Franz Hals Museum, 1

Perhaps half of the Franz Hals Museum is about the context in which Hals developed, and thus Haarlem's art scene. Hals was an innovator, and it is interesting to see that his innovations had antecedents and where they came from.

After our long walk we are at last at the Frans Hals Museum,
formerly, and in his day, an old men's home; as fashions
changed, Hals' finances declined to bankruptcy, as did
Rembrandt's; the Haarlem city council provided him with
an annual allowance, and commissions, so that he never
became a resident of the home

Still life; we were hungry, so began our museum tour at the  museum 
restaurant with sausages in flaky pastries; and then split the apple pie...
would you like some cream on the pie, madame?

As you'll see in the next post, I do bear a striking resemblance to Hals...

The tour proper begins with a 15 minute multi-media presentation on Hals,
his artistic background, achievement and influence, and on the museum itself

Not to be missed for its representations of famous works not at this museum
(explained next post)

Maueten van Heemskerck, St. Luke Painting the Madonna and Child, 1532;
according to legend, St. Luke was a painter and thus the patron saint of painters;
we wondered what kind of commission you'd get for this sort of painting...

Rene Sance, Gimme A Little Head, 1527

We love these Bosch-type works, this one by ... Mandijn, Antwerp, Temptations 
of St. Anthony, 1558

Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem, Monk Touching A Nun,
1591; first, you've got your Protestant view, namely, the
debauchery inherent in the orders of Romish Christianity;
then your Catholic view, namely, a nun accused of being
pregnant, tested: if she gave milk, she was condemned...
instead she gave wine...from which we get the proverb,
in vino, veritas; nyuk, nyuk, nyuk

What group portraits looked like before Rembrandt and Hals... Jan van Scorel,
Twelve Members of the Jerusalem Brotherhood of  Haarlem, 1527; all these
guys had their passports stamped "Jersusalem"

Banquet of Members of the Haarlem Civic Guard, 1583, Cornelis van Haarlem;
a generation or two before Rembrandt and Hals, one can already see a little life
injected into the group portraits

Muy importante...enlarge to view... Jan Breughel the Younger's Allegory on the 
Tulip Trade, 1640; macroeconomics in art; well worth studying; the first great
capitalist bubble...burst!

Gerrit Adriaenz Berckheydge, The Great Market in Haarlem...1698...hasn't
changed that much...really

The Franz Hals Museum has a doll house, too, which Vicki said compared
favorably with the Rijksmuseum's

Some say Judith Leyster was a pupil of Hals'; some say not;
but she clearly had mastered his approach...I'd spot this as a
Hals anytime: Peeckelhearing, 1629

Jan Steen, A Village Fair, 1629; we love the moralistic and storytelling Jan Steen
as much as we love Hals

Jan Breughel the Younger? I lost the label! Anyhow a copy of Peter Breughel
Elder's 100 Proverbs, the original of which we have seen in the Gemaldegalerie
in Berlin; incredible, nonetheless

Interior of the old men's home...something to look forward to...

Thus