2.2 Hals’s contribution to the major painting projects
The share of work in the Beresteyn portraits discussed above, shows an unexpected use of Frans Hals’s painterly skill. While in this instance the respective allocations to him and to his colleague were the result of particular circumstances, a critical survey of other works demonstrates that there was no hard and fast rule for what Hals executed himself or what he delegated. Anybody wishing to experience Hals at the height of his skill and also within the full range of his ability needs to look at the Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, of 1632-1633 [34]. This substantial project has it all: a composition full of movement, light reflections and luminous colors, the appearance of different characters, as well as the shimmer of weapons, flags and sashes. The master and several other hands were involved in this project. Hals’s touch shows in the whole as well as in the detail: in the overall composition, in the characterization of the faces, and in many masterly representations of details in the clothing and weaponry. At the same time, an equal number of details can be attributed to Hals’s assistants, especially in the heads, collars, and clothing areas.
This group portrait was a demanding team effort organized by Hals upon agreement with the patrons. It started with the grouping of the guardsmen who were to appear and the composition of individual portraits to form a coherent whole. The checkerboard-like division of areas, that was created by the dominating diagonals of sashes and collar edges, creates a framework for the faces and hands. The dark clothing of the figures makes them retreat visually, so that their brightly lit faces become the center of attention. The facial features modelled from a lateral perspective are emphasized in their individuality and captured with sculptural angularity. Still, they are not rigid but arrested in diverse movements. The group of guardsmen on the left half of the composition is gathered around the seated colonel [35]; the turned heads of the two on the side suggest that another observer is about to enter and interrupt their conversation, while the group on the right has an ongoing discussion. It is only the captain standing before the table whose gaze is turned outward, while his body remains turned towards his interlocutors. There is a network of interactions which endures in postures and gestures in this moment of interruption. Nowhere else in European painting has the observation of conversational situations been so varied, and the capture of reactions to arriving observers so differentiated. I could not imagine anything more typical for Frans Hals. The balanced composition and the painterly bravura are so impressive that I could not envisage the idea that some of the brushstrokes could have been made by other painters. But a consideration of my colleague Pieter Biesboer prompted me to undertake a detailed analysis a few years ago, with results that upset my overly superficial assessment.
Biesboer has researched Haarlem inventories from the period 1572-1745, transcribing the entries that are relevant for the provenance of paintings, and published his findings in 2001. In the estate inventory drawn up in 1656 for the deceased mayor Cornelis Adriaensz. Backer († 1655) he found an entry: two portraits of lord burgomaster Backer and his wife.1 Backer had gotten married in December 1630, and in 1633 as well as 1637-1638 he held one of Haarlem’s mayoral positions. He rose to the position of colonel of the Calivermen civic guard and became a representative at the States General from 1646 to 1648. As Backer had been portrayed in Hals’s guardsmen’s portrait of 1632-1633, standing second from the left [36], it is conceivable that the paintings listed in his inventory were also painted by Hals. Furthermore, a comparison with the secure Backer portrait in the civic guard piece may lead to the abovementioned ‘contrafeytsel’ being found among those Hals portraits that are unidentified to date. As a possible candidate, Biesboer suggested Hals’s Portrait of an elderly man in the Frick Collection (A1.41) [37], which had been catalogued there since 1915 as Portrait of a Burgomaster. He compared this massive man with the round bald head and stately appearance with the Backer portrait in Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard. I searched for images that were as detailed as possible and came to the conclusion that the shape of the head, the eyes, and the hair color are different, which led me to abandon the identification of the Frick painting as Cornelis Adriaensz. Backer. But this comparison also made me realize that the Haarlem Backer head could not have been painted by Hals. In contrast to the semi-transparent paint application in the New York portrait, the brushstrokes here are viscous, slightly patchy, with carefully approached strokes and touches instead of a draughtsman’s precision. At an average distance, this manner of painting conveys a fairly plausible representation, but in a critical close-up observation, it appears insecure. This effect can only be explained by an execution based on a fully developed modello whose details were in fact not executed in Hals’s loose brushstroke. If we turn our gaze from left to right in the guardsmen’s group portrait, we discover that all faces in the left half and most of those on the right were executed in opaque soft paint and smooth application. They lack the sketchy brushstroke which is a hallmark of Frans Hals. Analyzing these areas one by one, they share many features typical for Hals but they do not display his execution. This means that Hals captured preparatory portraits of the individual sitters which he had his assistants copy into the final picture. Through corrections during and after this procedure he ensured that everything blended in and that the colors matched. Some final adjustments in the shape of strong dark accents are still visible today – like the dark shadows under the eyebrows or the right nostril of the main figure, colonel Johan Claesz. van Loo († 1660) [38]. In contrast, a single facial area in the second row appears like a signature sample of Hals’s handwriting: the head and collar of sergeant Cornelis Jansz. Ham († 1633) were laid down with a few brushstrokes in thin paint [39]. In this instance, both Hals’s caricature-like sharpness of drawing is present, as well as his fine-tuned sense of brightness and color nuances. From a distance, it is not possible to perceive the delights I found in close inspection. The crisp, riveting observation of characteristic shapes stands out from the merely repetitive and at the same time mitigated execution. The mechanical tracing of the moustache in the case of colonel Van Loo [38] and the ochre tips and dark cast shadows of the moustaches of sergeant Cornelis Jansz. Ham [39], lieutenant Nicolaes Olycan († 1639) – second from the right, and ensign Jacob Hofland – outer left, demonstrate different styles of brushwork.
Reworkings offer another level of encountering Frans Hals, while these should not stand out as a matter of course. Hals applied them in a surprisingly discreet manner. In many areas – clearly visible in the collar of sergeant Dirck Verschuyl († 1679) – the listless initial execution by the assistant remains partly uncovered, left in its provisional state [40]. This includes the fingers which were just softly and partially modelled, the flat ear and the regular preparatory drawing of the tubular folds of the ruff. The latter have become transparent almost throughout by exposure to light. Only the ruff’s lace trim remains more clearly visible. The fact that further reworking was planned but omitted can be seen in the lack of shadow accents which Hals otherwise inserted everywhere with precision. But at least in the face, later additions and corrections are recognizable in this instance. This is the case in the hairline, in the black lines above both upper eyelids, in the strengthening of the right brow, in the cast shadow along the nasal bridge and to the right below the nose, in the brightening streak to the right below the lower lip. Hals corrected the shadow hue while strengthening the streaky, brisk character of the brushwork.
Those who refuse to accept that thirteen of fourteen heads in this group portrait were only executed after Hals’s designs and not by himself down to the last brushstroke, should look at the following enlargement and juxtaposition of pairs of eyes. The simplicity and clarity of the lighter and darker lines and areas in Hals’s confirmed individual portraits demonstrate his astounding capacity for observation and confident skill of representation. On this basis he was able to capture the eye contact and the psychological nuances of the facial expressions in his sitters. At the same time he could condense his visual impression into a pattern of rhythmically arranged brushstrokes by concentrating on a few powerful elements of the facial features. This echoed the movement and momentariness of impressions. The sketchy character of the representation is part of this fleeting impression, but not as a tentative shambles of lines and specks of paint, as demonstrated in the crosshatched and overpainted eyebrows in the Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard [41]. Instead, lines and hatching could become associated with the characteristics of a fleeting reflection of visual impressions. This is the case in the eye areas of the 1630 Portrait of a man with a black hat and gloves in hand, the Portrait of Nicolaes Hasselaer, of c. 1635, and the Portrait of Andries van der Horn, dated 1638 [42].
34
Frans Hals (I), his workshop and Pieter de Molijn
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
canvas, oil paint, 207 x 337 cm
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, inv.no. OS I-112
cat.no. A2.10
35
Detail of fig. 34
Frans Hals (I) and his workshop
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
36
Detail of fig. 34, Cornelis Adriaensz. Backer
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
Executed after a design by Frans Hals (I)
37
Detail of cat.no. A1.41
Frans Hals (I), Portrait of an elderly man, c. 1626-1628
New York, The Frick Collection
© The Frick Collection
38
Detail of fig. 34, Johan Claesz. van Loo
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
Executed after a design by Frans Hals (I)
39
Detail of fig. 34, Cornelis Jansz. Ham
Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
40
Detail of fig. 34, Dirck Verschuyl
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
Executed after a design by Frans Hals (I)
41
Details of fig. 34
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
Executed after a design by Frans Hals (I)
42
Details of:
cat.no. A1.48, Frans Hals (I), Portrait of a man with a black hat and gloves in his hand, 1630, previously New York, art dealer O. Naumann
cat.no. A1.62, Frans Hals (I), Portrait of Nicolaes Hasselaer, c. 1634, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum
cat.no. A1.93, Frans Hals (I), Portrait of Andries van der Horn, 1638, São Paulo, Museu de Arte de São Paulo
43
Detail of fig. 34
Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
44
Detail of fig. 34
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
Executed after a design by Frans Hals (I)
The difference in drawing and painting technique is particularly apparent in the juxtaposition of two details of depictions of the same sitter. Hals painted captain Andries van der Horn (1600-1677) as part of the 1632-1633 group portrait and again in 1638 on the occasion of his marriage to Maria Pietersdr. Olycan (1607-1655). The well-preserved pendant portraits of the couple clearly show Hals’s sensitive manner of painting (A1.93, A1.94). Especially the eye area of the man demonstrates the soft touch of brushwork and the fluent transitions to quite determined accents. In contrast to this sparse and precisely calculated application of paint, the face in the civic guard portrait is covered by an opaque layer of paint. Hard lines surround the eyes and lids, and the eyebrows with the shadows in the eye sockets were darkened by zigzagging lines and grey shades rubbed on top. These observations can be expanded to other motifs whose representation was not transferred into brushwork of flowing segments of paint. As Morelli noticed already, ears and hands with their demanding modelling are also telling in this.2 We juxtapose here only the ears of Cornelis Jansz. Ham and Andries van der Horn. Hals’s reduction of the former’s ear into a pattern of curvatures lit from the side [43] is not present in the ear of the latter [44]. Not only is Van der Horn’s ear set too high and moved laterally, it is also shaped in unnecessary detail. Yet this execution, as well as that in Ham’s, was most likely based on a preliminary portrait captured by Hals. But like all workshop products, these also tend towards figurative representation instead of abstract patterns and visual figures.
When looking in the Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard for a hand painted in Hals’s characteristic manner, I encountered the same situation as in the faces. Only one could be found that was shaped playfully in two or three strokes and twists of the brush: the left hand of lieutenant Hendrick Pot (c. 1580-1657) [45]. This hand is not beautiful in the traditional sense, yet the structuring of the fingers and the subtle variations in lighting have been rendered with very few crisp and confident movements of the flat brush. Similarly modelled hands, built up out of just a few brushstrokes can only be found in the left half of The meagre company (A2.11) [46]. All other hands in the painting fall into the following categories: designed by Hals, executed by assistants on the basis of preparatory studies by the master, and hands that were reworked by him up to a certain extent. Such reworkings can be recognized, for instance, in the hand of captain Johan Schatter († 1673) [47]: the contour of the thumb on the right and on its base, as well as the lines on the cuff could be improving adjustments of an initially only tentatively modelled hand. Less reworking is present in the gloved hand of Johan van Loo [48], in which only the shadows on the right side appear to have been reworked by Hals. The rest of the hand is rendered by means of unusually hesitant light and dark accents. The upper edge of the glove looks as if it could have been removed by an indecisive restoration. Loo’s other hand [49] shows hesitant paint application and unpronounced contours. The unrealistic bend of the fingertips is probably an erroneous interpretation of a later restoration. In the left hand of ensign Jacob Steyn († 1679) [50] contours have gone lost during later reworkings. This hand appears out of proportion and must have been subject to multiple subsequent corrections. Uniform paint application with soft remodeling of the highlights can be observed in the left hand of lieutenant Nicolaes Olycan († 1639) [51]. Here, Hals could at most have painted the shadows underneath the thumb and the fingers. A smooth and stylized rendering on the basis of Hals’s preparatory design is presented in the right hand of lieutenant Jacob Pietersz. Buttinga (1600-1646) [52].
45
Detail of fig. 34
Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
46
Detail of cat.no. A2.11
Frans Hals (I) and Pieter Codde
Militia company of district XI, c. 1633-1637
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum
Executed by Hals
47
Detail of fig. 34
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
Executed after a design by Frans Hals (I)
48
Detail of fig. 34
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
Executed after a design by Frans Hals (I)
49
Detail of fig. 34
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
Executed after a design by Frans Hals (I)
50
Detail of fig. 34
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
Executed after a design by Frans Hals (I)
51
Detail of fig. 34
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
Executed after a design by Frans Hals (I)
52
Detail of fig. 34
workshop of Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
Executed after a design by Frans Hals (I)
If we summarize the observations for all motifs in the group portrait of the Calivermen civic guard, we can conclude that Frans Hals took on the overall planning and the design of the individual figures, their faces, hands and clothing, as well as the weaponry, flags and sashes. Details needed to be laid out and coordinated within the overall context of the composition. For the faces and some hands Hals provided exact templates, being individual studies which needed to be subsequently transferred. In a third stage would Hals become involved in the actual painterly execution. Only rarely was a face or hand taken over by him – he probably did not enjoy painting the same motif twice. Instead, he was responsible for over half of the collars and cuffs, all sashes, flags, and weapons. We encounter his autograph manner in, for instance, the sash of Andries van der Horn [53], where he strongly emphasized the highlights and shadow edges, which appear explicitly as mere brushstrokes, their angular shapes placed in oblique directions. Hals’s characteristic approach of accentuating smooth fabrics – demonstrated in Johan van Loo’s sash [54] – translates to the rendering of the filigree lace structures. In this detail, it is not the fabric as such which is represented, but rather the effect of light on the materials. Once all motifs were in place, the next task was to align the elements that were executed by his assistants and those that were painting by Hals himself. Some strengthening accents are the testimonies of this intervention. And finally, Hals also had to coordinate with his fellow painter, who – either on his own or with assistants – needed to create the background. In this instance it was most likely Pieter de Molijn (1595-1661) again, who had already made important contributions to earlier paintings from the Hals workshop. Comparison of the foliage in the background of Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard [55] with the leaves in Portrait of Isaac Abrahamsz. Massa and Beatrix van der Laen [56] clearly shows an identical approach.
53
Detail of fig. 34
Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
54
Detail of fig. 34
Frans Hals (I)
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
55
Detail of fig. 34
Pieter de Molijn
Meeting of the officers and sergeants of the Calivermen civic guard, c. 1632-1633
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum
56
Detail of cat.no. A2.8
Pieter de Molijn
Portrait of Isaac Abrahamsz. Massa and Beatrix van der Laen, c. 1627
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum