Frans Hals

Cities grew.

Painters like Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Vermeer changed art, and scientists began looking at nature in entirely new ways.

But that wealth came at a serious human cost.

Dutch global expansion was also connected to oppression, colonial violence, and slavery.

The Dutch Era wasn't shaped by one artistic center.

Different cities developed their own painters, workshops, and styles.

Haarlem is closely associated with Frans Hals.

At the Frans Hals Museum, his portraits can feel unexpectedly modern.

As a painter, his method in relation to that of Reynolds and Gainsborough may be said to have been old-fashioned.

His pure, precise touches, his level surface, and clear enamored colors have not, indeed, the variety of texture or the inspired freedom of a Frans Hals.

His practice was nearer to that of Van der Helst and a host of other illustrious artists to whom clear, clean work was dear.

Through Kneller and Hogarth and Hudson, it came to him from Holland, and if he did not reform it, he mastered it and left his mark upon it.

Clason had a vinous nose and a tedious habit of saying brilliant things.

With his twinkling eyes, red cheeks, and fair pointed beard, he looked exactly like a Franz Hals, but he was dressed like the caricature of a Frenchman in a comic paper.

He spoke English with a Parisian accent.

Miss Boyd was beginning to tear him gaily limb from limb when the door was flung open and a large person entered.

Three from 25, not funerals, duties.

But she sold a picture by Franz Hals to make sure.

How like Granty, she would run no risks.

She never did.

She always remained single and lived in the country away from influenza and baccarat.

Oh, Jack, the Franz Hals fetched 8,000 pounds, so her poverty is bearable.

Wasn't that lovely?' "'Lovely,' said Jack." Dodo looked up from Granty's letter and ran her eyes round the walls.

"But those two pictures there are by Franz Hals," she said.

I'd like...

What about Frans Hals, The Laughing Cavalier?

No.

Oh, what would the joke be?

Do you think?

... you know, while she's there going, "Oh, I want that bit over there."

Yeah, but I bet Frans Hals wasn't tuned into Amsterdam FM.

Oh, no. [laughs]