Frans Hals, 1582-1666, was born in Antwerp, Netherlands.

Frans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter, normally of Portraits. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork. And he helped introduce this lively style into Dutch Art. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group portraiture. He studied under Karel Van Mander, whose Mannerist influence is barely noticeable in Hal’s work. His earliest known example of art is the portrait of Jacobus Zaffius (1611). His breakthrough came with the life-sized group portrait, The Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Militia Company in 1616. His most noted portrait is the one of René Descartes he made in 1649. Hal’s work was in demand through most of his life but he lived so long that he eventually went out of style as a painter and he experienced financial difficulties. Hal’s is best known for his portraits, mainly of wealthy citizens; he also painted large group portraits for local civic guards and local hospitals. He was a Golden Age painter who practiced intimate realism with a radically free approach. His paintings illustrate various strata of society: banquets of guildsmen, local members from mayors to clerks, itinerant players, singers gentlemen, fishwives and tavern heroes. In his group portraits he captures each character in a different manner. The faces are clearly distinguishable, with their personalities revealed in a variety of poses and facial expressions. Hal’s was fond of daylight and silvery sheen. Hals and Rembrandt were painters of touch, but of touch on different keys— Rembrandt was the bass and Hals the treble. Hals seized a moment in life of his subjects with rare intuition. What nature displayed in that moment, he reproduced thoroughly in a delicate scale of colour, and with mastery over every form of expression. He was so clever, that exact tone, light, shade and modelling were obtained with a few marked fluid strokes of the brush. Early works of Hals show him as a careful draughtsman capable of great finish yet spirited. The flesh that he painted was less clear, but later he displayed more freedom of hand and a greater command of effect. His style changed throughout his life. Vivid colours were gradually replaced by pieces where one colour dominated: black. His trademark pose was: looking over the back of a chair. Later in his life his brushstrokes became looser, fine detail becoming less important than the overall impression. His earlier works radiated gaiety and liveliness, but the later portraits emphasized the stature and dignity of the people portrayed. This austerity is displayed in a painting in 1641 and two decades later in a painting in 1664 which are masterpieces of colour, but are in monochrome. As a portrait painter, Hals had scarcely the psychological insight of a Rembrandt or a Velázquez, though in a few paintings, like the Jacob Olycan, he reveals a searching analysis of character, which has little in common with the instantaneous expressions of his so-called character-portraits, which express for example, various stages of merriment, from the subtle, and half-ironic smile, and so on. Hals was a master of technique, that utilised something which was previously seen as a flaw in painting: the visible brushwork. The soft curling lines of Hals brush are always clear upon the surface; materially just lying there but conjuring substance and space in the eye. Lively and exciting, the technique can appear ostensibly slapdash. The impression is not correct. True, the odd work was largely put down without underdrawings or under painting, but most of the works were created in successive layers, as was customary at that time. Sometimes a drawing was done in chalk or paint, on top of a grey or pink undercoat, and then, more or less filled in. It does seem that Hals usually applied his underpainting loosely: he was a virtuoso from the beginning. This applies to his genre work, and to his somewhat later mature works. He displayed tremendous daring, courage and virtuosity, and had a great capacity to pull back his hands from the canvas or panel at the moment of the most telling statement. He didn’t paint them with perfect accuracy and diligence but painted upto the point he felt needed. Hals was probably inspired by the Flemish painters Rubens and Van Dyck, in his painting method. Hals chose not to give a smooth finish to his paintings, but mimicked the vitality of his subjects by using smears, lines, spot, large patches of colour and hardly any details. It was not until the 19th century that his technique had followers, particularly among the Impressionists. Pieces such as The Regentesses of the Old Men’s Alms House and the civic guard paintings demonstrate the technique to the fullest.