The Merry Drinker

Frans Hals painted this laughing man in the late 1620s, in Haarlem. We do not know his name. He may be a specific person or a genre figure, a type rather than an individual. Either way, Hals painted him with the speed and directness that made him famous. A man in a dark coat sits at a table, raising his right hand as if to call for another drink. His left hand holds the edge of the table. He is laughing, his mouth open, his eyes crinkled. He wears a loose white collar and a dark hat tipped forward. His face is flushed. Behind him, a dark background with a few loose strokes of brown and grey suggesting a tavern interior. The painting is roughly 32 by 26 inches. Hals was in his mid-forties when he painted this. He had been working in Haarlem since 1610, painting portraits of the city's civic guards and wealthy merchants. The Merry Drinker is not a formal portrait. It is closer to a tronie, a Dutch term for a character study that exaggerates a particular expression or emotion. Hals painted several of these, and they were collected as examples of his skill at capturing fleeting expressions. What makes Hals different from his contemporaries is his brushwork. Other Dutch painters of the 1620s worked with smooth, invisible surfaces. Hals left his brushmarks visible. The white collar is a few quick strokes of thick paint. The man's cheeks are built in dabs of pink and red over a warm underlayer. The eyes are two dots of dark paint with a touch of white for the highlight. Up close, the painting looks unfinished. Step back three paces, and the man is alive. Oil on canvas, 81 by 67 centimeters. Hals painted wet-on-wet, working quickly and rarely revising. The brushwork in the hand and the collar is particularly loose: you can see the individual strokes of the brush, each one placed with precision despite the apparent speed. This print works in a bar area, a dining room, or a kitchen, where the jovial expression suits the mood. The warm flesh tones and dark background pair with wood paneling, brass fixtures, and warm lighting. The 16x20 framed version is a good size for this painting; the face has enough detail to read clearly, and the loose brushwork is visible. The painting has been in the Rijksmuseum since 1808.