Frans Hals Museum

The Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem is the museum of the painter who, more than any other, captured the energy of the Dutch Golden Age in portraits. It is housed in a former almshouse for elderly men on the Groot Heiligland, a set of seventeenth-century buildings around a quiet courtyard garden, and it has been a museum since the early twentieth century. The setting is part of the appeal, with low rooms and a calm atmosphere that suit paintings of ordinary citizens and civic officers.

Frans Hals was born in Antwerp around 1582, and his family moved to Haarlem, where he spent almost his entire career. He is known for the loose, quick brushwork that gave his sitters a sense of movement, as though caught in the middle of a laugh or a remark, which was unusual in a period when most portraits were formal and stiff. His group portraits of the militia companies, the civic guards who defended and represented the city, are among the great works of the genre, and several are displayed here, with the men in sashes and banquet halls looking out with swagger.

One of the most affecting pictures is a portrait of the regents and regentesses of the almshouse, painted in the 1660s, when Hals was an old man. In these late works he used a more restrained palette of black, white and grey, and the faces are painted with sober dignity. Seeing them in the very building where the almshouse stood gives them added meaning. The museum also shows work by other Haarlem painters of the period, such as landscapes and still lifes, which place Hals among his contemporaries.

The museum has expanded its display to include modern and contemporary art, with an exhibition programme that links old and new, and its collection is shown in a second location on the Grote Markt, in the former meat hall. The programme changes, so check what is on before you go.

Haarlem is an easy trip from Amsterdam. Nearby are the Grote Kerk of St. Bavo, where Hals is buried, Teylers Museum, the oldest museum in the country, the Corrie ten Boom Museum and the statue of Laurens Janszoon Coster, whom Haarlemers claim as the inventor of printing. Allow about two hours for the museum, and enjoy the courtyard garden.