Frans Hals exhibition review, National Gallery, London

'The Laughing Cavalier' by Frans Hals (1624)

(Image credit: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo)

published 13 October 2023

There was a time when Frans Hals (1582-1666) was remembered as one of the greatest of canonical artists, said Rachel Cooke in The Observer. The Dutch 17th century portraitist was, for instance, a huge influence on the impressionists: Manet "loved him", as did van Gogh. Yet somewhere down the line, Hals "fell out of favour", acquiring a reputation for "stodginess" and "sameness"; it may not have helped that his best-known work, including his famous picture "The Laughing Cavalier" (1624), was characterised by an unfashionable jollity. (Kenneth Clark called him "revoltingly cheerful".) What's clear from this new exhibition, however, is that the doubters have been missing out. The show is the first major display of Hals' art in 30 years, bringing together around 50 of his portraits to showcase quite what an extraordinary artist he really was. Hals' likenesses – of everyone from soldiers to musicians – brim with "tenderness", "joy" and humanity. This event is "a mind-changing, once-in-a-lifetime experience, and an inspiriting, mood-boosting tonic to boot".

"If you love extravagant male facial hair", then "this is your show", said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. His portrait of Pieter Verdonck sees its subject endowed with "an upward curling moustache over a forked beard"; a likeness of Pieter Dircksz Tjarck is embellished with "a goatee that sticks out like a spike". Anyone else, however, will be disappointed. The curators argue that Hals deserves to be viewed as the equal of Vermeer and Rembrandt, but this exhibition makes it clear that he is no such thing. His paintings are "weirdly soulless": you see "one technically brilliant painting of a flushed face after another". His subjects "don't have inner lives. Or none you can sense." Ultimately, "vivacity isn't the same thing as life".

It's true that looking at portrait after portrait of "men and women in luxurious, satiny black" can feel "monotonous", said Alastair Sooke in The Daily Telegraph. Nevertheless, Hals' pictures are never "stiff" or "dull". More often than not, they "feel immediate, even contemporary", and it's easy to see why the impressionists were so enamoured of his "freewheeling, flickering brushwork": witness his portrait of the "aristocratic dandy" Jasper Schade, whose jacket is a startlingly modern "cascade of strokes". Sitters "smile and wink, poke out tongues, tip back on chairs"; fingers are "splayed in expressive gestures", eyebrows arched. But Hals "isn't just about joy and jesting", and his "understanding of human nature was deeper than people realise". The prostitute depicted in "La Bohémienne", for instance, "may be smiling, but her expression appears tight, tensed, forced", while a woman committed to a workhouse is visibly "tormented". Ultimately, this is a fine tribute to "a master of the painted snapshot".