Editing Frans Hals (section)

==Painting technique==

[[File:Frans Hals 008.jpg|thumb|left|Frans Hals. ''Gypsy Girl''. 1628–30. Oil on wood, 58 x 52&nbsp;cm. [[Musée du Louvre]], Paris.]]
Hals was a master of a technique that utilized something previously seen as a flaw in painting, the visible brushstroke. The soft curling lines of Hals's brush are always clear upon the surface: "materially just lying there, flat, while conjuring substance and space in the eye."<ref name="Schjeldahl">{{Cite magazine |last1=Schjeldahl |first1=Peter |author-link=Peter Schjeldahl |date=8 August 2011 |title=Haarlem Shuffle: The Fast World of Frans Hals |magazine=The New Yorker |publisher=Condé Nast |pages=74–75 |url=http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2011/08/08/110808craw_artworld_schjeldahl |access-date=26 November 2011 |archive-date=28 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928123545/http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2011/08/08/110808craw_artworld_schjeldahl |url-status=live }}{{subscription required}}</ref>
In this way his style was similar to Édouard Manet; in fact, Hals was described by author Raymond Cogniat as "the Manet of his day."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cogniat |first=Raymond |title=Seventeenth Century Painting |publisher=The Viking Press |year=1964 |location=New York |pages=26}}</ref> Lively and exciting, the technique can appear "ostensibly slapdash"<ref name=Schjeldahl/> – people often think that Hals 'threw' his works 'in one toss' (''aus einem Guss'') onto the [[canvas]]. This impression is not correct.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Frans Hals Biography {{!}} Life, Paintings, Influence on Art {{!}} frans-hals.org|url=https://www.frans-hals.org/biography.html|access-date=28 January 2021|website=www.frans-hals.org|archive-date=6 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210206030759/https://www.frans-hals.org/biography.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Hals did occasionally paint without [[underdrawing]]s or [[underpainting]] (''[[alla prima]]''), but most of the works were created in successive layers, as was customary at that time. Sometimes a drawing was made with chalk or paint on top of a grey or pink undercoat, and was then more or less filled in, in stages. It does seem that Hals usually applied his underpainting very loosely: he was a virtuoso from the beginning. This applies, of course, particularly to his genre works and his somewhat later, mature works. Hals displayed tremendous daring, great courage and virtuosity, and had a great capacity to pull back his hands from the canvas, or panel, at the moment of the most telling statement. He didn't 'paint them to death', as many of his contemporaries did, in their great accuracy and diligence whether requested by their clients or not.

In the 17th century his first biographer, Schrevelius wrote: "An unusual manner of painting, all his own, surpassing almost everyone," on Hals's painting methods. For that matter, schematic painting was not Hals's own idea (the approach already existed in 16th century Italy), and Hals was probably inspired by Flemish contemporaries, [[Peter Paul Rubens|Rubens]] and [[Van Dyck]], in his painting method. Haarlem resident [[Theodorus Schrevelius]] was struck by the vitality of Hals's portraits which reflected 'such power and life' that the painter 'seems to challenge nature with his brush'.