After Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt van Rijn, Haarlem artist Frans Hals is considered the Netherlands’ most important painter. Frans Hals, born in Antwerp (1582 or 1583), was still a child when his family moved to Haarlem. The painter specialised in both individual and group portraits and never painted any other subjects.
Hals’s portraits are clearly recognisable, due to his signature technique; characterised by a loose style, fl ourishing brushwork and all pulled together by a strict compositional framework. The faces of those he depicted are never rigid, but always seem ready to talk to us or on the brink of laughter.
Unlike Rembrandt, Hals solely painted people and as far as we know he never attempted to inject deeper layers of meaning into his work.
He died on 26 August 1666 and was buried under the choir of the Grote of St-Bavo Church on the Grote Markt in Haarlem. Some of his work can be viewed in Haarlem’s Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, including the eight large group portraits considered the high watermark of his impressive career.
