Portrait of a Man

Known for a bold, distinctive painting style using rough, quick brushstrokes, Hals was skilled in painting a group portrait that instantly captures the features of multiple figures. From the 1620s to 1630s, he actively created a number of genre paintings, many of which featured a single person. As represented by The Merry Drinker (c. 1628-1630; Rijksmuseum Amsterdam), he introduced new elements which had not been seen in conventional portraits, such as casual, relaxed poses or friendly expressions and gestures that make it seem as if they are about to speak friendly to viewers from within the frame. Around the end of the 1630s, he strengthened his reflective tastes, changing colors to subdued conservative colors.
This portrait, painted at the peak of Hals, accurately captures the dignified appearance of a preacher, and also shows spontaneous brushworks which can be reminiscent of free brushstrokes using the method of direct painting known as ‘alla prima,’ which is a characteristic of his oil painting of this period.
Compared with his contemporary Rembrandt’s portraits that exhibit solid and elegant tastes, the Hals’s portrait conveys a sense of real existence of a model as if its breathing can actually be felt directly. He succeeded at skillfully depicting the emotion and personality of the model in this portrait. The inscription on the upper right of the background shows the model’s age and the date of the creation written together. Such a way of inscription is often seen in Hals’s portraits. Therefore, from this inscription, we can know that this model was 73 years old. The color palettes based on dark tones and the free, spontaneous brushstrokes—which were developed in the Netherlands in the 17th century—seem to foresee the art of Manet, a father of the French Impressionism, that would emerge two centuries later.