THE MYTHS ABOUT FRANS HALS

     Today we shall expose some of the fallacies committed by contemporary art critics and historians alike.

       About the art of Frans Hals and Rembrandt, the author Mariet Westermann has these entries in her book, A Worldly Art  (Prentice Hall/Abram

1.    The visible brush strokes in “rough” paintings by Rembrandt and Frans Hals…call attention to the virtuosity of their makers, but such dashing brushwork also works as a realist ploy. 

2.                    In Hals’ portraits, the quick and decisive look of each stroke suggests spontaneity, the recording of one specific instant in the life of the sitter. Moreover, with these techniques Rembrandt and Hals edited out many descriptive specifics, creating a composite image that is greater than the sum of its parts. 

3.   This strategiy makes the viewing experience of their portraits resemble lifelike encounters with the sitters, in which we tend to focus on a few aspects of a person rather than on every hair, wrinkle, button and earring…Rembrandt further simulated an actual meeting by casting less important parts of his portraits in shadow and by highlighting faces, hands and significant attributes. 

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        If by “spontaneity”, Ms. Westermann means ” being voluntary, proceeding from one’s natural feeling or acting upon one’s native tendency without external constraint” (which is the meaning of that word provided by Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary), then she cannot have been more mistaken in her perception of Frans Hals’ masterpiece, Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Militia, 1616.

         One look at the following diagrams in which I have painstakingly mapped out the possible “external constraints” within that composition will reveal the type of fallacies frequently committed by our art critics or historians regarding true art. The existence of an intricate program of “external constraints”, which are in fact what I have coined as ” the rhymes, rhythms and meters” of a true composition–in order to bring home the intimate relationship between painting and poetry,– shows that our art critics and historians do not have the ability to avoid committing the fallacies discussed below.

          Those fallacies directly result from the claim that ” Frans Hals’ work suggests spontaneity.”  After looking at my diagrams mapping out the “external constraints”, it would become clear that our art critics or historians’ blindness to the true artistic merits of a masterpiece has prevented them from surmounting the barrier of the superficial. They have failed to look beyond the extremely mesmerizing effect of Frans Hals’ powerful,– in fact, what has appeared to them as “spontaneous” brushstrokes. 

        When one is not sure of what one wants to convey to the readers, one often employs this deceptive formula of, “…this, that or that–so on, so forth– is greater than the sum of its parts…etc.” 

         That is the deceitful technique of vagueness, predicating on something that one could never be held accountable for.

          But what are the parts and what is the sum? Why is the sum greater? That is the tricky part that Ms. Westermann has failed to address to us in a satisfactory way. If the sum is the entirety of Hals’ painting, and the parts are his “free brushstrokes”, then it is quite possible that Ms.Westermann, like most people whose understanding of Frans Hals is virtually nil, gets superficially enthralled by the artist’s masterful brushstrokes without ever digging into his composition–i.e. the entirety in which the brushstrokes are just one aspect of its beauty. Now Ms. Westermann also seems to be saying that with the impressionistic technique Frans Hals has “edited out” the “descriptive specifics” of his sitters and created instead a composite image representing the sitters’ “ resemlances” or being employed as a “realist ploy.”  

         In suggesting “these techniques” of ” Rembrandt and Frans Hals”, i.e. her coded words for the impressionistic techniques, she also implies that Frans Hals’ artistic intent(or Rembrandt’s, for that matter,) is one of description or simulation.

         That implication reveals a gross insensitiveness on her part towards the very heart of Poetry–which has nothing to do with description or lifelike simulation!

          Secondly, it is due to the author’s misconception with regard to another painterly intent of Frans Hals (or Rembrandt, for that matter,), i.e.,to record “a specific instant in the life of the sitter” or “makes the portraits resemble lifelike encounters with the sitters” that another fallacy is born. Recording “a specific instant in the life of the sitter” or “make the portraits resemble lifelike encounters with the sitters” are certainly not the intent of Frans Hals (or Rembrandt). Either master’s intent, which is basically poetic by nature, is to share with us the universality about life’s situation in the floating world, instead of dwelling on any specific details at a personal level of the sitter.

       At any rate, implying that Frans Hals has tried to give an impressionistic description or  “realistic simulation”  is truly an insult to the master. It is probably the last thing Frans Hals would do in any of his paintings. Frans Hals’ portraitures of people are some of the greatest metaphors of the human race under merciful Heaven! He has never given us a single frivolous description of his subjects as far as I can remember. Only mediocre artists would be involved in the banality of description. Great painters provide visual metaphors– and that is the legacy Frans Hals has passed on to posterity.

 

Figure 1: Frans Hals   Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Militia, 1616.

Figure 2: Mapping out a small portion of the rhymes, rhythms and meters in the composition of Banquet of the Officers of St. George Militia,1616.

The figures below illustrate the composition of one of Jan Steen’s masterpieces, Celebrating The Birth, 1664. The young Jan Steen was a student of Master Frans Hals and much is in common between the two masters in building up their compositions.

 

 

Figure 3: Jan Steen Celebrating The Birth 1664

Figure 4: Mapping out a portion of the rhymes, rhythms and meters of Fig. 3.

 

 Figure 5: Mapping out a portion of the rhymes, rhythms and meters of Fgure 3.

Figure 6: Mapping out a portion of the rhymes, rhythms and meters of figure 3.

Figure 7: Mapping out a portion of the rhymes, rhythms and meters of Figure 3.

 

Critique by Ben Taishing Lau