After Rembrandt and Vermeer, Dutch master Frans Hals gets a major exhibition at the Rijksmuseum
In the early 17th century, laughter was never captured on a painter's canvas.
Frans Hals changed that.
“He was not a sober painter,” said Friso Lammerts, co-curator of a major exhibition of the Dutch artist's paintings that opened this week at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
“People laugh very often, which is a very remarkable thing in the 17th century — that they smile or even laugh, which rarely happens,” he added Tuesday at a preview of the exhibit.
The exhibition, which debuted at London's National Gallery last year, is now moving to the Dutch capital.
Despite Hals's alleged fondness for the drink, he had complete control over his artistic process.
“It would be an exaggeration if I said his style was because he drank a lot. It is really an awareness of what is happening in painting in Europe at the moment,” Lammerts said.
Instead, Hals was most likely under the influence of the Flemish masters Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck.
“He makes this loose stroke… because it belongs to the avant-garde of European art at this moment. But it is also functional. It… suggests a kind of movement. And he goes further than all the others in aspiring to show that movement.”
Hals's fluid brushstrokes made him a major influence on later artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Impressionists such as Edouard Manet.
Hals's most famous work, The Laughing Knight, highlights the humor in his work. The knight, with his smile, upturned mustache and hat at a jaunty angle, has traveled across the English Channel from the Wallace Collection in London. It is the painting's first overseas trip since 1870 and is one of 48 works by Hals collected at the Rijksmuseum for display.
The Hals exhibition comes on the heels of recent blockbuster shows at the Amsterdam Museum showcasing the other two big names of 17th-century Dutch art – Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer.
“They all work with the same medium: oil paint on canvas, but they do something completely different with it,” said Taco Dibbets, general director of the Rijksmuseum.
“With Rembrandt, it's emotion and the human condition. With Vermeer, it's stillness. And with Frans Hals, it's movement and joy. Almost everyone laughs at Frans Hals's pictures. And when you walk through the gallery, you start laughing because it's about freedom with the brushstrokes. Really, the brushstrokes “Dancing on the fabric.”
The exhibition opens on February 16 at the Rijksmuseum and runs until June 9. From July 12 to November. 3, moves to Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.
