HALS, Frans [View the canonical artist record]() ## Artist - Lifespan: 1580–1666 - Profession: painter - School: Dutch ## Biography Frans Hals was the great 17th-century portraitist of the Dutch bourgeoisie of Haarlem, where he spent practically all his life. Hals evolved a technique that was close to impressionism in its looseness, and he painted with increasing freedom as he grew older. The jovial spirit of his early work is typified by the Shrovetide Revellers \(Merry Company, c. 1615; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York\). In middle age his portraits grew increasingly sad, revealing sometimes a sense of foreboding \(e.g., Nicolaes Hasselaer, 1630-33; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam\). The paintings of his old age show best his genius for portraying character \(e.g., Man in a Slouch Hat, 1660-66; Staatliche Museen, Kassel\). Early life and works Frans Hals left no written evidence about his life or his works, and only a brief outline of his biography is known. He was the son of a clothworker from Mechelen \(Malines\) and of a local girl, and the family moved from Spanish-held Flanders to Haarlem in the free Netherlands by 1591 at the latest; the local townhall records give this date for the christening of Frans's younger brother Dirck, who also became a painter. Except for a brief visit to Antwerp in 1616, Hals lived all his life in Haarlem. What he did for the first 25 or 30 years of his life is not known. The earliest indication of his activity as an artist was that about 1610 he joined the Guild of St Luke of Haarlem, a body empowered to register artists as masters. Shortly afterward he married his first wife, Annetje Harmensdochter Abeel. She bore him two children before her death in 1615. Two years later, Hals married Lysbeth Reyniers, who was to survive her husband by some nine years. In all, Hals had 10 children, and 5 of his 8 sons became painters. None, however, was of note. Tradition has it that Frans Hals was the pupil of Carel van Mander, a minor painter and poet who helped found a successful painting academy at Haarlem. There is no evidence either to support this claim or to refute it. From the beginning, however, Hals's work conflicted with the typical mannerisms of his presumed master. His early work is actually closer in spirit to that of Jacob Jordaens, who was an outstanding Baroque painter from Antwerp and a pupil of Peter Paul Rubens. The good humour of Hals's popular scenes recalls the joyous gatherings painted by the contemporary Dutch followers of the earthy, sensuous Italian painter Caravaggio. Frans Hals seems, from the evidence of extant works, to have begun his career with sober portraits and with group portraits of members of the local guilds and military societies. The best of these early works - which already shows complete competence in portraiture - is a monumental painting entitled Banquet of Officers of the Civic Guard of St. George at Haarlem \(1616; Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem\), painted with a loose brushstroke technique that is unlike anything else in Dutch art of the time. It already has a sense of life and of relationship between the figures that was then unknown in this type of subject matter. By about 1620, however, Hals had begun to introduce into his paintings the jovial spirit that characterized his early works and that portrays with accuracy and enthusiasm one important aspect traditionally ascribed to Dutch character. Many of his portraits are simply pictures of merrymakers. The portrait of Hans Wurst in The Merry Company shows the sitter in a tall, wide-brimmed hat, wearing a necklace made of pig's feet, herrings, and eggs. The portrait of Mr. Verdonck \(c. 1627\) shows the subject joyfully brandishing the jawbone of a horse. Similar in spirit are the portrait of Peeckelhaering \(c. 1628-30\) clenching his beer mug, The Merry Drinker, and two later portraits, a picture entitled Malle Babbe \(1633-35; Staatliche Museen, Berlin\), which portrays an old madwoman laughing, with an owl perched on her shoulder, and a joyful picture in the Louvre Museum of a laughing, carelessly dressed Gypsy Girl \(1628-30\). In Hals's group portraits, to… ## Related artworks - [A Young Man in a Large Hat]() - [Andries van der Horn]() - [Anetta Hanemans]() - [Anna van der Aar]() - [Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard Company]() - [Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard \(detail\)]() - [Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard]() - [Banquet of the Officers of the St Hadrian Civic Guard Company]() - [Boy holding a Flute \(Hearing\)]() - [Boy Playing a Violin]() - [Boy with a Lute]() - [Buffoon Playing a Lute]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()