RKD STUDIES

Following on from the previous observations, it is an advanced rationality of perception and pictorial representation of warm-blooded human beings, which distinguishes Hals’s painting from the achievements of most of his contemporaries, but also from those of his own assistants. While distinctively different from Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), Hals is not dissimilar in his thorough attention to visual qualities that became the focus for his compositions. The critical awareness of possibilities and limits of his representation led him to concentrate on the facial features, with everything else subordinated to it. Hals accentuated the face in a phase of characteristic motion and set the lens in focus there. The remaining setting was treated as a tapestry of shimmering impressions, which did adequately capture the qualities of the objects but reduced them through the lighting into superficial effects. This refraining from representing the secondary elements distinguishes Hals’s work from that of many brilliant contemporaries who were less aware of the psychology of their representation. An example dated to 1639 by the successful portrait virtuoso Michel van Mierevelt (1566-1641) shows his unthinkingly, veristic rendering of the clothing and an emphasis on the accurate representation of the expensive starched ruff – in contrast to the slightly out-of-focus depiction of the collar in Hals’s painting, which is precisely observed as well, but condensed into a visual impression of the interplay of bright and dark ornaments [84][85][86][87]. In the ruff in the 1638 Portrait of Andries van der Horn the abstraction of the motifs takes on an even greater life of its own [88][89].

84
Michiel van Mierevelt
Portrait of a 54 year-old man, dated 1639
Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, inv./cat.nr. NM 7655
© Artcurial

85
Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of a man, c. 1637-1638
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv./cat.nr. 1276
cat.no. A1.86

86
Detail of fig. 84
Michiel van Mierevelt
Portrait of a 54 year-old man, 1639
Stockholm, Nationalmuseum
© Artcurial

87
Detail of fig. 85
Frans Hals (I)
Portrait of a man, c. 1637-1638
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen

Once recognized, Hals’s play with abstract shapes can be traced throughout his oeuvre. The earliest example of a ruff akin to licking flames can be found in the Portrait of Isaac Abrahamsz. Massa of 1622 [90], sadly much abraded and hardly visible through the effects of lead white saponification. Here, the peaks of the folds have been alternately applied with the tip of the brush and scratched into the soft paint with the end of the brush [91]. But in this painting, Hals even went a step further in his play with ornaments. The sitter’s crossed arms with the ring-shaped golden ornaments appear to be doubling the curling folds in the white ruff [92]. Successful contemporary portrait painters, ranging from Michiel van Mierevelt to Bartholomeus van der Helst (c. 1613-1670), were able to combine the representation of their sitters with elements of demeanor and clothing that indicated wealth and social status. They could make the faces shine through the light reflections of the white collars and give their sitters a truly glamorous image by manifesting the elegance of their accoutrements. Yet, such visual and cosmetic magnifications are superficial enhancements used to visualize social status. They contrast with Hals’s representations, which translate the characteristics of prestige into a play of light reflections and visionary fantasy.

92
Detail of fig. 90
Frans hals (I)
Portrait of Isaac Abrahamsz. Massa, 1622
Chatsworth, The Devonshire collections
© The Devonshire collections, Chatsworth

The dissemination of high-resolution images of works of art has led to many new discoveries. An unexpected finding concerns the extent to which Frans Hals concentrated on the seemingly marginal areas of his paintings; that their execution was even sometimes as important for him as that of the faces. Clearly, his interest was not in lavishness, as much as in the visual impressions his pictures made. The artist apparently so superficially ‘Impressionist’ was also a ‘fijnschilder’ when it comes to the sense of effect in filigree structures. The fact that it was Frans Hals himself and not an extra specialist who took on the ornaments is apparent in the consistent quality of these executions in his work over decades. Hals’s representation of minor and fine details was a specialty which his assistants found hard to emulate, as becomes evident in the scrutiny of embellishments of fabrics and shiny metal. Yet his focus was not on astonishing powers of imitation but rather on scintillating visual effects which created shapes of their own. For example, Hals took pleasure in generating striking impressions in the furthest corners and edges of his pictures, as could already be seen in the cushions, tablecloths, and weapons in the group painting of 1616 [93][94][95]. Hals’s interest in shimmering surfaces pervades his entire painterly oeuvre and develops stylistically in a characteristic way. The transformation can be demonstrated here in two arm areas, one from the 1624 Laughing cavalier (A1.16) [96] and one from the 1645 Portrait of Jasper Schade (A1.115) [97]. The representational ornamentation of embroidery and brocade is replaced by abstract patterns. The most extreme point of this development can be seen in the white puff sleeves and cuffs in the group portrait of the Regents of the Old Mens’ Almshouse of 1663-1664 (A3.62)[98].

95
Detail of cat.no. A2.0
Frans Hals (I)
Banquet of the officers of the St George civic guard, 1616
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum