RKD STUDIES

Frans Hals had a special ability to see, and he developed an equally special way of capturing his impressions with his paintbrush. His fascinated gaze was directed towards the emotional reactions he encountered in the faces and postures of his sitters. What became apparent to him in these instances was defined by the knowledge and the perceptual awareness of his time, which was far removed from the present times. Yet even now, many of his observations are still comprehensible to us. Hals’s creations stand out from the large heritage of historical portraits by means of a quality which we – corresponding to his contemporaries – register as ‘liveliness’ in the sitters. One of the reasons for this consistency in perception lies in the fact that Hals’s sketchy manner of representation, reduced to a few emphases, anticipates Modernist forms of expression. This unconventional painter of humans did not work alone, however. The creation of many of his works involved his workshop. So far, it has been difficult to separate joint achievements from individual ones. But thanks to modern imaging techniques we are now in a better position to identify Hals’s own contributions, than we were a few decades ago.

As images and their comparison led to decisive developments in medical surgery, dentistry, or dermatology, detailed reproductions of paintings now provide unequivocal visual material to all interested parties. High-resolution images allow access to the full definition of an artwork’s surface, with every random detail available to enlarge and investigate. They allow observation of the paint layers and let us peer into the gaps of craquelure as an unhindered close-up, without shadows, reflections or other distractions. Through transparent layers they permit us to observe the lines of underdrawings, and in areas of impasto paint application they show the direction of the paint-loaded brush. Any decent computer device also allows to brighten, color-correct, or enhance contrasts for specific areas. In the same process, traces of damage or overpainting become easily recognizable in contrast to the original condition, with further information provided by technical images and reports from conservators. In addition, modern communication technology allows unlimited data storage and the exchange of observations across any border, within seconds.

Our vision, that has been sharpened by these new techniques and possibilities, now permits a new experience of the works of old masters. We become aware of the effect that the visual and figural conceptual world had on earlier generations of our culture. It also becomes clear that our predecessors were mostly concerned with the representation of concepts and the generation of a visual illusion, while individual powers of expression – the unique and individual ‘Art’ that was valued in Modernism – were merely ancillary phenomena. Yet, our technically enhanced point of view now reveals the delicate differences between an average workshop production and the unique individual observation and expression of the master. Outstanding talents like Frans Hals observed the reality as it appeared in front of their eyes, not in its randomness and banality, but through a fascination with its visual appearance and aesthetics of color. These qualities are especially apparent at the micro level of ‘personal handwriting’, where phenomena of light and color are emphasized and rhythmical correspondences with the visible world are suggested. In a portrait painter like Frans Hals the individual representation of these occurrences are concentrated in relatively small islands in the picture plane, mostly in the faces and hands, and occasionally in the odd costume detail. Because of this, many paintings are depicted in this publication on a smaller scale, combined with significantly enhanced details that allow close-up inspection.

Our aim is to emphasize Hals’s autograph contribution and its representational and expressive qualities, which have not been clearly defined to date. Still, the many artworks that involve other hands testify of the existence of the Hals workshop. As with many historical works of literature or music, we do not have a record of who made or reworked which particular detail of the preserved artwork. Differences become apparent even by merely assuming a delegation in the different stages of the creative process and the assignment of particular areas in the composition to workshop assistants or specialists from other workshops. We can find this for example in the landscape backgrounds – a subject ignored or only addressed incidentally in previous literature on Hals. The fact that roughly half of the picture plane in the large Portrait of Isaac Abrahamsz. Massa and Beatrix van der Laen (A2.8) was probably created by a different hand, and a third of the Portrait of Ghijsbert Claesz. van Campen, Maria Joris and their children (A2.3, A2.4, A2.5), has been disregarded to date. The reason was that authorship of these portraits seemed to be determined by the figures, whereas the rest must surely somehow be by Hals as well. Yet, through historical research of craftsmanship and references documented in numerous sources we gained insights into the division of labor in the painter’s workshops of the 17th century, and we find confirmation of this through detailed inspection of the paintings themselves.

With this shifted perspective, many earlier attributions and of course all earlier catalogues raisonnés have become obsolete, as they were based on the wrong assumption: autograph and created by the master, or not. Unconsciously, and especially with regard to Hals, the various and conflicting catalogues all adhere to this approach: Valentiner, Trivas, Slive, Montagni, and equally in my own catalogues of autograph works.¹ Today, we must ask a fundamentally different question: What was created in Hals’s workshop and to what extent was the master involved? The catalogue raisonné I have been working on over the last years follows this approach. It is divided according to the type and the degree of involvement of Hals, and of other hands respectively. The catalogue is structured as follows:

A: original compositions (331)
B: documentary workshop replicas, copies, and variations by other hands (20)
C: prints after modellos and paintings by Frans Hals (64)
D: paintings, drawings, and watercolors as documentary copies (106)
E: unresolved attributions to Frans Hals or his workshop (20)
X: imitations (10)

Within the corpus of original paintings there are different categories, depending on the degree of the master’s involvement. Category A1 comprises paintings that are autograph work by Hals and that were either executed only by him, or reworked by him throughout (120). The paintings in category A2 are partly autograph and created in collaboration with other masters from outside of Hals’s workshop (14). Category A3 comprises paintings that were partly created by the master and partly by assistants (67), while category A4 covers creations by the workshop which do not show Hals’s ‘handwriting’, yet which were made on the basis of his design and preparatory sketches (131). The latter category is subdivided in three groups: A4.1 for small pictures painted after Hals's templates for engravings (18), A4.2 for genre paintings (59), and A4.3 for portraits (55).

Within each category of catalogue part A, the artworks are put in chronological order. Many of them are dated or indirectly datable through copies, pendants, or historical documents. Nearly all remaining paintings can be dated on the basis of the painterly style, and sometimes of the costumes. In addition, there are the results of dendrochronological analysis – which determines the age of a wooden panel by counting its growth rings – and of studying the canvas weave, which can be compared to that of dated paintings. The resulting sequence of works permits a more reliable analysis of the development of Hals’s style of painting than was previously possible, and demonstrates a surprisingly continuous evolution over 50 years.