How Art Rose With The Dutch Republic

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

The Work Of Frans Hals And Rembrandt

Shortly before the Spanish army began its seven months siege of Haarlem in the winter of 1572-3, a burgher of that city named Pieter Hals made his escape with his wife and family, and found shelter in Antwerp. Well for the world that he did so, for had he taken part in the heroic defence of his native city he might have been killed in the general butchery that followed when the Spaniards at last took the town; and then one of the world’s greatest painters would never have been born.

Of the life of his son comparatively little is known, but it tolerably certain that Frans Hals was born at Antwerp in 1580, that is to say, about five years after El Greco’s arrival in Spain. Exactly when the Hals family returned to Haarlem is not known, but since the younger son, Dirk Hals (1591-1656), is reputed to have been born in Haarlem, it may be conjectured that the Hals family returned some time between 1590 and 1600. By the latter date Frans Hals was certainly working in Haarlem, and there he remained all his life.

The police records of Haarlem show that on February 20, 1616, Frans Hals was summoned for maltreating his wife (Anneke Hermans), was severely reprimanded, and dismissed on the undertaking that he would eschew drunken company and reform. On this one fact, which is indisputable, gossip has built up a legend that Hals was a man of imperfect morals and a continuous and habitual drunkard. But, as Mr Gerald S Davies has pointed out, drunkenness is not only a moral but a physical matter, and it is physically impossible that a confirmed inebriate should have had a hand steady enough to paint the pictures Hals painted when he was sixty and older.

We must admit an ugly passage in the painter’s life—though, as a Scottish critic once observed, we do not know what provocation Hal’s wife gave him—and we must conclude that his first marriage was miserable. The poor woman died soon after the police court case—though not, it would seem, as the result of her husband’s misconduct—and a year later Hals married again. His second wife became the mother of many children, surviving her husband after fifty years of married life, and since she never had occasion to take him to the police court, we may reasonably conclude that Hals was not an habitual wife beater.

He appears to have been a jovial and very human beings, fond of a glass in good company, and now and then, perhaps taking one too many; a real Bohemian, as his paintings of gypsies and strolling players attest; but he was not a social outcast, or he would not have been constantly employed by respectable citizens and important corporations, nor would he at the age of sixty four have been appointed a director of the Guild of St Lucas, which protected the interests of the artists and craftsmen of Haarlem.

Yet towards the end of his life, when his honorable position cannot be assailed, he was in sad financial difficulties. At one time he supplemented his income by teaching, and Adriaen Brouwer (1605-38) and A J van Ostade (1610-85) were among his pupils; but this connection did not last, and in 1652 he was distrained upon for debt by his baker, Jan Ykess. Ten years later his distress was such that he had to apply to the Municipal Council for aid, and was given the sum of 100 florins; two years later he had to apply again, and this time (1664) the Council voted the old man a yearly pension of 200 gulden. That year Hals, now eighty four years of age, painted his last two pictures, portraits of the ‘Managers of the Almshouses at Haarlem,’ and in 1666 he died, and was buried on September 7 in the choir of the Church of St Bavon.

Properly to appreciate the art of Frans Hals, there is one thing we must never forget, namely, that all the work of his maturity was done during the excitement of war. It was a war which must have thrilled every Dutchman through and through, for it was waged to defend hearth and home and to deliver the fatherland from a foreign yoke; it was a war in which one of the smallest nations in Europe had the hardihood to challenge the mightiest empire of the time. It began in 1568, about twelve years before Hals was born, and as he grew up the apparent hopelessness of the conflict disappeared, and the gaiety and elation of victory in sight began to sparkle in his paintings. When Hals first painted the officers of the St Joris’ Shooting Guild in 1616 the issue was still doubtful; when he painted the last of his great series of military groups in 1639, again of the ‘Officers of St Joris’ Shooting Guild,’ the ultimate triumph of Holland was a foregone conclusion. In the earliest group many of the faces appear anxious and worried, but see how happy they all are even in the ‘Reunion of the Officers of the Guild of Archers of St Adriaen’, a picture painted in 1633. These stout fellows bear their fortune with varying demeanors; some are smiling and jovial, some are grave and stern, one or two are evidently elated, one of two are thoughtful, but all are confident. In no countenance can a trace of doubt be felt, and their freedom from anxiety finds its parallel in the flowing brush of the painter, equally confident and unerring.

How Art Rose With The Dutch Republic (continued)