was a portrait painter and portraitist of the "Golden Age" of Dutch art in the 17th century. He is considered one of the world's greatest portraitists. Hals was able to capture a wide range of human expressions and facial expressions, and painted mainly the wealthy Dutch middle class of the time. He painted genre scenes.
François Hals was born in Antwerp in 1582 or 1583. He was the son of Franchoys Hals, a cloth worker from Mechelen. His mother was Adriana van Geertenryck from Antwerp. After the invasion of Antwerp by the Catholic Spanish army in 1585, the Hals family moved to the Protestant Dutch city of Harlem. Frans Hals had two brothers: Dirk Hals (1591-1656) became a well-known painter, and his brother Jost (d. 1626) probably also painted, although neither is known. According to Karel van Mander, Frans Hals studied painting with him. This is stated in his theoretical work on painting of 1604, but Hals was probably not much influenced by this teaching, as the principles of painting taught by Karel van Mander are not evident in his work. In general, very little is known about Frans Hals' life and studies before the age of 30.
"Laughing Boy" (c.1625, Mauricheis, The Hague)
Frans Hals is first mentioned as an artist in 1610, when he joined the Guild of Painters of St. He had a wife, Annetje Harmansdr, who died in 1615 and left two children. In 1616, Hals was in Antwerp. In 1617, he married for the second time, Lysbeth Reynier, who was a tempestuous character. With her, the painter had at least 8 children. A son from his first marriage, Harmen (1611-1669), and three sons from his second marriage, Frans the Younger (1618-1669), Reynier (1627-1671) and Nicolas (1628-1686), all became painters. One of the daughters was married to a painter. Frans Hals painted mainly portraits, genre scenes of domestic life and fictional portraits of 4 evangelists. From 1612 to 1624, Frans Hals was the local painter of the St. He was a member of the St. George's Civil Guard from 1616 to 1616. Hals depicted this guard in his first group portrait of 1616. Frans Hals painted about 10 group portraits for various institutions in Harlem.
In 1628, Frans Hals was cited as a talented portraitist who was able to convey the characters of his subjects. Despite his fame and commissions for large group portraits, Hals lived a poor life. In the mid-1630s, he was sued for debts by a butcher, a baker and a tanner. In 1654 he repaid the debt to the baker with household goods and a few of his paintings. It was only from 1662 that the painter's financial situation was alleviated by a one-off grant of 50 guilders and an annual grant of 150 guilders from the town council, which was increased to 200 guilders at the end of 1663. Houbraken, a later chronicler, attributed Hals's poverty to his predatory nature and his puppetry. There is no evidence for this, and it is suggested that, as in the case of Jan Sten, the chronicler made it up on the basis of Hals' genre paintings, which usually depicted merrymakers, puppeteers and musicians.
Frans Hals died on 29 August 1666 and was buried in St Bavon's Church in Harlem. According to Houbraken, the chronicler of Dutch painters, Hals' pupils were Adriaen Brouwer (1605/1606-1638), Dirck van Delen (1604/1605-1671), Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668) and Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685). Hals influenced the paintings of his brother Dirk, as well as Judith Leyster (1609-1660) and her husband Jan Miense Molenaer (c. 1610-1668). Frans Hals painted around 300 paintings.
Frans Hals' authority was not high after his death. His free brushstrokes were not in line with the aesthetic understanding of the general public a few centuries later, which valued idealistic depictions of precise lines and clear shapes. It was only from around 1860, after the flowering of Realist and Impressionist art, that the authority of Frans Hals's work began to grow in the estimation of art historians and the public. Today, along with Rembrandt and Johann Vermeer, Frans Hals is considered one of the three greatest Dutch painters of the 17th century. Harlem is home to the Frans Hals Museum.
