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.