The Town Hall, facing the Groote Kerk, was originally a palace of the counts of Holland. It was begun in the twelfth century, but was remodelled in 1620 and 1630, when a wing was added. Some of the large beams in the interior date from the thirteenth century. The walls of the vestibule are decorated with coats of arms and portraits of the counts and countesses of Holland.
The Room containing Hals's Doelen Pictures.—We pass at once into the principal room, where the famous Regent (or Doelen) pictures by Hals are arranged in chronological order. These pictures represent nearly all the artist's working period. The Banquet of the Officers of the Guild of the Archers of St. George was painted in 1616, when the artist was thirty-five; the same subject, with different portraits, in 1627; the Banquet of the Officers of the Arquebusiers of St. Andrew, in 1622, when the corps departed for the siege of Hasselt and Mons; Reunion of the Arquebusiers of St. Andrew, in 1633; and Officers and Sub-Officers of the Arquebusiers of St. George, in 1639.
FRANS HALS
Reunion of the Arquebusiers of St. Andrew
As the enormous canvases each contain from fourteen to twenty life-size portraits, we feel as if we were entering a hall full of convivial officers, laughing, jesting, and making merry over their fine wines and choice food. They are richly dressed; many of them wear lace cuffs and ruffs and bright scarfs; flags flutter, spears glitter, spurs and swords clank and flash in the sunlight; the plumes on the large hats nod; and loud talk and bursts of laughter seem to issue from the frames. These convivial men have fought against the hated Spaniards, and are ready to trail a pike at any moment. The artist was commanded to paint each man accurately and according to his rank in the company. Every picture is, therefore, a group of portraits; and Colonel Jan Claasz Loo, in the picture of 1633, is considered one of Hals's masterpieces of portraiture. These pictures rank with Rembrandt's and Van der Helst's works of this class.
In addition to these are Regents of the Hospital of St. Elizabeth (1641), Regents of the Old Men's Almshouse, and Lady Regents of the Old Men's Almshouse, both painted in 1664, when Hals was over eighty. Two fine portraits of Nicholas van der Meer, Burgomaster of Haarlem, and his wife, are dated 1631. A copy of a portrait of Frans Hals by himself hangs in an adjoining room.
Crowe on Hals's Earlier and Later Styles.—"In every form of his art we can distinguish his earlier style from that of later years. Two Boys Playing and Singing, in the Gallery of Cassel, and A Banquet of Officers, in the Museum of Haarlem, exhibit him as a careful draughtsman, capable of great finish, yet spirited withal. His flesh, less clear than it afterwards became, is pastose and burnished. Further on he becomes more effective, displays more freedom of hand and a greater command of effect. At this period we note the beautiful full-length of a young lady of the Berensteyn family in the house of that name in Haarlem, and a splendid full-length of A Patrician Leaning on a Sword, in the Lichtenstein Collection at Vienna. Both these pictures are equalled by the Banquets of Officers of 1627, and a Meeting of the Company of St. George, of 1633, in the Haarlem Museum. A picture of the same kind in the Town Hall of Amsterdam, with the date of 1637, suggests some study of the masterpieces of Rembrandt, and a similar influence is apparent in a picture of 1641 at Haarlem, representing the Regents of the Company of St. Elizabeth.... Rembrandt's example did not create a lasting impression on Hals. He gradually dropped more and more into gray and silvery harmonies of tone; and two of his canvases, executed in 1664,—the Regents and Regentesses of the Oudemannenhuis, at Haarlem,—are masterpieces of color, though in substance they are but monochromes."
His Pictures of Various Strata of Society.—"Hals's pictures illustrate the various strata of society into which his misfortunes led him. His banquets or meetings of officers, of sharpshooters and guildsmen, are the most interesting of his works. But they are not more characteristic than his low-life pictures of itinerant players and singers. His portraits of gentlefolk are true and noble, but hardly so expressive as those of fishwives and tavern heroes. His first master was Van Mander, the painter and historian, of whom he possessed some pictures. But he soon left behind him the practice of the time illustrated by Schoreel and Moro, and, emancipating himself gradually from tradition, produced pictures remarkable for truth and dexterity of hand."
Hals and Rembrandt compared.—"We prize in Rembrandt the golden glow of effects based upon artificial contrasts of low light in immeasurable gloom. Hals was fond of daylight, of silvery sheen. Both men were painters of touch, but of touch on different keys. Rembrandt was the bass, Hals the treble. The latter is, perhaps, more expressive than the former. He seizes with rare intuition a moment in the life of his sitters. What nature displays in that moment he reproduces thoroughly in a very delicate scale of color, and with a perfect mastery over every form of expression. He becomes so clever at last that exact tone, light and shade, and modelling are all obtained with a few marked and fluid strokes of the brush."
The Other Corporation Pictures.—The other Corporation pictures will not detain us; but while here we can take a hasty glance at A. Brouwer's Binnenhuis; Jan Steen's Peasants' Kermesse; Philips Wouwermans's Stags and Goats; Molenaer's Rustic Wedding; F. Hals the Younger's Binnenhuis; Pieter Aertsen's Children in the Fiery Furnace; A. Backer's Semiramis; Cornelis Bega's Street Musicians; Gerrit Berckheyde's Groote Markt in Haarlem and Fish Market in Haarlem; Job Berckheyde's Groote Kerk, Haarlem, and Joseph and his Brothers in Egypt; Bloemaert's Message to the Shepherds; Pieter Claez's Still Life; Jacques de Claen, Fruits; Droochsloot's Kermesse; A. van Everdingen's Street in Haarlem; H. Goltzius's Titus; G. W. Heda's Still Life; G. van Honthorst's Singer; Hendrik Meyer's Groote Markt, Haarlem; P. de Molyn's Pillaged and Burning Village; Isaac van Nickele's Groote Kerk, Haarlem; Isaac Ouwater's Groote Markt, Haarlem; Christoffel Pierson's Hunting Attributes; Isaac Ruisdael's Holland Dunes and Landscape in the Dunes; Saenredam's Nieuwe Kerk, Haarlem; P. van Santvoort's Winter Landscape; J. van Scorel's Adam and Eve, St. Cecilia Playing the Organ, and Christ's Baptism in the Jordan; Jacob van der Ulft's The Forum of Nerva, Rome; Esais van de Velde's Landscape; Jan Wijnants's Landscape; Thomas Wyck's Roman Ruins; and many portraits by Maes, Jan Weenix, Jan Victors, Verkolje, Ter Borch, Ravesteyn, Pot, Netscher, Mierevelt, T. de Keijser, and other famous Dutch artists.