Van Gogh and Frans Hals

25-02-2024

Frans Hals is one of the three greatest painters of the Dutch seventeenth century. With his loose brushstrokes he painted marvelous portraits: from wealthy merchants to fishermen. Unlike Rembrandt and Vermeer, Hals is less known. While Van Gogh was a big fan of the work of this Haarlem painter. What did Van Gogh see in Frans Hals? And how did other famous painters look at this painter?

Twenty-one shades of grey

We know quite well what Vincent van Gogh thought about Frans Hals. Partly thanks to the letters that Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, we get an insight into the life of this artist. The earliest descriptions of Frans Hals date before Van Gogh became an artist in 1880. In the autumn of 1877, Vincent wrote to Theo that he had advised an uncle to go to the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. The plan was actually to go to Antwerp, but the uncle changed his plans. 

One of the most important descriptions about Hals can be found in 1885. Van Gogh had been living with his parents in the parsonage of Nuenen for two years. He had already completed his famous Potato Eaters for a few months. Vincent spent three days in Amsterdam to visit the newly opened Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. He writes a letter about it. The striking thing about this letter is that he writes long passages about the painting The Maegre Company. This is the only militia piece that Hals painted outside Haarlem. He just didn't complete it. About half of the painting was completed by the Amsterdam painter Pieter Codde. Van Gogh was especially impressed by all the tones of gray and their variety. He is also very pleased with the color, such as the combination of blue next to the bright orange. This painting alone was worth traveling to Amsterdam for Vincent.

Frans Hals and Pieter Codde, The Maegre Company, 1637, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

A week later, Van Gogh is still completely impressed by the brushwork of Hals. He even describes that there are twenty-one shades of black. He also goes to museums more and more often in search of Frans Hals. But the name appears less in the letters after 1885. This is a logical consequence of Vincent's departure for Paris in the spring of 1886. At the time, he lived with his brother in an apartment in the heart of Montmartre. As a result, there are no known letters and therefore little information about his life and thoughts in Paris. But Vincent, for example, was able to see Hals´ paintings in the Louvre at the time. He did probably see Hals, but this is undocumented. 

We do see that after his departure from Paris little was written about Frans Hals. This may be because Van Gogh developed other interests after two years of meeting new artists. He was able to see new art forms at his brothers art dealership, and gained different insights from this. Painters such as Gauguin, Manet, Monet and Degas were not unknown to him.

Impressionists

Van Gogh was no exception in his admiration for Frans Hals. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Haarlem became a place of pilgrimage for modern painters. They mainly came to study Hals' paintings. They all fell for one thing: the loose painting technique. Unlike Vermeer, Hals did not paint as refined at all. We often see loose brushstrokes that then form a sleeve or a glass. It is often the suggestion of an object. The emerging Impressionists were amazed and surprised by this. They saw a painter who could paint so loosely two centuries earlier. They wanted to get rid of the existing academic rules that focused on smooth painting. Manet painted, among other things, a copy of a large group portrait in which Hals's painting touch is looser than ever. 

Frans Hals had just been rediscovered around 1850 by the same man who did Vermeer popularized. Partly because of this, the Laughing Cavalier was sold for 51,000 guilders, a huge amount at the time. Hals received increasing attention among the avant-garde of that time. They saw Hals as a rebellious painter who could paint portraits very accurately. This trend is different from a century before in the eighteenth century. Then it was written about Hals that he was a drunk who just muddled along. But this was precisely what was embraced by a new generation of painters.

Loose technique

But what does Hals' loose painting technique look like? A good example of this is the painting of the Laughing Boy from the Mauritshuis collection. We see a boy looking at something that is out of our picture plane. He laughs with his mouth open. The clothing looks chic with a small white collar. We see great freedom in the brushstrokes on the face, in which Hals painted a mouth with only a few strokes. The contours are less rigidly displayed, so we fill in the rest automatically. The eyes are a good example of this, where it takes a few lines to make it a convincing image. 

The greatest degree of expression is in the hair and clothing. With just a few strokes, Hals gives the suggestion of a white lace. The hair is painted with quick strokes. Especially where the curl catches light, it is thickly set up. The thick paint is something the Impressionists used in their own paintings. The Laughing Boy appears to have been painted wet-on-wet. This is a technique in which the work is often painted in one go. This technique also explains it´ s high production. The Impressionists also used this, in which they quickly give an impression of reality.

Right: Frans Hals, Laughing Boy, 1625, Mauritshuis Den Haag


Van Gogh was therefore a great admirer of the work of Frans Hals. He visited his works several times after being entranced in the Rijksmuseum. The use of color particularly appealed to him. Van Gogh's contemporaries could not get enough of Hals either. They all went to Haarlem to admire the great master. The loose painting technique appealed to them the most. They learned from this and used it in their own works. In any case, they were fans of Frans Hals. Are you a fan too?

Do you always wanted to have a Van Gogh or Frans Hals? Request your favorite painting as a reproduction in oil, or see the examples. 

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