Frans Hals continues in the asylum of Haarlem, by Carlos Carnicero

I landed in Haarlem following the footsteps of Frans Hals. My first encounter with the painter was at the National Gallery in London, visiting the exhibition that took place last summer titled Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals. That exhibition can still be visited until January 13 at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. But beyond the genius of Rembrandt, my attention was drawn to two of the splendid paintings by Frans Hals that were on display there: Portrait of Willem van Heythuysen and Portrait of Pieter van den Broecke. I was so struck by the expressiveness of the figures, the nearly impressionistic finish of their gestures rendered with seemingly imprecise brushstrokes, that I decided that contemplating Hals's work deserved an entire expedition. The itinerary was not complicated: Amsterdam and Haarlem. Suddenly, the detailed observation of each painting revealed itself as an accurate X-ray of the time when what is now the Netherlands was becoming the epicenter of world trade, a school of religious tolerance, and a forefront of modernity in a changing world. And in the portraits of Frans Hals, one can perceive, through the expression of his subjects, the deep fragments of souls who were not yet at ease in a time that had yet to arrive. Hals perceived this and left it marked for the chosen to discover. The immediate transit to Amsterdam incentivized curiosity in the works displayed at the Rijksmuseum, which are intelligently exhibited in what have been dubbed "masterpieces." Just a necessary stop before reaching the final destination at the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem.

There are no outstanding bills to be seen upon arriving in Haarlem. It has been a long time since the Eighty Years' War and since Don Fadrique, son of the Duke of Alba, took the city, which had surrendered to hunger after a cruel siege where both the attackers and the besieged showed extraordinary brutality.

Now Haarlem, a city of just over one hundred fifty thousand inhabitants, is a universe of tranquility with peace condensed in the inner garden of the Frans Hals Museum. One could say that the painter determined that he should not be disturbed and established the storage of his work in the building of the old elderly asylum, inaugurated precisely during the golden age of Hals's painting, where he immortalized the regents and matron of the charity institution in complementary paintings. These late oils, almost posthumous, reveal so much about the soul of the place where they are exhibited, that it is difficult to determine where the canvases end and where the building that contains them begins. In addition to the two large oils featuring the men and women who led the asylum, the most spectacular collective portraits are those of the militias that secured Haarlem after the Spanish had withdrawn from the Netherlands. Hals describes an entire way of life in the banquets and gatherings of the Saint George and Saint Adrian militias, where the expressions of their subjects combine the primal techniques that would later be rediscovered by the French Impressionists.

The rest of the city of Haarlem is an extension of the museum's tranquility. The only thing that is hard to understand in this search for a reasonable explanation of this miracle of technique, color, light, and expression contained in Hals's painting are the mysteries surrounding his life. Despite being a successful painter, he ended up being dispossessed of his most miserable belongings. He lived many years, but his date of birth has never been precisely determined. He had many children by two women who are argued to be the cause of his economic ruin, and a reputation as a libertine that contradicts his membership in Calvinist societies of which he could never have been a member if his vices had been known. Frans Hals is part of the roster of universal geniuses who lived in poverty until death reunited them with glory. Hals has had extraordinary luck; without a doubt, his last patrons, who posed for his most beautiful portraits, those who managed the Haarlem elderly asylum, were so satisfied that they allowed him to occupy this memorable building for the rest of his days, which are now the eternity he earned with his work.