13 Men in 27 Shades of Black

Let's get straight to the point -- Frans Hals: The Male Portrait at the Wallace Collection in London is easily the most satisfying exhibition we've seen in a very long while, since before you-know-what.  

This is not a big blockbuster show; there are just 13 paintings to admire, widely spaced, but the presentation and the thought that's gone into the indispensable audio commentary that accompanies the display make for a truly stunning gallery-going experience. A range of experts take you beyond the art on the canvas into a deeper appreciation of the history, the social attitudes and fashion of the Dutch Golden Age, and of Hals's influence on later painters. It was Vincent van Gogh who said that Hals had 27 blacks in his repertoire, and they're all here, though this is by no means a monochrome show.

Hals and Rembrandt were the two greatest portraitists of 17th-century Holland, and while there have been plenty of exhibitions celebrating those portraits in recent years, this is, perhaps surprisingly, the first devoted to Hals's pictures of single male sitters. It centres on probably the best-known work in the Wallace Collection, The Laughing Cavalier, a painting that embodies the swagger, the panache, for which Hals is famous.

One of the most splendidly attired of the 13 men on show here, he is of course not laughing, nor is he a cavalier. Curator Lelia Packer tells us he may have been a rich Flemish merchant -- there were many Flemings in Haarlem, where Hals lived and worked, and Hals was one himself, having been born in Antwerp. He's dressed in the latest French fashion, and just look at the rich decor on his sleeve, full of emblems representing wealth and love. Not to mention the lace. The painting's well dressed too, on an extremely fine linen canvas. 

For Grayson Perry, an artist who knows a thing or two about dressing up and making a display of yourself, the Cavalier looks like a "smirking lothario" who's going to be "out with the lads tonight". Perry provides an irreverent, pointed and hugely funny commentary on Hals's pictures as part of the audioguide, but it's the Wallace's arms specialist who points out that the Laughing Cavalier is, quite discreetly, displaying just how fabulously wealthy he is with an extremely expensive sword that you could scarcely make out were it not for the gilded pommel tucked casually behind his elbow.

There's another wealthy Haarlem businessman hanging next to the cavalier/lothario, and if he's not quite as colourful, he also seems extremely pleased with himself. And why not? That satin doublet may be grey, but it's the height of late 1630s fashion, and Hals's brushwork expertly recreates the folds at his elbow and the expanse of fabric over that rather expansive tummy. No ruff, but a flat collar, all the better to show off those modern flowing locks. 

This may be Nicolaes van Voorhout, a brewer, and he's someone who looks like he knows how to enjoy himself. One of two men of this profession in this show, and Grayson Perry tells us he would certainly prefer to go for a few beers with van Voorhout than with the very sober-looking François Wouters, who we encounter later on, and who has the air of never touching the stuff.  

The Netherlands in the 17th century wasn't just a nation of businessmen getting plump and getting rich, it was a nation of adventurers, seeking wealth from overseas trade, sometimes of a rather murky sort. 

Here's an old sea salt, with a jaunty, jolly smile and a head of dishevelled, windswept hair above his ruddy cheeks. It seems as if he should be wearing the gold earring of a buccaneer, but Pieter van den Broecke wears a triple chain of chunky gold, a gift to commemorate his 17 years of service in the Dutch East India Company, securing valuable spices from the Orient and, new research has discovered, becoming involved in the slave trade in West Africa. 

That's the cue for two lengthy discussions by Dutch experts about the slave trade and the East India Company, casting light on the sort of activity van den Broecke took part in, and on his personal life. Not such a jolly old sea salt after all, you realise. 

Looking rather more forbidding than van den Broecke is Tieleman Roosterman, whose apparel surely demonstrates most of Hals's 27 varieties of black, as the artist's palette grew more restricted over time. It's been suggested that Roosterman is the same man who sat for The Laughing Cavalier, portrayed again by Hals a decade later. But we don't buy it. Those eyebrows are not the cavalier's eyebrows.

Roosterman was a successful Haarlem textile merchant, a dealer in fine linen and silk. And he wants you to know it. Hals emphasises the white cuff and collar that provide such a contrast with Roosterman's luxurious black suit. 

Dressing in black, as the Dutch did as the century progressed, didn't mean dressing dull. Look at the cuffs and elaborate sleeves in this Portrait of a Man from the Met, brilliantly rendered by Hals in a flurry of white brushstrokes.

And then there are those ribbons hanging down just below the doublet. Not to mention the hat. A hat says a lot about a man, as do gloves. The gloves being held by the subject of the Portrait of a Man from the Royal Collection aren't his. Want to know more? The Wallace has an authority from Dents, the company that's "handmade the world's finest gloves since 1777", who can tell you. 

Hals's painting style grew looser and looser as he progressed in years. He was in his 60s when he painted Jasper Schade, a scion of a prominent patrician family from Utrecht. That city had plenty of fine painters of its own, so it's a sign of how Hals's reputation had grown in the Netherlands that he would have been brought in from relatively distant Haarlem to execute this commission.

Young Jasper was a dedicated follower of fashion and notorious for running up large tailoring bills. In 1645, the year this picture was painted, he spent 300 francs on a single piece of clothing in Paris, the equivalent of 75 percent of a skilled craftsman's annual wage. 

Hals's rapid brushstrokes capture the silvery shimmer on Schade's sleeve. That's another really expensive piece of cloth he's wearing. But those raised eyebrows, that haughtily arrogant gaze....

Let's move on to the final picture in this show, hanging about 40 metres down the gallery from The Laughing Cavalier. This is Frans Hals in his 80s, producing paintings that were a good two centuries ahead of their time. 

It could be by Manet, couldn't it? Manet loved Hals, but it was only in the late 19th century that Hals was rediscovered. Like Vermeer, he seems to have slipped into the shadows for a couple of hundred years. This Portrait of an Unknown Man appears to have been dashed off in next to no time, a piece of prescient Impressionism. But what about the sitter? He's no Jasper Schade. Grayson Perry has the answer: He looks like a dissolute rocker, "not that old but he's really hammered himself", and seemingly not quite sober. 

Well, it is an intoxicating exhibition. Only 13 paintings, but we spent nearly two hours taking it all in. And we'd have been glad to go round again straight away, it was that good. We don't tend to go in for star ratings or scores, but if we did, we'd give it 10 out of 10. Shame it's not going on to the Netherlands; the Dutch would love it. 

Practicalities

Frans Hals: The Male Portrait is on at the Wallace Collection in London until January 30. The gallery is open daily from 1000 to 1700. Full-price tickets to the exhibition are £14, or £16 including a Gift Aid donation, and you can buy them online here. The Wallace is on Manchester Square, a few minutes' walk north of Selfridges on Oxford St. Bond St is the closest Tube station, but Oxford Circus and Baker St are also within walking distance.

Images

Frans Hals, The Laughing Cavalier, 1624, Wallace Collection, London

Frans Hals, Portrait of a Man, Possibly Nicolaes Pietersz Duyst van Voorhout, c. 1636-8. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Frans Hals, Pieter van den Broecke, c. 1633, Kenwood House, London. © Historic England Archive

Frans Hals, Portrait of Tieleman Roosterman, 1634, The Cleveland Museum of Art

Frans Hals, Portrait of a Man, early 1650s. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Frans Hals, Jasper Schade, 1645, National Gallery, Prague
Frans Hals, Portrait of an Unknown Man, c. 1660-63. © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge