Smiling, happy people: National Gallery’s landmark Frans Hals exhibition is a recipe for happiness

The most fiendishly difficult question my mother set on her art history final exam was always the same: “if you could commission any artist from history to do your portrait, who would it be and why?” Answering it to her “A” standard took a good deal of self awareness, a solid understanding of your artist’s style and nuances, and plenty of proof points. I picked my answer at least a year before I took her class (I knew the question would come) and it’s never changed: Frans Hals.

No one in the history of art has captured the soul of jollity as well as Hals. Even his most serious sitters have the ghost of a smile, or the sceptical arch of an eyebrow. Their personality leaps off the page. And in a genre that often portrays women as meek, mild and decorative, Hals’ female sitters look like they get stuff done and don’t suffer fools. But they, and most of the men, also look like they’re up for a good time. You’d invite everyone Hals painted over for dinner. They’re successful, charismatic, fun and funny. And that’s how I’d like to be remembered to history.

So imagine my delight when I learned that London’s National Gallery would be hosting the first major retrospective of the Frans Hals’ work in my adult life. It was a joy only exceeded by getting inside the show itself, where big personalities leap out of more than 50 frames in a wondrous gathering pulled together from museums and private collections across the world. It’s like going to a party with all the most charismatic, joyful and welcoming kids at school.

You wouldn’t think this kind of merriment would come out of the Netherlands in the 17th century. Most of Hals’ contemporaries show us a tidy society where everyone keeps their nose to the grindstone making money but never showing off. Everyone is modest and wears black. These are people you’d invest with, but would you really want to have dinner with them? Hals’ contemporaries Rembrandt and Vermeer are more famous these days. Yet I walked through the Dutch galleries after I left Hals’ behind and the people depicted there seemed paler. Less interesting. Less alive.

Hals’ people are different. Take Isaac Massa, a rich grain merchant who chose to have himself painted with a medusa and a skull in the background. One represents envy, the other death, basically sending a message to his competition to get over their jealousy of his success; death will level them all. (You can’t see these images today; the painting, on loan from Chatsworth, was conserved for the show and they showed up in an infrared scan.) Then there’s William van Heythuysen, who looks impressively regal in his full length portrait but there’s still a ghost of a smile. Years later Hals captures a broader grin in a much smaller and more casual picture of the same man. Here, he’s tipping back on his chair like a naughty schoolboy. 

And then there’s Cunera van Baersdorp, who’s shown with a hand planted on her hip and a jaunty elbow pointed towards us. It’s a pose known as the Renaissance Elbow and is common for men. It’s almost never used for women. 

The exhibition has liberated her from a private collection to hang once again next to her husband, Michiel de Wael, who now lives in Cincinnati; one of several examples of marital portraits that have been re-united in this show. Cunera and Michiel ran a brewery together and her portrait tells us she was just as vital to its management as he was. They are a 17th century power couple. 

It’s not just Hals’ loose brushwork and rapid painting style thank make him seem modern. His people are us, in fancy dress.

And what dress he gives us!

Yes, the Dutch loved to wear black. But under Hals’ brush it’s not monochrome. He captures nuances of pattern, depth and sheen to give every costume multiple layers. Accenting embroidery glistens. Lace glimmers in spidery delicacy. You can practically hear the neck ruffs scrunch against chins. Get up close, and his brushwork is almost abstract. Back up, and it becomes a sharply realistic cap, bit of elaborate jewellery or fantastical sword hilt.

Hals’ people aren’t just showing off, however. He manages to capture a deep empathy in the eyes of his sitters. Years ago when I was going through breast cancer and had time to kill between appointments on Harley Street, I used to pop in to the Wallace Collection to sit in front of the Laughing Cavalier. There was something soothing in his eyes that calmed my nerves and renewed my energy. It was like having lunch with a supportive friend.

He’s come across town to join this gathering, of course. And he’s not the only one with kindness in his eyes. Few other painters can bring people to life like this, much less give their eyes so much empathy they feel like friends.

That this exhibition delivers more of what the Cavalier radiates is no surprise. My favourite discovery here, however, is that there’s a kindness comes from Hals himself. Though he painted the rich and powerful, the two most memorable images in the show are of outsiders he chose to imbue with deep humanity.

Malle Babbe is a woman who’d been put into an institution because of her mental illness. Two of Hals children were in the same place, so we can assume he had a deeper understanding than most of her situation. So Malle isn’t the butt of a joke, or some salutary warning, as she might be in other art of the period, but a poignant and very real old woman captured in a moment of joy. 

The face I’ll remember above the others, however, is the black boy in the Family group in a landscape on loan from the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. Though slavery was illegal on Dutch soil, it’s a fair guess that he’s not there as an equal with the rest of the family. Young black servants were a status symbol at this time and show up regularly in portraits, but they’re usually either painted as another accessory … like they’re jewellery or furniture … or showing off a gleeful grin that feels disturbingly false. This child looks directly out at us while the rest of the family is engaged with each other. They’re cheerful. The black boy is grave and thoughtful. Assigning pain or anger to him is doubtless laying modern interpretations on the subject, but there’s no question that Hals has dignified the otherness of the outsider with a compelling gaze that talks to us across the centuries.

This leaves us with an interesting question. Were all the people Hals painted really such amazing souls? Or is it Hals himself who’s simply channeling his own optimistic, vivacious energy into anyone he put on canvas? We’ll never know. Beyond details of marriages, children, where he lived and what he painted, scholars can tell us little about the man. But this show leaves no mystery as to why the great and the good of 17th century Holland wanted him to capture them for posterity. And it confirms the decision of my youth. If I’m to go down in history as a powerful, successful woman who’s also great fun and infused with kindness, I’ll need to resurrect Frans Hals to paint me.