Frans Hals is definitely one of the greats.
There's only a few artists in the Baroque period
who really manages to elevate portraiture to another level.
Frans Hals is one of them.
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Frans Hals was born in Flanders in Antwerp
in the early 1580s, 1582, '83, '84.
He must only have been a few years old
when the family decides to move north
to the Netherlands as many Flemish people did,
possibly for religious reasons,
sometimes for economic reasons.
They settle in Haarlem and he eventually becomes a painter
and he becomes one of the most extraordinary,
portrait painters in Western art.
Frans Hals enters a scene that is established,
and yet, he completely changes it
through the kind of portraits that he makes.
And I think that is the interesting bit
that someone can take on a genre
that in itself is actually very functional.
Portraiture, after all, is about commemorating.
So, it has a definite function.
It's also for that reason that often it was considered
to be not the highest calling
in art because it is mimetic.
You want to catch someone's likeness,
and that is you could argue a sort of manual task
rather than something that requires imagination.
And yet, in the hands of great artists,
portraiture becomes something else,
comes into its own and becomes an art form.
I think the beauty of Frans Hals is
that he characterises people so incredibly well.
They may not have this sort of psychological depth
of a Rembrandt,
but they do have far more of an immediacy
that makes you think
as if you are actually encountering a person
from another era.
Who you can actually relate to,
or you would almost want to ask them a question
or you would want to react to their smile.
He knows how to bring that out far more
than any other painter of the period.
So, the appeal of Frans Hals lies in the fact
that we can relate to these people,
we can recognise them as one of our own.
That is something that he does better than anyone else.
Frans Hals' method of working is quite extraordinary
in the sense that he works largely alla prima,
alla prima meaning that you go straight
with your paint onto the canvas.
You might outline the figure a little bit
in sort of brown underpaint,
but then you pretty much go straight onto the canvas
with what you want to convey.
You work wet on wet,
so you don't wait for the paint to dry.
You let paints flow into each other with brush strokes,
that sort of blend.
That's sort of what I would call, 'drawing with paint'.
And one of the mysteries about Frans Hals is
that we don't have any drawings,
none have survived.
We don't know whether he ever made any drawings,
but if you think of how he works,
it sort of starts to make sense
that actually he didn't feel the need to draw.
It's a very difficult technique, of course.
You need to be an incredibly accomplished painter
to pull that off.
So, it's very fresh,
it's very immediate and incredibly spontaneous.
The 'Young Man holding a Skull' is a great example
of the virtuosity of Frans Hals' brushwork.
You look, for example,
at the way that the hand comes out towards the viewer.
And if you look at how that's done
with just a few brush strokes,
the foreshortening of the hand,
the feeling of movement there is absolutely immediate.
You know, it draws your attention.
It's done with so few brush strokes in such an assured way.
And the same goes for, you know,
the way the face is built up,
the way that the hair is done very quickly,
sometimes with fairly dry paint
to create the sort of frizziness of hair.
The same with a plume done
with these beautiful brush strokes.
And his slightly sideward glance,
it would've been less powerful
I think, if he would've looked straight at you,
it would've been too obvious.
The fact that he looks slightly away
gives a tremendous presence.
I think that Frans Hals had this amazing ability
to convert what he observed into paint flowing
from his brush
and that's what makes his portraiture become something else
than just a record of someone.
It becomes a work of art, essentially.
I think that is the great accomplishment.
He really makes you feel that when you look
at his paintings,
it's almost like a visceral experience.
You feel like you're in the presence of these people
and you think you get to know what their character is.
So, the combination of the quick style
of painting and the tremendously well-characterised faces
that he manages to catch is what made his name.
And I think that is also what appeals
to us now that we feel that we make this connection
with someone who lived many centuries ago.
Sometimes we don't even know their names.
These portraits sometimes lost their identity, as it were.
And it doesn't matter,
because we still feel that we encounter a real person.
It's a measure of Frans Hals' genius
that he manages to make portraits
so interesting that even if we don't know who they are,
these are still works that we want to look at.
It's the way that people are characterised.
It's the way that they're painted.
He allows himself
or the patron allows the artist far more freedom
in how they're portrayed.
And there's a tremendous nonchalance in the way that some
of his sitters come across,
which is quite extraordinary
and that makes Frans Hals so unique.
He allows not just through his brushwork
which is incredibly free,
but that he allows the same sort
of freedom in the way that he portrays people
and the way that he brings out their character.
And he also tackles group portraits.
Group portraits are difficult,
because you have a lot of figures in one scene.
You have to avoid it looking slightly boring, essentially,
because they could become ever so many portraits.
But Frans Hals really knew how to make them interact
and be in conversation with each other, gesturing.
And again, this really gives you the feeling
as if you are witnessing a specific moment.
People are caught sort of in mid movement
and he's equally good
at capturing people smiling or even laughing.
It's something that most artists would avoid simply,
because it's too difficult.
You know, it's very difficult to catch someone smiling
or laughing without it becoming a grimace
or you know or something forced.
We have to remember,
this is before the age of photography, obviously.
And yet, there is a sort of photographic quality
to how he catches a moment.
And I think that is what made him
such a great portrait painter.
I mean, people sit still for a portrait, don't they?
Or at least that is what we say.
I've often wondered to what extent people
actually had to sit still when they sat for Frans Hals,
because he's so interested in capturing people's behavior
almost, the way that they come across,
which is not something that naturally appears
if you just sit still for someone.
We have no records to prove it one way or the other.
We just don't know.
But I wonder whether people when they sat
for Frans Hals actually had to sit still
or were just allowed to chat and be themselves.