Part 1

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.

Franz Hals

BY EDGCUMBE STALEY

ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR

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

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.

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!

* * * * *

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.