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diff --git a/42114-0.txt b/42114-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3a3ecc --- /dev/null +++ b/42114-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1339 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42114 *** + + Transcriber's Note: + + Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as + possible. "Scherijver" has been changed to "Schrijver" at each + occurrence. + + Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. + OE ligatures have been expanded. + + + + + MASTERPIECES + IN COLOUR + EDITED BY-- + T. LEMAN HARE + + + + +FRANZ HALS + + + + +IN THE SAME SERIES + + + ARTIST. AUTHOR. + + VELAZQUEZ. S. L. BENSUSAN. + REYNOLDS. S. L. BENSUSAN. + TURNER. C. LEWIS HIND. + ROMNEY. C. LEWIS HIND. + GREUZE. ALYS EYRE MACKLIN. + BOTTICELLI. HENRY B. BINNS. + ROSSETTI. LUCIEN PISSARRO. + BELLINI. GEORGE HAY. + FRA ANGELICO. JAMES MASON. + REMBRANDT. JOSEF ISRAELS. + LEIGHTON. A. LYS BALDRY. + RAPHAEL. PAUL G. KONODY. + HOLMAN HUNT. MARY E. COLERIDGE. + TITIAN. S. L. BENSUSAN. + MILLAIS. A. LYS BALDRY. + CARLO DOLCI. GEORGE HAY. + GAINSBOROUGH. MAX ROTHSCHILD. + TINTORETTO. S. L. BENSUSAN. + LUINI. JAMES MASON. + FRANZ HALS. EDGCUMBE STALEY. + + +_In Preparation_ + + VAN DYCK. PERCY M. TURNER. + WHISTLER. T. MARTIN WOOD. + LEONARDO DA VINCI. M. W. BROCKWELL. + RUBENS. S. L. BENSUSAN. + BURNE-JONES. A. LYS BALDRY. + J. F. MILLET. PERCY M. TURNER. + CHARDIN. PAUL G. KONODY. + FRAGONARD. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + HOLBEIN. S. L. BENSUSAN. + BOUCHER. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + VIGÉE LE BRUN. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + WATTEAU. C. LEWIS HIND. + MURILLO. S. L. BENSUSAN. + +AND OTHERS. + + [Illustration: PLATE I.--THE LAUGHING CAVALIER. Frontispiece + + (Wallace Collection, London) + + Painted in 1624. Hals called it "Portrait of an Officer," and why, + and how, it gained its present title, no one knows. On the back of + the canvas we read--"Aeta Suæ 26 Ao. 1624." The "officer" is _not_ + laughing; he is merely showing good conceit of himself in + particular, and disdain of the world in general! It is a rare study + in expression, now a scowl, now a leer, alternating as one looks + upon the handsome young face. Whilst the details of the costume are + as rich as may be, the colours are few and beautifully blended, a + _tour de force_ in technical skill. The picture was purchased by its + original owner, Mijnheer M. Meuwlehuys of Haarlem, for £80; at the + Pourtalës sale, in 1865, Sir Richard Wallace gave £2040 for it.] + + + + + Franz Hals + + BY EDGCUMBE STALEY + + ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT + REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR + + [Illustration] + + LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK + NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO. + + + + +FOREWORD + + +"Franz Hals was a great painter; for truth of character, indeed, he was +the greatest painter that ever existed.... He _made_ no beauties, his +portraits are of people such as we meet every day in the streets.... He +possessed one great advantage over many other men--his mechanical power +was such that he was able to hit off a portrait on the instant. He was +able to shoot the bird flying--so to speak--with all its freshness about +it, which even Titian does not seem to have done.... If I had wanted an +_exact likeness_ I should have preferred Franz Hals." So said James +Northcote, the Royal Academician, talking with his friend James Ward, +upon Art and artists, in the little back parlour of his humble dwelling, +39 Argyll Street, long ago absorbed in the premises of a great drapery +establishment. + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Plate + + I. The Laughing Cavalier Frontispiece + Wallace Collection, London + Page + II. Old Hille Bobbe 14 + Royal Museum, Berlin + + III. The Merry Trio 24 + In America (a copy by Dirk Hals, Royal Museum, Berlin) + + IV. Franz Hals and his Wife 34 + Rijks Museum, Amsterdam + + V. The Officers of the Shooting Guild of St Adriaen 40 + Town Hall, Haarlem + + VI. The Jolly Mandolinist (Der Naar) 50 + Collection of Baron G. Rothschild, Paris (a copy by + Dirk Halls in Rijks Museum, Amsterdam) + + VII. The Market Girl (La Bohémienne) 60 + Louvre Gallery, Paris + + VIII. Nurse and Child 70 + Royal Museum, Berlin + + + + +[Illustration: Picture of Hals] + +Hals was an ancient and honourable patrician family, intimately +connected with Haarlem for well-nigh three hundred years. The name first +appears in the annals of the city in 1350, and again and again +individuals bearing it held the offices of Burgomaster, Treasurer, and +_Schepen_--Alderman or Magistrate. + +Pieter Claes Hals, Franz' father, was appointed a magistrate in 1575. In +1577 he was one of the _Regenten_, or Governors of the city Orphanage, +and in 1578 he became President of that famous institution. + +His profession has not been indicated, but that he was a loyal and +influential citizen is proved by his holding a command in the garrison +which so heroically defended the city against the Spaniards in 1572. + +Wholesale pillage by the hated invader, however, reduced many a wealthy +burgher family to penury, and compelled them to seek the recovery of +their fortunes elsewhere. + +The venerable city of Antwerp, by reason of the enterprise of her +merchants, offered great attractions. Thither fled many a Haarlemer, and +among them went forth Mijnheer Schepen Hals and his newly married wife. +It must have been a great trial to domesticated Lysbeth Coper to have to +pack up what was left of their household crocks and seek a new home. + +It was in the spring of 1579, a little more than a year after their +wedding day, that they started upon their journey. They made first for +Mechlin, where a branch of the family was settled, and they were +welcomed with cordial hospitality by their relatives. + + [Illustration: PLATE II.--OLD HILLE BOBBE + + (Royal Museum, Berlin) + + Painted in 1650. This ancient, wrinkled dame was what they call in + seaport towns "a sailor's mother," rather a dubious compliment to + mariners! She was a "merry toper," like many of Hals' companions, + and went from tavern to tavern to get a drink. Her real name was + Alle, or Alice Boll--easily transposed. The owl is probably a + painter's skit of the screeching, scolding old hussy! The portrait + is quite remarkable for poverty of colour. Franz was out of funds + and out of paints, but he has made the old bloodless flesh look like + life. He often painted her: he loved her odd look, if he liked not + well her scorn!] + +One whole year the couple spent in the city of lace, and a little son +was born to them, whom they registered in the name of Dirk. The greater +opportunities offered to labour and capital in the city on the Scheldt, +however, were so evident, that they once more packed up their goods and +chattels and resumed their pilgrimage. + +Antwerp was already renowned as an Art city--its painters and engravers +were of wide world fame; and Pieter Claes Hals, in full possession of +certain artistic proclivities of his family, considered that he might +more profitably make use of them there. Besides this, another branch of +the family was established in Antwerp, and members thereof were in good +positions. + +The journey from Mechlin, short as it was, partook of the pathetic +character of that of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, inasmuch as they were +no sooner housed in temporary lodgings than Mevrouw Lysbeth brought into +the world another little son. Vincenzius Laurenszoon Van der Vinne--a +devoted pupil in after years of this very baby boy--says he was born +late in 1580. There is no official record of the day of birth, but he +was registered in the good old family name of Franz. + +"Franz of Antwerp" was a designation which stuck to the great painter +right on to the end of his long career. Nothing whatever is known of his +youth, his education, or his pursuits. For twenty years neither he, nor +his parents, are named by biographers or historians. + +In 1600 Mijnheer and Mevrouw Hals found themselves once more at Haarlem, +with what thankfulness it would not be difficult to narrate. Their two +sons accompanied them, but two baby girls--Cornelia and Geertruid--were +left buried in Flemish soil. Both lads--they were grown men--at once +entered painters' studios--Dirk that of Abraam Bloemaert, and Franz that +of Karel Van Mander. + +This statement brings us up smartly, for there has been nothing to +indicate that the brothers had served apprenticeships in Art. We must +then proceed by presumption and surmise in the story of their training, +for we may be quite sure that these eminent artists would not accept +raw, untaught youths as pupils. + +Dirk and Franz had, of course, been reared in Antwerp, where the most +conspicuous teachers of painting were Otho Van Veen (1518-1629), a +painter of churches and portraits; Adam Van Noort (1557-1641), history, +large portraits, and genre; and Tobie Verghaegts (1566-1631), landscape +and architecture. + +The brothers profited by their studies under such able masters, and at +Van Noort's they doubtless made the acquaintance of their fellow-pupils, +Pieter Paul Rubens and his friend, Hendrik Van Balen. + +At Antwerp the two Hals would also be thrown into the company of Martin +de Vos, Erasmus Guellinus, Crispin Van der Broeck, the Galles, the Van +de Passes, the Wieriexes, Antonie Van Liest, Geenart Van Kampen, and +other draughtsmen, painters, and engravers. + +Probably Mijnheer Pieter Hals himself was one of the company of +specialists--scholars, writers, readers, correctors, draughtsmen, +painters, etchers, scratchers, cutters, and the like, gathered together +by the enterprise of Christopher Plantin and other leading publishers. +The two sons, therefore, had great opportunities for the development of +their family talents. + +Karel Van Mander, Franz Hals' master, the son of a noble family, was +born at Meulebeke, in Flanders, in 1548. He settled at Haarlem in 1583, +where he established himself as a teacher of drawing, and founded an +Academy of Painting in 1590. His style was historical, and he did +large-sized portraits and groups as well. + +In addition to his celebrity as a painter Van Mander was noteworthy as a +man of many parts: a historian of the Netherlands, an annotator of the +classics, a poet in the vernacular, a musician, a linguist. His most +valuable contribution to literature was his splendid "Het Schilder +Boeck" or "Book of Painters," Dutch and Flemish. + +His poem on Art, entitled "Den Handt der Edelvry Schilderconst," is full +of sage advice with respect to the manner and spirit in which a student +should approach his work; and he sums up his exhortations by saying: +"Success is only to be found in painstaking and constant observation of +all externals." He gives, as a wholesome motto to an aspiring artist, "I +will be a good painter," and, as a salutary warning against carnal +excess, the oppositive reflection: "Hoe Schilder--hoe wifder"--"As +demoralised as a painter!" + +Van Mander's "Counsels of Perfection" for the behoof of his pupils are +as excellent as they are characteristic. "Avoid," says he, "little +taverns and bad company.... Don't let anybody see that you have much +money about you.... Be careful never to say where you are going.... Be +straight and courteous, and keep out of brawls.... Get up early and set +to work.... Be on your guard against light-hearted beauties!" + +Three years before the Hals left Antwerp for their dear old home, Karel +Van Mander had been joined by two assistants in the work of the +Academy--Cornelis Cornelissen (1562-1637), and Hendrik Goltzius +(1558-1617). The former was a painter of allegory, mythology, and +portraits, a member of a celebrated artist family, and a native of +Haarlem; and the latter, the celebrated Flemish engraver, a native of +Meulebeke, famed too as a painter of landscape, history, and the nude. + +At Haarlem were flourishing, at the time of the return of Mijnheer and +Mevrouw Hals, several distinguished artists, and among them Cornelis +Vroom (1566-1640), a marine painter, gifted in seafaring genre--a merry +fellow, and an habitué of low taverns, although he lived in a fine +house, with a frescoed front, in the Zijlstraat. He introduced the young +Hals to his friends and models. + +Very many of the well-to-do citizens affected artistic studies, and +several became efficient painters. Of these Jan Van Heemsen (1570-1641), +a wealthy burgher and a friend of the Hals family, patronised Van Mander +and his pupils. He had considerable skill in painting life-size figures, +remarkable for easy pose, and animated manner--very much in the style +adopted by Franz Hals. + +These Antwerp and Haarlem worthies were the "makers" of Franz Hals in +the elementals of his art; but no sooner did he pass within the portals +of Van Mander's Academy than the door was shut and fast-barred--for all +we know of him, his life, his work, and his associates, for eleven +years; and then, we behold him assisting at a homely and interesting +function. + +In the Baptismal Registers of the Groote Keerke is the entry of a +new-born child--Herman, the son of Franz Hals and Anneke Hermanszoon, in +March 1611. Apparently he had been in no hurry to unite the bonds of +matrimony, and yet he had cause to repent at leisure, for his early +married life does not appear to have been very happy. + +Within five years, namely, in February 1616, the name of the unfortunate +Anneke crops up again, and this time in the police records. Franz is +charged with ill-treating his wife, and with intemperance; and the +charges seem to have been proven, for he was reprimanded, and only +released under solemn promise of amendment of conduct, and, further, he +was admonished to forsake drunken company! + +Poor Anneke died that self-same year, but we must not charge Franz as +the direct cause of her premature death; if he had become something of +a wastrel, as many affirm, she was probably a weakling, and they had +little in common. + +Twelve months passed, and then, with due regard to mourning conventions, +Franz Hals married Lysbeth Reyniers, of Spaedam, and took her to live in +the Peeuselaarsteeg. They were kindred souls, and lived happily together +for fifty years. + +To them were born many children--pledges of mutual love and home +restraint--Sara, in 1617; Jan, in 1618; Franz, in 1620; Adriaenjen, in +1623; Jacobus, in 1624; Reynier, in 1627; Nicolaes, in 1628; Maria, in +1631; and Pieter, in 1633; Herman, Anneke's son, making up the ten olive +branches. + +What a happy, merry home must that have been in the Peeuselaarsteeg! How +greatly must his domestic joys have heartened the worthy father, and +given vein and tone to his work! + + * * * * * + + [Illustration: PLATE III.--THE MERRY TRIO + + (In America. A copy by Dirk Hals, Royal Museum, Berlin) + + Painted in 1616. A girl of the town gaily dressed, with open + bosom--a thing abhorred by all worthy Dutch _vrouwen_--sits + willy-nilly between the knees of a Falstaffian lover. He was + probably the very pork-butcher who, in after years, became one of + Hals' heaviest creditors. A saucy apprentice is holding over the + amorous pair a coronal, not of orange-blossom but of sausages! He + has gripped his master's shoulders to make him release his hold upon + the girl's arm. Hals' treatment of the group was doubtless a + remembrance of an allegorical picture he had seen at Antwerp, "The + Feast of Love," by Franz Pourbus (1540-1601), and which now hangs in + the Wallace Collection.] + +Haarlem story is blank--Haarlem tradition is silent with respect to +Franz Hals' young manhood. The only hint that we have of his +existence is in 1604, when it is recorded that he was working still in +Van Mander's Academy. There is not the least tint of local colour, nor +the faintest trace of romance to be seen or heard until we are brought +face to face with the "Portrait of Dr. Pieter Schrijver," now at +Monsieur Warnecks' in Paris. + +Upon the picture we see "F. H." and the date, 1613. This then is the +first intimation that Franz Hals had blossomed out as a painter of +portraits! The doctor was a well-known Haarlem poet, writer, chemical +student, and art critic. He flourished between the years 1570 and 1640. +The portrait shows us a middle-aged man of serious mien, but with no +peculiar characterisation of expression or figure. It is a sombre +production--black and grey, with merely a little brick-red here and +there; but the shadows upon the skin strike one as clever. + +Franz Hals was thirty-three years of age in 1613--an age when artists +have either dismally failed and turned aside to more suitable +employment, or when they have established some sort of reputation and +their work is recognised, and examples of their style are broadcast. Not +so Franz Hals; but then there are, to be sure, scores of portraits +"attributed" to him of men and women and children to which no dates are +attached, and many of these are comparable with the portraits of +Schrijver in technique, colour, and finish. That he worked laboriously +to maintain his family, if for no other reason--and artists had to work +hard in those days of small payments--is evident both directly and +indirectly. + +A few--very few--studies are extant, in black crayon upon dull blue +paper, which are noteworthy for simplicity and firmness. Two of these +are in the Teyler Museum at Haarlem, but they are evidently sketches for +his first great "Group of Shooters," in the Stadhuis. Three or four are +in England--one at the British Museum, and the Albertina Collection at +Vienna has a few, and that seems to be all. + +Where, may we ask, are his studio canvases, his early panel portraits, +and all the thousand-and-one sketches and freaks of a young artist? +Perchance destroyed--possibly otherwise attributed--probably hidden away +in the high-pitched lofts of old Haarlem houses and _hofjes_ or asylums, +and in many an oaken chest and press. + +Indirectly we are assured that he had been, all the thirteen years of +his residence in Haarlem, an indefatigable worker in the art of +portraiture--from the simple fact of his intimacy with Mijnheer Aert Jan +Druivesteen (1564-1617), who five times served the high office of +Burgomaster of Haarlem. He was a man of independent means and refined +tastes, a lover of artists, and himself also a very passable painter of +landscape and animals, which he painted solely for amusement. + +Druivesteen was a personal friend of Franz Hals' father, and a constant +visitor at his house. From the first he greatly encouraged the young art +student, and many a time sat to him for his portrait. Alas! those +portraits have all disappeared or are undistinguishable. + +From the influential position of his patron it is only a fair deduction +to suppose that other city magnates and leading townspeople also sought +their portraits at the hands of the Burgomaster's _protégé_. + +The vogue of portraiture has always been the token of worldly success, +and eminent personages--and the reverse--from the days of the Pharaohs +to our own, have been eager that their physiognomies should be handed +down to posterity. This fashion took fast hold upon the opulent burghers +of the Netherlands, and they valued a painter in proportion as his work +ministered to their self-esteem. + +Franz Hals, we may be sure, became very soon quite alive to this, +perhaps pardonable exhibition of personal vanity. No doubt the favourite +pose in his serious portraits--arms akimbo, and his favourite facial +expression--contemptuous satisfaction, were the natural, yet tactful, +outcome of his observations of men and manners! + +But we are getting on a little too fast, for we must turn aside for a +moment and look at the "Portrait of Professor Jan Hogaarts" of the +Faculty of Theology in the University of Leyden, who was an able +teacher and protagonist, and a considerable student and writer of Latin. +Franz Hals painted his portrait in 1614, with similar treatment as that +of Dr. Schrijver. These are the only two works, signed and dated, during +fourteen years, and then our eyes are fastened in mute astonishment upon +the walls of the Haarlem Stadhuis, where, in 1616, was unveiled a +stupendous composition. + +This is a revelation unique and overwhelming. We are in the grip of a +master-hand, and we must bow down before a genius who has, comet-like, +flashed upon us from the great unknown! There is nothing tentative, +nothing meretricious, in this masterpiece. It is a portrait group, +half-length, life-size, of eleven "Officers of the Shooting Guild of St. +Joris" (St. George). + +The demand for great group portraits had just set in. The men who had +ridden in on the top of the waves of new institutions looked to have +their personalities placed in juxtaposition to those of monarchs, +rulers, and generals. Hence, go where you will in Holland--through +churches, museums, galleries, or Town Halls, you are faced by portrait +groups of life-size figures, whether they be of Governments and +Corporations, or Guilds and Institutions. + +But, we are standing just inside the great Audience Hall of Haarlem +Stadhuis, and we hesitate to advance, for eighty-four vigorous and +solemn gentlemen and ladies are bending their steadfast gaze upon us, as +though resenting our intrusion! Eight picture groups by Hals cover the +walls--a pageant of portraits--five are _Schutters-stuken_ (Shooting +Groups), and three _Regenten-stuken_ (Governors of Alms Houses). + +Guilds of marksmen in the Netherlands originated at a period when there +were no standing armies, and when the Trade Guilds were at the +full height of their prosperity. They served as rallying bases +in times of public danger, and as happy _rendezvous_ in days of +pleasure--"Soldier-Socials" we might call them. + +Annual shooting contests for prizes were held at the _Schutters-Doelen_, +or butts--hence the name usually attached to the portrait-groups--and +periodical banquets provided, where good fellowship accompanied good +cheer, and where the toast of "Women, Wine, and Wit" never sated! + +The commission to paint the first of these groups, "The Annual Banquet +of the Officers of the Shooting Guild of St. Joris" (St. George), was, +no doubt, given to Hals at the instance of his good friend Burgomaster +Druivesteen, who was himself a member of the Guild. + +There are twelve Officers, including _Overste_, or Colonel, Pieter +Schoutts Jacobsen, who sits in front of the table with his arms akimbo. +They are middle-aged men, some aging, and are full-bearded and +moustached, except the two smart young standard-bearers. The party has +just finished dinner and toasts are being drunk. Through the window of +the room is a view of trees and buildings. The blacks and greys and +greens of the picture are relieved by the brilliant scarlet silken +scarves. + +The effect of this splendid picture upon the men of Haarlem was +emphatic, and every Shooting Guild wished to follow suit; but the +painter was in no humour to wear himself out with toil, he preferred +the relaxation of convivial society. + +In all the Dutch centres of population were numbers of "social" and +political clubs--some perhaps were merely drinking clubs. Among +their guests the most popular was the "Rederijkers-kammer de +Wijngaar-drankes," which had branches everywhere. Although nominally +"The Guild of Rhetoricians," the study of rhetoric _per se_ had nothing +whatever to do with its objects. It was, in short, a free-and-easy +Artists' Club. As "Heminnaars," or Fellows, Franz and Dirk Hals were +admitted to membership in 1617. + +The men of Haarlem were merry fellows--they only put on their serious +manners with their Sunday clothes--and every tavern had its clientèle, +with flute, viol, and mandoline. They entered impromptu into the ranks +of entertainers. No _kermiss_, or fair, the country round, but had its +rollicking company of students. They played high jinks with jolly gipsy +girls, and drank with festive yokels. This life exactly suited the two +Hals brothers; moreover, it gave them opportunities, which Franz used +significantly, for studying character, and he gathered golden +laurels in his orgies. + + [Illustration: PLATE IV.--FRANZ HALS AND HIS WIFE + + (Rijks Museum, Amsterdam) + + Painted in 1624. No painter has left a more charming and more + characteristic portrait of himself and his wife than this. There + they sit, all in a garden green, as happy as happy can be. The + "idea" was Lysbeth's. She knew Franz was painting other couples and + getting wealth and fame--why not their own? She put on her best + go-to-Groote-Keerke gown and a new cap, and made Franz don his Town + Hall suit; she gauffered very carefully his cuffs, and tied round + his neck his finest Van Dyck collar. The pose is splendidly + realistic--good-humouredly she smiles, but he is in restless mood, + as was his wont, and so she just grasps his shoulder--a reminder of + the sweet restraint of happy married life! For fifty years they + lived together, sharing their sorrows and their joys.] + +Still the Hals, and their companions of the tankard and the brush, were +downright, loyal honest citizens, and all were enrolled in the ranks of +the Civic Guard--Franz and Dirk in 1618. + +"The Banquet of the Shooting Guild of St. Joris" was not the only work +which Franz Hals signed and dated in 1616; at least two other very +striking portraits were finished. "Pieter Van der Morsch," now labelled +"The Herring Seller," was a beadle in the service of the Municipality of +Leyden, and a member of the "Guild of Rhetoric" of that city--an oldish +man with sparse locks and furrowed face. He is holding up a herring, and +on the canvas some one has scratched, "WIE BEGEERT?"--"Who'll buy?" + +This portrait is the earliest dated work which exhibits Hals' +speciality--_characterisation_. It now belongs to the Earl of +Northbrook, but it sold in 1780 at a public auction in Leyden for the +ridiculous sum of £1, 5s. + +"The Merry Trio" belongs to the same year, 1616. A girl of the town in +gala dress is seated, willy-nilly, between the knees of a Falstaffian +lover, whilst a saucy apprentice boy holds over the couple a mock +coronal of sausages! The man was evidently a pork butcher; probably one +of Hals' creditors later on. The pose and play were probably suggested +by an allegorical picture which had charmed the young artist in +Antwerp--"The Feast of Love," by Frans Pourbus (1540-1601), now in the +Wallace Collection. This humorous composition is in America; but a good +copy, said to be by Dirk Hals, hangs in the Royal Museum in Berlin. + +But years pass on once more, and there is little enough of episode to +record in the life of our accomplished, jovial painter. Hals was now a +happy father, and his heart went out to children--his own were growing +fast, and their infant moods arrested him. Down by the sea-dunes, too, +were lads and lasses--strong and lithe of build, bronzed with the sun +and spray, full of life's gaiety. Of these he took liberal toll--just as +did Leonardo da Vinci of posturing peasant youths and maidens in Tuscan +villages. A merry suite of "Fisher-boys" and "Fisher-girls" danced off +his palette, and now they display his genre delightfully in many a +picture gallery. + +There were also dignified patrons of Hals' brush in Haarlem, and rich +burghers and their wives sat to him by scores. At Cassel, dated 1620, +are portraits of a Haarlem gentleman and his spouse--the leading pair in +his procession of full-dress Mijnheers and Mevrouws "posed for +posterity," but rich in characterisation of face and hands--the latter a +very marked feature. + +The years 1622, 1623, and 1624 are "red-lettered" for the historian of +Franz Hals, for among the portraits he dated then are three of +surpassing interest--"His own Likeness," "Himself and his Wife," and +"The Laughing Cavalier." The first of these belongs to the Duke of +Devonshire; it hangs at Devonshire House in Piccadilly, and has never +been exhibited. + +This is "Franz Hals" as he wished to be known to posterity. His head, +slightly on one side, is marked by strong features--a nose which shows +strength of purpose, a mouth which indicates quiet decision, and dreamy +eyes, looking craftily for new impressions. It is a self-satisfied, +reflective face, with nothing base about it. The folded arms show grasp +of purpose and individuality of action, whilst the figure of the man is +in repose. The costume is sumptuous, full sleeves of heavy black silk +brocade, with the latest conceits in buttons and ruffled cuffs. He wears +the jewelled token of his Shooting Guild and the be-buttoned cloak of a +gentleman of the period. His frill is full, and it is of the finest +edged cambric--quite an ultra-mark of fashion! His hat is black +velvet--slouched, and steeple-crowned.[1] + +[1] See page 11. + +Merry groups and jovial couples were, of course, quite in Hals' way, +though probably he painted them for his own pleasure rather than for +love of gain. "Junkheer Rampf and his Lass" (1623)--somewhere +in Paris, Mons. Cocret's "Merry Supper Party," and a number of +"Rommel-pot-speelers"--perhaps "Drinks all round!" in English--at the +Hague, Berlin, and elsewhere, offer ample evidence of the painter's +free-and-easy manners and humorous genre. + + [Illustration: PLATE V.--THE OFFICERS OF THE SHOOTING GUILD OF ST. + ADRIAEN + + (Town Hall, Haarlem) + + Painted in 1633. This, the second group of the St. Adriaen Officers, + is the finest of all the five "Schutters-Doelen" at Haarlem. For + clever arrangement of the figures and instantaneous catch of + character it is unsurpassed. The armourer had furbished up the old + halberds of the Company, which, with the banners, are quite + significant features. The costumes are peculiarly rich and the + sashes gaily ample; whilst the variety of ruffs and collars, and the + trimming of the beards, indicate the vagaries of fashion. The + Colonel--Jan Claesz Van Loo, with his hunt-stick--no doubt he was + getting gouty!--sits, looking at you full in the face. The other + Officers have all their eyes upon you; they are inviting you to join + in their conviviality. The background of trees and farm-buildings + suggests the delights of a picnic in the open air.] + +Mevrouw Lysbeth knew all about these junketings, and, good soul, she +made no complaint, but on the contrary she challenged Franz to add his +own portrait with hers to the suite of jolly partners. + +She put on her best black brocade gown, with its modish heliotrope +bodice, and went to the expense of the newest things in ruffs and cuffs. +Her hair--she was not richly dowered that way!--she coiffed neatly round +her head, and tied on the nattiest of little lace caps. + +With Franz, no doubt, she had some trouble. He disliked very much +fashionable garments, but inasmuch as he had something of a position to +keep up as a member of the Haarlem municipality, she persuaded him to +get into his Groote Keerke and Stadhuis suit of black silk and stuff. +She brushed well his best beaver hat, carefully gauffered his cambric +cuffs, and pinned round his throat the best Mechlin lace collar he +possessed. His shoes were new and neatly bowed, and he, worthy fellow, +responded to his loving wife's playful whim by putting on--a thing quite +unusual for him--a pair of white kid gloves. + +And there they sit, Franz and Lysbeth, all in a garden green, under a +shady oak tree, with a vision of architectural gardens and open fertile +country beyond. The pose was most certainly her idea, not his, for she +is smiling most good-humouredly at having gained her end! He would be up +and off, but she checks his movement, and the hand-grasp upon his +shoulder is a reminder of the sweet restraint of happy married life. + +When this masterpiece was painted, the Hals were in comfortable +circumstances. The success of the "Group of Shooters" had greatly +enriched Franz, and his studio was thronged by opulent patrons, each +clamouring for his portrait. + +The third picture of note in 1624 was "The Laughing Cavalier." Why, and +when, it gained its title nobody knows--in most catalogues it is +correctly called "Portrait of an Officer," a member of one of the +Shooting Guilds. + +Whoever the gentleman may be, he had an uncommonly good conceit of +himself. He is not laughing, but expressing disdain of the world in +general, and amused contempt of you and me, who go to look at him, in +particular. The characterisation is so cleverly managed that one almost +fancies his expression changes; he appears to scowl and then to relax, +just as in actual life our features involuntarily keep up an incessant +play. His dress is unusually decorative, the colours are few but +superlatively arranged, the whole effect is wonderfully lifelike. It was +the happiest of happy thoughts which suggested the placing side by side, +at the Wallace Collection, masterpieces of the three greatest portrait +painters the world has seen--Velazquez, Rembrandt, and Hals. "The +Laughing Cavalier" loses nothing by proximity to "The Lady with a Fan" +and "The Unmerciful Servant." + +But Hals had a mind to paint simpler subjects than these, and he turned +to children once more, as exhibiting most naturally and spontaneously +variety of character and expression. "Singing Boys," "Singing Girls," +"Flute Players," "Mandolinists," and others, playing only pranks and +tricks, he welcomed to his studio--another Leonardo da Vinci trait! + +He noted their expanding cheeks, he heard their melodious notes, he +understood the motions of their limbs, and fixed them all. They make us +smile with pleasure, so natural and lifelike are they at Haarlem, +Berlin, Brussels, Cologne, Cassel, and Königsberg--many of 1625, and +more elsewhere undated, but similarly characterised. + +Two or three "_Zechbruders_" or "Jolly Topers," and some gay young +sparks with mandolines--"_Schalks naar_" or "Buffoon," as each is quite +erroneously styled--walked out of Hals' studio in 1625. Doubtless they +were skits or caricatures of fellow-artists, for the clever painters of +Haarlem were not quite "Fools" or "Buffoons," nor were they all only +"Jolly Topers." + +All this time Hals was making arrangements with his old patrons of St. +Joris' Guild for another great portrait-group to be put up in the +Stadhuis. This was finished in 1627--it represents eleven Officers. + +On comparing this Group with its predecessor we are struck with its +greater freedom and freshness. Hals was now painting more brilliantly, +and his colours blend more naturally. The success of the first St. +Joris' Group had fired the imagination of members of a rival Company, +the St. Adriaen's Guild; and it was determined that their Officers +should also adorn the walls of the Stadhuis. Consequently Hals had two +great groups to do, and no sooner had the carpenter hangers got St. +Joris No. 2 into position than their services were requisitioned for the +St. Adriaen's Group. + +If profitable, nevertheless the painting of such portrait groups was +very troublesome, and no doubt Hals was very thankful to see the last in +his studio of these pictures. The jealousies, the corrections, and the +interruptions, in dealing with a lot of conceited Officers, must have +almost maddened him. Each man had his own ideas--and Hals had his. Each +wished to be as prominent as possible, and to cut a dash at his brother +officers' expense. Arrangement after arrangement failed. + +At last Hals decided the matter once and for all. He declined positively +to paint a row of figures--he intended to make a picture. Therefore he +proposed an admirable plan, and one which recouped him well to +boot--those who paid most should have the places of honour! + +The Colonel--generally one of the wealthiest members of the Guild--paid +the highest fee, and he is the most conspicuous figure in all the +"_Doelen_" pictures. Captains paid for second places, Lieutenants for +third, and Sergeants looked out from the back. The Standard-bearers were +exceptional individuals--the sons of rich fathers, who paid well for +good stations. + +Again, a Shooting-brother was mulcted higher for a full-face than one +who had to put up with a three-quarter likeness--profiles were ruled +out. Once more, notice the cunning of the painter, every one of his +"_Schutters_" is an athlete, with a striking face! Each wears his best +dress, his sword hilt is of the latest Italian pattern, and each is +showing himself off to the greatest advantage--all the drakes are swans! + +The St. Adriaen's Group of 1627 consists of twelve Officers, with +Colonel Jan Claesz Van Loo in the place of honour. Dinner is over, and +the diners are discussing the latest bit of gossip before separating. +One of the sergeants has been caught in the act of pocketing a bunch of +grapes, and his fellow is holding out a silver dish for its restoration. + +Fashions, both of hair and clothes, of course, are similar to those worn +by the St. Joris' Schutters, except that the younger men are quite _à la +mode_ with respect to their slashed and puffed full sleeves. Of the two +groups this is the least mannered, and there is more atmosphere and +greater animation. Crude contrasting colours are softened down, and +luminous grey shadows make play around the men. Each individual's +expression is personal and original, and the characterisation of each is +so wonderfully full of life that, if any one of them was to walk off the +wall and greet us, we should feel that we knew just what sort of a man +he was. + +This is perfect portraiture; it is more--it is clairvoyancy in paint. + + * * * * * + +In the decade 1630-1640 Franz Hals was acknowledged as first painter in +Holland. He stood head and shoulders above everybody else in his freedom +of treatment, unconventionality of pose, manipulative facility, +fidelity of colouring, boldness of shadow, and the marvellous certainty +of his flesh tones. His technique, in short, was unrivalled, and the +emphasis with which he expressed feature and mood was astounding. + +His illumination was golden, and the animation of his figures +extraordinary. Like Michael Angelo he preferred men to women, as +exhibiting more character and less liable to affectation. He neither +wasted time in making studies for his compositions, nor frittered it +away in elaborate corrections. His brush knew one stroke only--his +impasto was laid on at once. Simply in details of hair, lace, and +brocade did he elaborate. + +The same decade was the most brilliant period of the Dutch School +generally; the greatest painters were all working away on canvas and +panel, making world's records in Art. Every town, and many a country +place, had its studios and schools of painting, but Haarlem was easily +first as the home and headquarters of painters. "Boldness and truth" was +the municipal motto, and this is eloquent in all the work of Franz +Hals. + + [Illustration: PLATE VI.--THE JOLLY MANDOLINIST (DER NAAR) + + (Collection of Baron G. Rothschild, Paris. A copy by Dirk Hals in + Rijks Museum, Amsterdam) + + Painted in 1625. This is a very jolly fellow! It is a portrait of + one of Hals' favourite pupils, Adriaen Brouwer, who was also + renowned for his musical gifts and his love of practical jokes; he + painted pictures too sometimes! His nickname in the studios was + "_Der Naar_"--"Funny Man!" The "Jolly Mandolinist" must have caught + sight of one of his lady-loves at a window, or a painting chum. His + _staccato_ note ends in a genial smile, and he is ready for a joke + or a hand-tossed kiss. This has Hals splendidly fixed, a snapshot + would not have had a more instantaneous effect. The Spanish costume + suggests the celebration of one of the famous Haarlem + masquerades.] + +And Haarlem was the most prosperous of cities. Between 1630-1640 the +Tulip mania was at its height, and Haarlem was the metropolis of the +bulb. It is said that in one year the florists of the city cleared +twelve million golden florins. + +To Haarlem, as to an artists' Mecca, flocked teachers, students, and +connoisseurs from all lands, and among the rest came a notable pilgrim, +Anthonie Van Dyck. + +Mincing along in his courtier-like manner, in search of impressions, he +wished to see for himself the master about whom gossip had spun such +wonderful stories, and to watch him at work. He was at The Hague, the +honoured guest of Frederick of Nassau, Prince of Orange, painting +princely patrons, and it was not more than a Sabbath-day's journey to +Haarlem. + +So one bright morning in June that year, 1630, Van Dyck, unannounced, +knocked at Franz Hals' front door. Vrouw Hals greeted the stranger +courteously--"My husband," she said, "is not at home, maybe he is at the +Life School; will the gentleman step in and rest." + +Jan, who was just twelve years old, was sent to look for his father, and +at last discovered him, not at his studio, but with some boon companions +in the little back room of his favourite tavern hard by. Perhaps among +the "Merry Topers" there were famous Admiral Van Tromp, killed in 1653, +and his jolly comrade, Jan Barentz, the entertaining cobbler--late a +lieutenant in the fleet, whose portrait Hals painted many a time as a +"Jolly Toper," with his great big hands and grinning face, squinting at +the liquor level of his tell-tale glass. + +"There is a smart gentleman, all the way from Antwerp, to see you, dad, +and he wants you to paint his portrait," so ran on the lad. + +Hals bid his boy go home, finished his tankard and his pipe, and +leisurely sauntered along. He was in no good-humour at the interruption, +and gave the stranger a cool welcome. At first he demurred at being +called upon to paint a man he had never seen before, and whose features +and figure he had had no opportunity of studying. + +Van Dyck, without revealing his identity, begged him to proceed, and +offered him a tempting fee. Without more ado Hals snatched up the first +old canvas lying on the floor, and in a couple of hours he had painted, +in a manner which greatly astonished his sitter, a telling likeness. + +Van Dyck laid down the amount he had promised, but asked Hals whether he +might, in return, attempt to paint his portrait. Hals was astounded, and +more so as the visitor progressed, for it was borne in upon him that +such a stylish _virtuoso_ could be none other than his famous rival, the +great Flemish master. "Who the devil are you?" he exclaimed. "Why, you +must be Anthonie Van Dyck!" + +Van Dyck was exigeant that Hals should accompany him to England, where +he had been summoned by the king. No words and no inducement could move +Hals out of Holland--it was his home, it was his world; Dutch of the +Dutch was he, bred in the bone! + +Van Dyck departed much disappointed, but he charmed the Vrouw Lysbeth +and the kiddies by leaving behind for them twenty silver florins. As +for Hals, he went back to his pots and his paints. + +In the Schwerin Gallery is a "Portrait of a Man" with a good deal of +Franz Hals about it, variously attributed to him and to Van Dyck. Maybe +it is the one painted in Haarlem that hot June day in 1630. + +Eight superb portraits by Hals were dated this self-same year: "The +Group of the Beresteyn Family," and "The Gipsy Girl" (La Bohémienne), at +the Louvre; "The Mandoline Player"--_Der Schalksnaar_, in Baron Gustave +Rothschild's Collection in Paris; "Nurse and Child," and "The Jolly +Toper," at the Royal Gallery in Berlin; "Portrait of a Man" ("_ætat suæ_ +36") at Buckingham Palace; Mijnheer Willem Van Heythuysen, at the +Belvedere Gallery in Vienna--the full-length, Velazquez-like standing +portrait; and "Portrait of a Young Girl," of the Beresteyn family at +Haarlem. + +_Der Schalksnaar_--called also "The Fool," "The Buffoon," "The Jester," +and, far more suitably, "The Mandoline Player"--is allowed to be the +finest character-portrait in the world. Velazquez and Rembrandt never +did anything so acutely life-like. + +It is a "snapshot," so to speak, of Adriaen Brouwer, one of Hals' +favourite and most distinguished pupils, whose renown as a painter of +peasant genre was equalled by his fame as an archplayer of practical +jokes and as a brilliant musician and _improvisatore_. Here he is, in +fancy Spanish dress, red and yellow, with a real old Hispano-Moorish +mandoline. His nickname in the studios was "_Der Naar!_" "Funny Fellow!" +His face--clean-shaven, but still something of a stranger to soap and +water--reflects, with amazing truthfulness and vitality, the emotions of +the moment. + +He laid a wager that he would make his _innamorata_ peep out of her +window and wave her hand at him. The _staccato_ notes of the serenade +have not yet quite died away, the strummer's hand has not relaxed its +tension on the strings of the instrument, as the singer throws up a +rapid glance of recognition. + +"Nurse and Child" is as charming as anything in all the works of Franz +Hals. Nothing can be imagined more natural, more simple, more +appealing. At first sight the woman--she may be thirty--appears posed, +but her expression is that of momentary abstraction from the restless +exigencies of nursing. She is goodness and gentleness personified, and +her pinned-up cap lappels tell of busy little fingers close by. + +The baby is to the life. He is a vigorous youngster, the latest little +son of the ancient North Holland family of Ilpenstein, prominent in +Haarlem story. He has grabbed his nurse's brooch whilst he turns to have +a good look at you, and, presto, he will bury his head in her kindly +bosom with a merry laugh. His face is a _tour de force_--that of a rare +critic, as all healthy babies are. I question whether any painter has +painted a child's _coming_ smile as Hals has done here. + +The dress, a splendid piece of gold brocade in colours, must be an +inspiration from Pieter Breughel, "le Velours" (1568-1625), whose +mastery of glossy patterned stuffs is almost inimitable. The lace looks +as if Hals had just cut lengths of rare Mechlin point and pasted them +upon his canvas. Why, we can count every thread and knot! + +The year that gave date to these widely differing, but admirably +agreeing, character-portraits also witnessed the foundation of Franz +Hals' Life School. Very soon after the death of Van Mander, in 1606, the +famous Academy of Painting began to decline in popularity. The +dissolution of partnership between Cornelissen and Goltzius, and their +departure from Haarlem, caused its doors to be closed. + +Whether he wished it or not, a goodly company of artists looked to Franz +Hals as their leader, and so the mantle of Van Mander fell upon the +shoulders of his most distinguished pupil. + +Among those who foregathered in the new Academy were Pieter Soutman +(1580-1657), Pieter Potter, father of Paul (1587-1642), Willem Claesz +Heda (1594-1680), Jan Cornelisz Verspronett (1597-1662), Hendrik +Gerritsz Pot (1600-1656), Pieter Molyn (1600-1661), Pieter Fransz De +Grebber (1610-1665), Antonie Palamedesz Stevaerts (1604-1680), Adriaen +Brouwer (1605-1638), Dirk Van Deelen (1605-1671), Cæsar Van Everdingen +(1606-1679), Pieter Codde (1610-1666), Bartholomeus Van der Helst +(1610-1670), Adriaen Van Ostade (1610-1685), Philippe Wouwermans +(1620-1668), Isaac Van Ostade (1621-1649), Pieter Roestraeten +(1627-1698), who married Sara, Franz Hals' eldest daughter; Vincenzius +Laurenszoon Van der Vinne (1629-1702), and Job Berckheijde (1630-1693), +with Hals' five sons and his brother Dirk. + +There is in Haarlem Stadhuis a very interesting painting by the last of +these, which shows Franz Hals' Life School and some of his pupils in the +year 1652. Work is in full swing, and five of the master's sons--the +youngest, Nicolaes, being twenty-four years old--and Dirk Hals with Van +Deelen, Molyn, Berckheijde himself, and his little brother Gerritsz, +seated at a table, are drawing from a nude model. The master is by the +door, chatting with Philippe Wouwermans, who has just popped in to see +how things are getting on. + +It is said that Hals "sweated" his pupils by making them draw and paint +subjects for which he paid them little or nothing, and which he sold at +fair prices to meet his weekly tavern reckonings. Adriaen Brouwer is +named as "living-in" at the Halsian establishment, with an uncomfortable +bed, insufficient food, and scanty clothing! Be these tales what they +may, there is characteristic evidence that Hals and his pupils lived on +good terms. An amusing story is told by the Haarlem historian and +biographer, Jacob Campo Weyerman, in his "Sevens-Beschrijoingen der +Nederlondsche Konst-Schilders," of the goings on at the Life School. + + [Illustration: PLATE VII.--THE MARKET GIRL (LA BOHÉMIENNE) + + (Louvre Gallery, Paris) + + Painted in 1630. They call her "La Bohémienne" in Paris, but why we + do not know. She is _not_ a gipsy girl, but a slut out of Haarlem + Fish-market, wholly bereft of all sense of appearance, and caring + only for passing joke and gibe. The girl was a favourite studio + model also, for studies of a figure and face like hers abound in the + work of Haarlem painters. Thinly painted, in simple colours, this is + a masterpiece of pigment snapshots. Its sauciness is as natural as + may be. No doubt she and Hals exchanged many a bit of racy banter; + perhaps she dared him to paint her just as she was.] + +The master's addiction to strong drink called for energetic action, and +the older pupils were accustomed of an evening to take it in turn to +fetch him home from his cups, undress him, and tuck him comfortably into +bed. + +"Now when Franz, lying in bed, thought he was alone in his room, his +piety came to the surface; for however tipsy he might be he generally +closed his halting prayer with this petition: 'Dear Lord, take me soon +up into Heaven!' Some pupils who heard him repeat this request night +after night decided to test one day whether their master was really in +earnest, and Adriaen Brouwer--that ape of humanity--undertook to carry +out the joke. Brouwer, in company with another pupil called Dirk Van +Deelen, bored four holes in the ceiling, right above Franz' bedstead, +and through these lowered four strong ropes, which they fastened to the +four corners of the bed, and then waited eagerly for their master's +return home. Hals returned towards night in merry mood, and his pupils +helped him to bed according to their wont, took away the light, and then +crept quietly upstairs to set their plan in motion. As soon as Franz +began his usual orison, 'Lord, take me up soon into Heaven,' they drew +him and his bedstead gently up a little, whereupon Hals, half dazed, +fancying that his prayer was being answered literally, altered his tone, +and began to cry out lustily: 'Not so fast, dear Lord! not so fast!'" + +Hardly able to restrain their mirth the mischievous young dogs quietly +let their burden down, slipped off the ropes, and themselves slipped +away, to tell their fellows the joke. "Franz," continues Weyerman, "did +not discover the trick until several years after!" + +The years 1631 and 1632 were lean years in Hals' output, but the year +1633, which gave us "Portrait of a Man" at the National Gallery--a fresh +complexioned, easy going gentleman about thirty to forty years of age, +in an astonishingly voluminous ruff, quite a bygone fashion in +that year--saw a _chef-d'oeuvre de chefs-d'oeuvres_, another +"_Schutters-stuk_," put up in the Stadhuis at Haarlem. + +"The St Adriaen's Doelen," No. 2, consists of fourteen officers, nearly +all of whom are gazing good-humouredly right out at their visitors, and +inviting all and sundry to join in the conviviality. Each face is a +pleasant character-study, for each man has dined well and is content. + +Colonel Jan Claesz Van Loo is seated on the left, holding a stout +walking-stick--probably he has contracted gout since his appearance in +1627! Seven of the officers hold halberds--a decided novelty in +accessories, which adds greatly to the picturesque effect. One wonders +whether anybody had whispered to Hals the news that Velazquez had +painted his "Surrender of Breda" with halberds and lances _galore_! +Anyhow Hals would not be caught napping by an intrusive Spaniard! + +The Group is far and away the most easily arranged of all the +_Schutters-stuken_. The waving foliage and smiling landscape predicate +breeze and sun, for the gathering is _al fresco_ in the gardens of +Roosendaal, the Hampton Court of Haarlem. The officer seated upon the +table is Lieutenant Hendrik Pot--a favourite pupil--a speaking likeness. + +Fashions have changed, they are richer and more decorative with silken +stitching and laced scarves. The colours, greys, greens, browns, and +dull blues are softened by the leafy environment. "_En plein air_" is +the cry of modern Impressionists, but here we have it, where, perhaps, +we should not look for it. This is in truth one of the world's chief +masterpieces, and the efforts its execution called forth told greatly +upon its creator. + +Certainly he went on painting, and probably he went on carousing too; +but silence again settles down upon him, and a meagre list of fifteen +signed and dated portraits completes his work until 1637. + +We find him now not at Haarlem, but at Amsterdam; not drinking, but +painting--painting what Dr. Bürgher, the art critic, asserts is "the +most astounding picture of the Dutch School." Probably Hals frequently +visited the capital of the chief province, there to see what other +artists were doing, and to sample the pleasures of its convivial life. + +His visit in 1657 was of considerable duration, for he was painting "The +Officers of the Civic Guard" under their commander, Colonel Reynier +Reaels. There are sixteen full-length, life-size figures, posed after +the manner of the Haarlem _Schutters-stuken_. They are clad in dark-blue +uniforms, with the exception of the Standard-bearer--a gorgeous +individual in golden brown, with leggings, laced and bowed, his arms +akimbo, bearing himself with such a swagger as only Franz Hals knew how +to paint. + +This splendid portrait group hangs at the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam, at +no great distance from Rembrandt Van Rijn's "Night Watch," so we can +take stock of both together. + +It is not a little significant that Amsterdamers, famed for what the +Tuscans used to call "_il Spirito del Campanile_," should have had to go +to Haarlem for their man! Were there not painters on the spot, and what +about Rembrandt, he was not very busy in 1637? No; no one could do this +sort of thing so well as Hals. + +In 1639 he completed his quintet of _Schutters-stuken_ or +_Doelen_--portrait groups in Haarlem Stadhuis; his patrons were once +more "The Officers of St. Joris' Shooting Guild." + +Here we are in the open with the wind swaying the unfurled banners and +rustling the leaves of the trees. The _rendezvous_ is the orchard of the +Hofje Van Oud Alkemude de XII. Apostelen, with its garden-pavilion, in +the tower of which Hals is said to have painted a _Schutters-stuk_; +beyond are the Haarlem woods. + +The Group consists of nineteen Officers, with Colonel Jan Van Loo. The +men are arranged in two somewhat stiff lines--perhaps they all asked +front places and paid well! With his usual modesty Hals has put himself +in the back row, but in much better guise than his next neighbour, a +distinctly _blasé_ individual. They are all well-set-up men, and dressed +in the new fashion, tending rather to effeminacy. + +The atmosphere and illuminations are vibrant, but the colours are +restrained, the shadows are grey, and the animation does not equal that +of the 1633 Group. Perhaps Hals was degenerating with the passing +age--certainly he was ageing. + +However, he finished off his best decade with a remarkable little +snapshot portrait, a fisher-lad of Katwyk. "_De Strandlooper_" he has +called it; it hangs in Antwerp Museum. He saw the boy running up and +down the dunes; he was an odd-looking bit of humanity. + +"Sit down just where you are," said Hals, "fold your arms, and don't +take your eyes off me." A rough drawing was soon knocked off, just to +fix values, and then the master added, "Come along with me now to +Haarlem, and half a Carolus guelder for you." Then he fixed the oddest +of odd smiles, and the "Beach urchin" remains to prove that the old +man, vigorous, had lost very little of his cunning after all. + + * * * * * + +The last twenty-five years of Hals' life were marked by experiences +wholly unlike the circumstances of the preceding decade. + +If between 1630-1640 he approached Velazquez and painted dignified +magnates and others, with a brush dipped in gold and a palette of +luminous colours, in the end of his days he was near Rembrandt with no +less characteristic groups and individuals, and his hues are silvery and +his shadows impressive. + +The _Regenten Stuken_, the "Five Governors of the St. Elizabeth +Almshouse" or _Oudemaanenhuis_, exposed in the Haarlem Stadhuis in 1641, +might, for all the world, be the work of the great Amsterdam master, +just as the latter's "Staalmeester's" of 1661 might be his. + +The Group in question consists of five most serious and reverent city +fathers, seated comfortably at their Board table. Not a bit of worldly +conceit, not a decorative adjunct of any kind, adorns the composition, +but it is a perfect achievement. The sombre black garments and +steeple-crown hats have a lustre of their own, and, standing well out of +the greyish-green wall behind, they throw up wonderfully facial +expression and manual dexterity. The plain linen collars and +well-starched cuffs tone down the ashen-red shadows upon the skin, and +the clustering locks of long black hair, tinged with grey, form halos +around the wrinkles. + + [Illustration: PLATE VIII.--NURSE AND CHILD + + (Royal Museum, Berlin) + + Painted in 1630. This is one of the very best of all Hals' + compositions. The Nurse is a buxom lass of North Holland, and the + Child, the little son of Mijnheer Julius Ilpensteen, a wealthy + German merchant, settled at Haarlem, and engaged in tulip-growing. + The expression of the youngster, just about to explode with laughter + at something droll which has caught his eye, and then shyly to bury + his head in his crooning nurse's bosom, has been caught quite + wonderfully. The dress is rich, and the Mechlin lace collar is so + actual that it might really be a "piece" cut off and pasted on the + canvas! It is said that Hals had been twitted with his fondness for + dirty, unkempt children as models for his snapshots of character, + here he has vindicated his sense of elegance. + + Compare this charming subject with the character-portrait of the + "Strandlooper" at Antwerp, and Hals' grip of children's expressions + is seen to be emphatic and unlimited.] + +Haarlem possessed many charitable institutions to which the general +title "_Hofjes_" was attached. It became the happy custom, well on in +the seventeenth century, for wealthy citizens to build and endow +almshouses, hospitals, and the like--in the first instances as monuments +of individual prominence and ultimately as memorials of family pride. +Founders and their relatives were the earliest governors, and then +administrative powers were merged in trusts and municipal offices, and +foremost citizens formed their Boards. + +Franz Hals' great good-nature and his merry haphazard way of life made +him a favourite everywhere--he was everybody's friend. His appointment +in 1643 as "Vinder" of the Haarlem Lodge of the Artists' Guild +of St. Luke was very popular. The functions of the office exactly +suited the free-and-easy master-painter; they were analogous +to those which attached to the corresponding Italian office of +_provvidetore_--controller, caterer, and perhaps toast-master, all +rolled into one. + +Nobody has testified to Vrouw Lysbeth's satisfaction at this promotion; +it was a real ray of sunshine in the gathering clouds of age and +anxiety. No doubt she still smiled--not as naïvely as in that garden +green in 1630, but hopefully. + +But Hals was already beginning to grow indolent. Was it the natural +change of life, or was it the effect of self-indulgence? Who shall say? +Charity thinks and speaks kindly we know. Anyhow nine long years steal +quietly along, and all the signed and dated work he did was just nine +portraits and not one of them of marked excellence. + +Poverty began to look in at the windows of the house in the +Peeuselaarsteeg, what time silence or indolence settled there, but what +cared the merry old painter, for love opened the door, and kept it upon +the latch--Lysbeth did not chide Franz, and Franz did not vex Lysbeth. + +Twenty years or so before Hals had picked up many a splendid subject for +his portrait-characterisation or portrait-caricature in Haarlem markets, +and many a flighty _markt-deern_, besides the untidy fish-girl of 1630, +had been his model. Then he loved young girls--at seventy his friends +were _viele deerne_ of the _Kraegs_ or common taverns. + +One old lady had for many a long day taken his fancy, not that she was +comely, sober, or fair spoken, quite the reverse, nevertheless her +striking play of features and the wrinkling of her leathery skin had an +occult fascination for Franz. + +They called her "Hille Bobbe," but her name was Aletta or Alle Bol or +Bollij; and she lived in a hovel by the Fish-market. Nobody ever got the +better of old Hille, but she let everybody know what she thought of him +and his! + +At Lille is a "Laughing Hussy," painted by Hals in 1645; at Berlin is +the old lady with her tankard and an owl, done in 1650; and at Dresden +the same _viele deern_ is scolding a yokel, who is smoking over her +stall of unboiled lobsters, 1652 (?). They are all three most simply +painted in black and grey, and just faint traces of ochre and red. The +deep shadows point to a meagre palette and a brush worn down, but the +result is striking and original. Nobody knows what the owl had to do +with the old lady, probably a painters' joke at the model's expense. + +In ten more years Franz Hals signed and dated no more than ten pictures. +Was he idle? Was he ill? Was he dissolute? We cannot say; we have no +data to go upon. The next note we have is an alarm signal, for, in 1652, +one Jan Ykess, a baker, obtained a warrant whereby he sued Hals for two +hundred Carolus guilders on account of comestibles supplied to him and +his wife. A distress was issued, and the forced sale of three thin +mattresses and bolsters, a ricketty armoire, and an old oak-table, with +five oil paintings, barely sufficed to clear the bill. + +Other creditors, and there were not a few, got nothing; apparently +there were no other assets. But two years later Hals gave his butcher of +"The Merry Trio," a painting by Jan Razet, "St. John the Baptist +preaching," by way of compensation. + +This is indeed a sad revelation, and its sadness is intensified by the +apparent want of filial piety on the part of Franz' sons and daughters. +They were all living, and, except Pieter, domiciled in Haarlem. Only +Maria was unmarried. All were in good circumstances. Nicolaes, +"_Vinder_" in 1662, had been a member of the Corporation since 1655. Why +they did nothing to assist their parents in their distress nobody has +recorded. There is no note of family feuds: perhaps Franz' pride refused +natural assistance. + +In 1655, and again in 1660, Hals painted and dated many portraits, as +though he was forced to do something to keep the wolf from the door. +Many of these are remarkable, not only as the work of an old man, but as +exhibitions of new methods. "René Descartes," at the Louvre, and "Tyman +Oosdorp," at Berlin--reminiscent perhaps of "Jan Hornebeeck of Leyden," +at Brussels, painted in 1648--have fixed unhappy faces, all in dull +black and grey, with dark shadows suffusing everything. Surely they are +reflections of the painter's darkening view of life in grumbling, +unmerry mood. + +The clouds, however, appear to have been at least partially dissipated, +for in the latter year we have a smiling face again, and, perhaps, one +of the last which smiled on "Hals of Antwerp!" The _Schlapphut_, "The +Slouch Hat," now at Cassel, is a real _chef-d'oeuvre_. A young man, +seated sideways, with his arm across the back of his chair, looks out of +the grey-green-black background with a saucy air. He is saying, "I +wonder what you think of me!" It takes a little time to focus this +impression, for Hals has dashed on his pigments almost too liberally, +and he has gashed and smeared the mass with his hardest brush. When we +do get the point of view, we feel disposed immediately to snub the young +upstart for his impertinence. + +In spite of these spurts, and others, misfortune fell the way of Franz +and Lysbeth Hals. In the spring of 1662 the old man applied to the +Municipal Council for assistance. His plea was not in vain, for, with +characteristic good-fellowship, a dole was immediately forthcoming--fuel +and aliment--and with them a benefaction of 150 Carolus guilders (circa +£26). + +Old Hals could still, vigorous old fellow that he was, hold his palette +and his brush--and to good use too--nor did he quite lack for patrons. +Upon the Board of the _Oudevrouwenhuis_ (Old Women's Alms House) were +several old chums of his who, in solemn conclave met, agreed unanimously +to commission the aged master to paint two portrait-groups--one of +themselves, and the other of the Lady Governors of the Béguinage for old +and reduced gentlewomen, which Mijnheer Nicolaes Van Beresteyn had +founded in 1611. + +This was a noble act of charity conceived in the best possible spirit, +for any fear of Franz' ability was quite outweighed by the wish to +minister, so as not to offend in any way, his _amour propre_. And Hals +set to work upon the last efforts of his life, and finished and dated +both groups in 1664. He was eighty-four; and thus they are in the +Stadhuis, side by side with his five festive _Schutters-stuken_. + +The _Regentessen van der Oudevrouwenhuis_ (The Lady Governors of the Old +Women's Alms House) are not distinguishable for youth or beauty, and yet +the five old faces are very attractive in their sternness. Probably they +were quite prepared to resent any impropriety on the part of the jovial +old artist. Their pursed-up lips, their peering gaze, and the muscular +contraction of their hands convey this impression. Their garments are as +plain as their persons, and there is nothing decorative in the +composition--everything is subdued black and grey, but the illumination +and animation are splendidly evident although held in check. + +The _Regenten van der Oudemannenhuis_ (The Governors of the Old Men's +Alms House), on the other hand, has much less force, and, compared with +the earlier group of 1641, it is nerveless and moribund. The five +Governors are old, weary, and sad. The colours are greyish, the +brushwork feeble, and expressionless faces match the ashen pallor of +the skin. Their hands, too, have lost their grip, and there is no curl +in their hair. Humour is no longer Hals' painting mixture, the pathos of +"the passing" is upon him; and yet, with an evident expiring effort, the +youngest of the five old men actually displays the gaiety of a scarlet +knee-ribbon--it is the last impression of a parting touch! + +And now the brush falls from the painter's hand; the few colours left +upon his palette are dry; and his enfeebled vigour is tired out. No +doubt the emolument he received for these two most impressive, most +touching portrait-groups was in the nature of a pension to keep him and +his old wife in something like comfort till the end. + +For that end Franz Hals had not long to wait. Perhaps it is as well that +we have no account of his sufferings and his death. Only one more +historical note can be adduced to complete the life's story of "Hals of +Haarlem"--the notice of his burial. On September 1, 1666, all that +remained of him was buried, with some amount of circumstance, in the +Groote Keerke of St. Bavon. His body rests in the choir, with the ashes +of Haarlem's most famous sons, and, if no meretricious sculptured +memorial exists to fix the very spot, the monogram, upon a flat stone +underfoot, "F. H.," reminds the pilgrim to the painter's shrine of all +he was and all he did--simple and unaffected. + + * * * * * + +Poor old Lysbeth survived her husband many years, as poor as poor could +be. In 1675 she made a pathetic appeal for relief, and the miserable +pittance of fourteen _sous_ a week was accorded her. The dear old soul +languished and died, with apparently no child at hand to comfort her. No +record of her last hours tells where she died--probably in some +_Oudevrouwenhuis_ or other, and of her grave no man knoweth. + + + The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., Derby and London + The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Franz Hals, by Edgcumbe Staley + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42114 *** |