PLATE VI.—THE JOLLY MANDOLINIST (DER NAAR)
(Collection of Baron G. Rothschild, Paris. A copy by Dirk Hals in Rijks Museum, Amsterdam)
Painted in 1625. This is a very jolly fellow! It is a portrait of one of Hals' favourite pupils, Adriaen Brouwer, who was also renowned for his musical gifts and his love of practical jokes; he painted pictures too sometimes! His nickname in the studios was "Der Naar"—"Funny Man!" The "Jolly Mandolinist" must have caught sight of one of his lady-loves at a window, or a painting chum. His staccato note ends in a genial smile, and he is ready for a joke or a hand-tossed kiss. This has Hals splendidly fixed, a snapshot would not have had a more instantaneous effect. The Spanish costume suggests the celebration of one of the famous Haarlem masquerades.
And Haarlem was the most prosperous of cities. Between 1630-1640 the Tulip mania was at its height, and Haarlem was the metropolis of the bulb. It is said that in one year the florists of the city cleared twelve million golden florins.
To Haarlem, as to an artists' Mecca, flocked teachers, students, and connoisseurs from all lands, and among the rest came a notable pilgrim, Anthonie Van Dyck.
Mincing along in his courtier-like manner, in search of impressions, he wished to see for himself the master about whom gossip had spun such wonderful stories, and to watch him at work. He was at The Hague, the honoured guest of Frederick of Nassau, Prince of Orange, painting princely patrons, and it was not more than a Sabbath-day's journey to Haarlem.
So one bright morning in June that year, 1630, Van Dyck, unannounced, knocked at Franz Hals' front door. Vrouw Hals greeted the stranger courteously—"My husband," she said, "is not at home, maybe he is at the Life School; will the gentleman step in and rest."
Jan, who was just twelve years old, was sent to look for his father, and at last discovered him, not at his studio, but with some boon companions in the little back room of his favourite tavern hard by. Perhaps among the "Merry Topers" there were famous Admiral Van Tromp, killed in 1653, and his jolly comrade, Jan Barentz, the entertaining cobbler—late a lieutenant in the fleet, whose portrait Hals painted many a time as a "Jolly Toper," with his great big hands and grinning face, squinting at the liquor level of his tell-tale glass.
"There is a smart gentleman, all the way from Antwerp, to see you, dad, and he wants you to paint his portrait," so ran on the lad.
Hals bid his boy go home, finished his tankard and his pipe, and leisurely sauntered along. He was in no good-humour at the interruption, and gave the stranger a cool welcome. At first he demurred at being called upon to paint a man he had never seen before, and whose features and figure he had had no opportunity of studying.
Van Dyck, without revealing his identity, begged him to proceed, and offered him a tempting fee. Without more ado Hals snatched up the first old canvas lying on the floor, and in a couple of hours he had painted, in a manner which greatly astonished his sitter, a telling likeness.
Van Dyck laid down the amount he had promised, but asked Hals whether he might, in return, attempt to paint his portrait. Hals was astounded, and more so as the visitor progressed, for it was borne in upon him that such a stylish virtuoso could be none other than his famous rival, the great Flemish master. "Who the devil are you?" he exclaimed. "Why, you must be Anthonie Van Dyck!"
Van Dyck was exigeant that Hals should accompany him to England, where he had been summoned by the king. No words and no inducement could move Hals out of Holland—it was his home, it was his world; Dutch of the Dutch was he, bred in the bone!
Van Dyck departed much disappointed, but he charmed the Vrouw Lysbeth and the kiddies by leaving behind for them twenty silver florins. As for Hals, he went back to his pots and his paints.
In the Schwerin Gallery is a "Portrait of a Man" with a good deal of Franz Hals about it, variously attributed to him and to Van Dyck. Maybe it is the one painted in Haarlem that hot June day in 1630.
Eight superb portraits by Hals were dated this self-same year: "The Group of the Beresteyn Family," and "[The Gipsy Girl]" (La Bohémienne), at the Louvre; "[The Mandoline Player]"—Der Schalksnaar, in Baron Gustave Rothschild's Collection in Paris; "[Nurse and Child]," and "The Jolly Toper," at the Royal Gallery in Berlin; "Portrait of a Man" ("ætat suæ 36") at Buckingham Palace; Mijnheer Willem Van Heythuysen, at the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna—the full-length, Velazquez-like standing portrait; and "Portrait of a Young Girl," of the Beresteyn family at Haarlem.
Der Schalksnaar—called also "The Fool," "The Buffoon," "The Jester," and, far more suitably, "[The Mandoline Player]"—is allowed to be the finest character-portrait in the world. Velazquez and Rembrandt never did anything so acutely life-like.
It is a "snapshot," so to speak, of Adriaen Brouwer, one of Hals' favourite and most distinguished pupils, whose renown as a painter of peasant genre was equalled by his fame as an archplayer of practical jokes and as a brilliant musician and improvisatore. Here he is, in fancy Spanish dress, red and yellow, with a real old Hispano-Moorish mandoline. His nickname in the studios was "Der Naar!" "Funny Fellow!" His face—clean-shaven, but still something of a stranger to soap and water—reflects, with amazing truthfulness and vitality, the emotions of the moment.
He laid a wager that he would make his innamorata peep out of her window and wave her hand at him. The staccato notes of the serenade have not yet quite died away, the strummer's hand has not relaxed its tension on the strings of the instrument, as the singer throws up a rapid glance of recognition.
"[Nurse and Child]" is as charming as anything in all the works of Franz Hals. Nothing can be imagined more natural, more simple, more appealing. At first sight the woman—she may be thirty—appears posed, but her expression is that of momentary abstraction from the restless exigencies of nursing. She is goodness and gentleness personified, and her pinned-up cap lappels tell of busy little fingers close by.
The baby is to the life. He is a vigorous youngster, the latest little son of the ancient North Holland family of Ilpenstein, prominent in Haarlem story. He has grabbed his nurse's brooch whilst he turns to have a good look at you, and, presto, he will bury his head in her kindly bosom with a merry laugh. His face is a tour de force—that of a rare critic, as all healthy babies are. I question whether any painter has painted a child's coming smile as Hals has done here.
The dress, a splendid piece of gold brocade in colours, must be an inspiration from Pieter Breughel, "le Velours" (1568-1625), whose mastery of glossy patterned stuffs is almost inimitable. The lace looks as if Hals had just cut lengths of rare Mechlin point and pasted them upon his canvas. Why, we can count every thread and knot!
The year that gave date to these widely differing, but admirably agreeing, character-portraits also witnessed the foundation of Franz Hals' Life School. Very soon after the death of Van Mander, in 1606, the famous Academy of Painting began to decline in popularity. The dissolution of partnership between Cornelissen and Goltzius, and their departure from Haarlem, caused its doors to be closed.
Whether he wished it or not, a goodly company of artists looked to Franz Hals as their leader, and so the mantle of Van Mander fell upon the shoulders of his most distinguished pupil.
Among those who foregathered in the new Academy were Pieter Soutman (1580-1657), Pieter Potter, father of Paul (1587-1642), Willem Claesz Heda (1594-1680), Jan Cornelisz Verspronett (1597-1662), Hendrik Gerritsz Pot (1600-1656), Pieter Molyn (1600-1661), Pieter Fransz De Grebber (1610-1665), Antonie Palamedesz Stevaerts (1604-1680), Adriaen Brouwer (1605-1638), Dirk Van Deelen (1605-1671), Cæsar Van Everdingen (1606-1679), Pieter Codde (1610-1666), Bartholomeus Van der Helst (1610-1670), Adriaen Van Ostade (1610-1685), Philippe Wouwermans (1620-1668), Isaac Van Ostade (1621-1649), Pieter Roestraeten (1627-1698), who married Sara, Franz Hals' eldest daughter; Vincenzius Laurenszoon Van der Vinne (1629-1702), and Job Berckheijde (1630-1693), with Hals' five sons and his brother Dirk.
There is in Haarlem Stadhuis a very interesting painting by the last of these, which shows Franz Hals' Life School and some of his pupils in the year 1652. Work is in full swing, and five of the master's sons—the youngest, Nicolaes, being twenty-four years old—and Dirk Hals with Van Deelen, Molyn, Berckheijde himself, and his little brother Gerritsz, seated at a table, are drawing from a nude model. The master is by the door, chatting with Philippe Wouwermans, who has just popped in to see how things are getting on.
It is said that Hals "sweated" his pupils by making them draw and paint subjects for which he paid them little or nothing, and which he sold at fair prices to meet his weekly tavern reckonings. Adriaen Brouwer is named as "living-in" at the Halsian establishment, with an uncomfortable bed, insufficient food, and scanty clothing! Be these tales what they may, there is characteristic evidence that Hals and his pupils lived on good terms. An amusing story is told by the Haarlem historian and biographer, Jacob Campo Weyerman, in his "Sevens-Beschrijoingen der Nederlondsche Konst-Schilders," of the goings on at the Life School.
