He was born in Antwerp, the son of Flemish parents who moved to Holland after the city fell to the Spaniards in
1585. His parents had settled in Haarlem by 1591 and Frans Hals spent his long life there. Frans Hals was twice married, had at least ten
childred, and was constantly in financial trouble. Houbraken says the artist was `filled to the girls every evening', but there is no
real foundation for the popular image of him as a drunken wife-beater. His second wife, however, was more than once in trouble for
brawling. During his last years Frans Hals was destitute and the municipal authorities of Haarlem awarded him a small annuan stipend four years before his death.
He was the first great artist of the 17th-century Dutch school and is regarded as one of the most brilliant of all
portraitists. Almost all Frans Hals paintings are portraits and even those that are not (some genre scenes, and an occasional religious
picture) are portrait-like in character. He is said to have been taught in Haarlem by Karel van Mander, but there is no
discernible influence from him in early Frans Hals art, which are not numerous or well documented.
From 1616 onwards there is no shortage of dated or documented paintings and his artistic development is clear. Frans Hals was at the height
of his popularity in the 1620s and 1630s. During these decades the painter made five large
group portraits of civil guards; one is in the Rijksmuseum and the others are in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, the only place
where one can get a comprehensive view of his range and power.
In the 1630s his compositions became simpler and monochromatic effects took the place of the bright colors of the earlier Frans Hals paintings
(Lucas de Clercq and Feyntje van Steenkiste, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1635). The group portrait of the Regents of the St Elizabeth
Hospital (Frans Hals Museum, 1641) sets the key for the sober restraint of the late period, when
Frans Hals Portraits became darker and his
brush-strokes more economical. The culmination of this phase -- indeed of his entire career -- are his group portraits of
the Regents and the Regentesses of the Old Men's Alms House, which rank among the most moving portraits
ever painted. By this time he was using in his commissioned portraits the bold brushwork and the alla prima technique which
early in his career Hals Frans reserved for genre pictures. No drawings by him are known and he presumably worked straight on to the canvas. |
Toperfect Group