Frans Hals and Rembrandt: group portraits
The group portrait was a distinctive feature of Dutch culture in the seventeenth century. Other European countries were dominated by monarchies and aristocracies, but the Netherlands was a republic. The group portrait also expressed a typically Dutch fondness for clubs and societies. Even today, many Dutch people belong to their local choir or sports club. The group portraits depict the officers of local militia companies, the regents of charitable organisations, and the boards of guilds. The paintings were usually intended to hang in particular locations and depicted named individuals, who had paid to be included.
Frans Hals painted a total of nine group portraits: the three paintings of the St. George Militia Company of Haarlem; the two paintings of the St. Hadrian Militia Company, also at Haarlem; the Militia Company of Captain Reael of Amsterdam (completed by another artist, Pieter Codde); the painting of the regents of St. Elizabeth's Hospital at Haarlem; and the companion paintings of the regents and regentesses of the Old Men's Alms House at Haarlem. Rembrandt painted four group portraits, which include some of the most famous works of art ever created: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp; The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Deyman, which was badly damaged by fire in the eighteenth century; the painting of the Militia Company of Frans Banning Cocq, usually known as The Night Watch; and the painting of the sampling officials of the Drapers' Guild, usually known as De Staalmeesters or The Syndics.
Because these paintings were commissions, both Hals and Rembrandt had to follow certain conventions. For example, it was expected that the figures in a group portrait should all be given equal prominence. It is true that Rembrandt breaks with this convention to some extent in The Night Watch - Frans Banning Cocq and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenbergh, take very much centre stage - but most of the background figures are still portraits of recognisable individuals. Hals gives his officers more or less equal prominence, although the hierarchy of rank is shown by the seating arrangements, with the captain at the head of the table. Three of Hals' militia pieces depict banquets, a standard type of group portrait; at the end of their three years term of duty the officers held a farewell banquet - and these feasts could last for up to a week (Middelkoop 28). Likewise, Rembrandt's depiction of full-length militiamen holding weapons derives from another type of militia portrait, and his "heroic" treatment of the subject may have been partly due to the demands of Frans Banning Cocq, who wanted to revitalise the Amsterdam militia companies to deter the threat to the city's independence posed by the Stadtholder (Haverkamp-Begemann 24). The large size of The Night Watch was determined by the location in which it was to hang, the headquarters building of the Amsterdam militia companies. Both Hals and Rembrandt tend to idealise their subjects rather than depicting actual events. For example, it is unlikely that the ensigns would have stood holding their banners in the way that Hals depicts them - they would have been sitting down enjoying the banquet. Rembrandt's Dr Tulp would in real life have begun his dissection with the stomach and intestines, not the arm and the hand (Fuchs 25).
Rembrandt was probably a more important innovator than Hals. Hals arranges his militiamen in an interesting variety of poses and always produces a good composition; but, even so, his figures often look rather posed and stagey. Rembrandt achieves a greater degree of naturalism by making his figures engage in an action: listening to Dr Tulp's lecture, marching out (The Night Watch), or looking at the viewer as if he or she had entered the room (The Syndics). As R. H. Fuchs says, "Rembrandt wanted to break the traditional formula of the group portrait and tried to place his figures in a kind of active moment"(Fuchs 25). Some of Hals' banqueting officers are seated with their backs to us, turning round to look at us, whereas Rembrandt's syndics are looking at a book together, a naturalistic device which allows them to be seated on the same side of the table, facing us. Rembrandt gives a unity to his pictures by emphasising one important figure - Dr Tulp, Frans Banning Cocq, the syndic who is rising from his chair - whereas Hals diffuses interest over all his figures.
Hals' group portraits contain certain obvious contemporary references. The colours displayed by the militiamen - red, white, orange, and blue - are the colours of the companies and the town of Haarlem. The headquarters building of the St. Hadrian Company can be seen in the background of one painting. The picture hanging behind the regentesses may be of the Good Samaritan, alluding to the work of the charitable ladies. But Rembrandt includes learned and historical allusions of a kind not to be found in Hals. The big book propped up in Dr Tulp's anatomy demonstration implies that Tulp is the heir of Vesalius, the father of modern anatomy (Fuchs 26-27). Two of the musketeers in The Night Watch are dressed in sixteenth-century costume, alluding to the historical origins of the company; and there is a little girl with a dead bird hanging from her waistband, because the claws of a fowl were the emblem of the company. Kenneth Clark has shown that the composition of The Night Watch may have been influenced by a print of Raphael's School of Athens (Clark 86); and R. H. Fuchs has shown that The Night Watch may also be indebted to the opening scene of Vondel's play Gysbrecht van Amstel (Fuchs 37).
It is worthwhile comparing the brushwork and lighting of Frans Hals and Rembrandt, as both of them use a fluid, "painterly" style, especially when compared with the precise and linear style used by portrait painters like Verspronck and Van der Helst. Hals uses a light touch, with dabs and slashes of paint, almost "impressionist" in technique, whereas Rembrandt likes to build up thick layers of paint. Hals places his figures inside light-flooded rooms or out-of-doors, whereas Rembrandt places them inside rooms with strong contrasts of light and shadow. Both painters employ a richness of colouring and a love of elaborate composition - the careful arrangement of a group of figures. They also share an interest in spatial depth. For example, the captain's elbow in the St. George Civic Guard of 1616 and the corner of the table in The Syndics are both close to the picture plane, almost intruding into the space outside the painting. Hals' later portraits of regents and regentesses are much darker and more sombre than his portraits of the merry militiamen. This change in style may reflect the influence of Rembrandt, although it could also reflect the changing taste of Hals' patrons, who now preferred to be seen as well-to-do burghers rather than as soldiers.
It may also be true that Hals had some influence on Rembrandt. Norbert Middelkoop points out that "Rembrandt's famous regent-piece [The Syndics] is in composition and lighting related to Hals' The Regents of St. Elizabeth's Hospital" (Middelkoop 69). Both paintings show five darkly dressed men wearing tall hats and sitting round a table. Rembrandt's painting may also have been influenced by Verspronck's group portrait of The Regentesses of St. Elizabeth's Hospital. The most striking element of Rembrandt's composition - the syndic who is rising to his feet - is also found in Verspronck's earlier painting, in which one of the regentesses is shown in the act of standing up, with her hands resting on the table.
One of the most interesting aspects of the group portrait as a type of painting is the different ways it tackles the same basic problem: how to take a group of figures and arrange them in a harmonious, natural and interesting way. X-rays have shown that Rembrandt made changes to the positions of several figures in The Syndics until he got them exactly right (White 194). As we have already seen, Rembrandt tends to emphasise one main figure and unites the group by engaging it in a single action, while Hals tends to make a kind of abstract pattern of figures, some of them looking in opposite directions.
The other important aspect of the group portrait is, of course, the characterisation of the people portrayed. Rembrandt portrays the officials in The Syndics as dignified men, worthy representatives of their office. Equivalent group portraits by Hals - of the regents and regentesses of the Old Men's Alms House at Haarlem - are much less flattering. So much so that John Berger has claimed that Hals, who was old and poor, was attacking these administrators of public charity (Berger 11-16). One of the regents, for example, is shown with a fixed stare and his hat almost toppling off his head. Is he suffering from drunkenness, cerebral palsy, or an eye disease? The regentesses are shown as strict, severe-looking ladies, frowning at the viewer - who is thus placed in the position of one of the paupers dependent on their charity. In his book on Frans Hals, Seymour Slive argues that it is very unlikely that Hals could have been attacking the regents and regentesses, who had, after all, commissioned the portraits and seem to have paid him well for them (Slive 210-215). But if one compares these images with the more flattering ones produced by Rembrandt, Verspronck and Van der Helst, it seems difficult to believe that Hals felt well-disposed towards the regents and regentesses. Certainly, he was much more in sympathy with the jolly civic guards he had portrayed in earlier and happier years, men who had probably been his drinking companions. Indeed, Hals had himself been a member of the St. George Militia Company. Thus these civic guards portraits can be related to well-known pictures like The Laughing Cavalier and The Merry Drinker.
Works Cited
Berger, John, Ways of Seeing, London: BBC & Penguin, 1972
Clark, Kenneth, Rembrandt and the Italian Renaissance, London: John Murray, 1966
Fuch, R. H., Rembrandt en Amsterdam (in Dutch), Rotterdam: Lemniscaat, 1968
Haverkamp-Begemann, E., The Night Watch, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982
Middelkoop, Norbert, and Van Grevenstein, Anne, Frans Hals: Leven, Werk, Restauratie (in Dutch), Amsterdam: Uniepers, 1988
Slive, Seymour, Frans Hals (3 volumes), London: Phaidon, 1970
White, Christopher, Rembrandt, London: Thames & Hudson, 1984
Frans Hals painted a total of nine group portraits: the three paintings of the St. George Militia Company of Haarlem; the two paintings of the St. Hadrian Militia Company, also at Haarlem; the Militia Company of Captain Reael of Amsterdam (completed by another artist, Pieter Codde); the painting of the regents of St. Elizabeth's Hospital at Haarlem; and the companion paintings of the regents and regentesses of the Old Men's Alms House at Haarlem. Rembrandt painted four group portraits, which include some of the most famous works of art ever created: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp; The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Deyman, which was badly damaged by fire in the eighteenth century; the painting of the Militia Company of Frans Banning Cocq, usually known as The Night Watch; and the painting of the sampling officials of the Drapers' Guild, usually known as De Staalmeesters or The Syndics.
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| Rembrandt, The Night Watch, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Because these paintings were commissions, both Hals and Rembrandt had to follow certain conventions. For example, it was expected that the figures in a group portrait should all be given equal prominence. It is true that Rembrandt breaks with this convention to some extent in The Night Watch - Frans Banning Cocq and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenbergh, take very much centre stage - but most of the background figures are still portraits of recognisable individuals. Hals gives his officers more or less equal prominence, although the hierarchy of rank is shown by the seating arrangements, with the captain at the head of the table. Three of Hals' militia pieces depict banquets, a standard type of group portrait; at the end of their three years term of duty the officers held a farewell banquet - and these feasts could last for up to a week (Middelkoop 28). Likewise, Rembrandt's depiction of full-length militiamen holding weapons derives from another type of militia portrait, and his "heroic" treatment of the subject may have been partly due to the demands of Frans Banning Cocq, who wanted to revitalise the Amsterdam militia companies to deter the threat to the city's independence posed by the Stadtholder (Haverkamp-Begemann 24). The large size of The Night Watch was determined by the location in which it was to hang, the headquarters building of the Amsterdam militia companies. Both Hals and Rembrandt tend to idealise their subjects rather than depicting actual events. For example, it is unlikely that the ensigns would have stood holding their banners in the way that Hals depicts them - they would have been sitting down enjoying the banquet. Rembrandt's Dr Tulp would in real life have begun his dissection with the stomach and intestines, not the arm and the hand (Fuchs 25).
Rembrandt was probably a more important innovator than Hals. Hals arranges his militiamen in an interesting variety of poses and always produces a good composition; but, even so, his figures often look rather posed and stagey. Rembrandt achieves a greater degree of naturalism by making his figures engage in an action: listening to Dr Tulp's lecture, marching out (The Night Watch), or looking at the viewer as if he or she had entered the room (The Syndics). As R. H. Fuchs says, "Rembrandt wanted to break the traditional formula of the group portrait and tried to place his figures in a kind of active moment"(Fuchs 25). Some of Hals' banqueting officers are seated with their backs to us, turning round to look at us, whereas Rembrandt's syndics are looking at a book together, a naturalistic device which allows them to be seated on the same side of the table, facing us. Rembrandt gives a unity to his pictures by emphasising one important figure - Dr Tulp, Frans Banning Cocq, the syndic who is rising from his chair - whereas Hals diffuses interest over all his figures.
Hals' group portraits contain certain obvious contemporary references. The colours displayed by the militiamen - red, white, orange, and blue - are the colours of the companies and the town of Haarlem. The headquarters building of the St. Hadrian Company can be seen in the background of one painting. The picture hanging behind the regentesses may be of the Good Samaritan, alluding to the work of the charitable ladies. But Rembrandt includes learned and historical allusions of a kind not to be found in Hals. The big book propped up in Dr Tulp's anatomy demonstration implies that Tulp is the heir of Vesalius, the father of modern anatomy (Fuchs 26-27). Two of the musketeers in The Night Watch are dressed in sixteenth-century costume, alluding to the historical origins of the company; and there is a little girl with a dead bird hanging from her waistband, because the claws of a fowl were the emblem of the company. Kenneth Clark has shown that the composition of The Night Watch may have been influenced by a print of Raphael's School of Athens (Clark 86); and R. H. Fuchs has shown that The Night Watch may also be indebted to the opening scene of Vondel's play Gysbrecht van Amstel (Fuchs 37).
It is worthwhile comparing the brushwork and lighting of Frans Hals and Rembrandt, as both of them use a fluid, "painterly" style, especially when compared with the precise and linear style used by portrait painters like Verspronck and Van der Helst. Hals uses a light touch, with dabs and slashes of paint, almost "impressionist" in technique, whereas Rembrandt likes to build up thick layers of paint. Hals places his figures inside light-flooded rooms or out-of-doors, whereas Rembrandt places them inside rooms with strong contrasts of light and shadow. Both painters employ a richness of colouring and a love of elaborate composition - the careful arrangement of a group of figures. They also share an interest in spatial depth. For example, the captain's elbow in the St. George Civic Guard of 1616 and the corner of the table in The Syndics are both close to the picture plane, almost intruding into the space outside the painting. Hals' later portraits of regents and regentesses are much darker and more sombre than his portraits of the merry militiamen. This change in style may reflect the influence of Rembrandt, although it could also reflect the changing taste of Hals' patrons, who now preferred to be seen as well-to-do burghers rather than as soldiers.
It may also be true that Hals had some influence on Rembrandt. Norbert Middelkoop points out that "Rembrandt's famous regent-piece [The Syndics] is in composition and lighting related to Hals' The Regents of St. Elizabeth's Hospital" (Middelkoop 69). Both paintings show five darkly dressed men wearing tall hats and sitting round a table. Rembrandt's painting may also have been influenced by Verspronck's group portrait of The Regentesses of St. Elizabeth's Hospital. The most striking element of Rembrandt's composition - the syndic who is rising to his feet - is also found in Verspronck's earlier painting, in which one of the regentesses is shown in the act of standing up, with her hands resting on the table.
One of the most interesting aspects of the group portrait as a type of painting is the different ways it tackles the same basic problem: how to take a group of figures and arrange them in a harmonious, natural and interesting way. X-rays have shown that Rembrandt made changes to the positions of several figures in The Syndics until he got them exactly right (White 194). As we have already seen, Rembrandt tends to emphasise one main figure and unites the group by engaging it in a single action, while Hals tends to make a kind of abstract pattern of figures, some of them looking in opposite directions.
The other important aspect of the group portrait is, of course, the characterisation of the people portrayed. Rembrandt portrays the officials in The Syndics as dignified men, worthy representatives of their office. Equivalent group portraits by Hals - of the regents and regentesses of the Old Men's Alms House at Haarlem - are much less flattering. So much so that John Berger has claimed that Hals, who was old and poor, was attacking these administrators of public charity (Berger 11-16). One of the regents, for example, is shown with a fixed stare and his hat almost toppling off his head. Is he suffering from drunkenness, cerebral palsy, or an eye disease? The regentesses are shown as strict, severe-looking ladies, frowning at the viewer - who is thus placed in the position of one of the paupers dependent on their charity. In his book on Frans Hals, Seymour Slive argues that it is very unlikely that Hals could have been attacking the regents and regentesses, who had, after all, commissioned the portraits and seem to have paid him well for them (Slive 210-215). But if one compares these images with the more flattering ones produced by Rembrandt, Verspronck and Van der Helst, it seems difficult to believe that Hals felt well-disposed towards the regents and regentesses. Certainly, he was much more in sympathy with the jolly civic guards he had portrayed in earlier and happier years, men who had probably been his drinking companions. Indeed, Hals had himself been a member of the St. George Militia Company. Thus these civic guards portraits can be related to well-known pictures like The Laughing Cavalier and The Merry Drinker.
Works Cited
Berger, John, Ways of Seeing, London: BBC & Penguin, 1972
Clark, Kenneth, Rembrandt and the Italian Renaissance, London: John Murray, 1966
Fuch, R. H., Rembrandt en Amsterdam (in Dutch), Rotterdam: Lemniscaat, 1968
Haverkamp-Begemann, E., The Night Watch, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982
Middelkoop, Norbert, and Van Grevenstein, Anne, Frans Hals: Leven, Werk, Restauratie (in Dutch), Amsterdam: Uniepers, 1988
Slive, Seymour, Frans Hals (3 volumes), London: Phaidon, 1970
White, Christopher, Rembrandt, London: Thames & Hudson, 1984
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