Portrait of a Man

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Artist: Frans Hals (Dutch, 1582–1666)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 104 × 84.5 cm
Museum: SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
Rights: Public Domain Mark

Directing a sombre, perhaps somewhat melancholy gaze out at us, this man looks at us with a physical and mental immediacy that bridges the 350 years separating his space from ours. The artist did not aim for idealisation. The asymmetrical features and jaundiced skin tones are depicted exactly as they are. The hands are gathered around a pair of gloves, closing the man off from the world. The calm, static pose is typical of the Baroque Classicism that infused Dutch art from around 1650 and a few decades ahead.

The coarse mode of painting is a distinctive Baroque trait of Hals’ portrait. Using rapid, visible brushstrokes painted thinly and wet on wet, the figure has been fixed in a simple, effective manner. Even though the palette is limited to black, white, ochre, and red, the costumes and all other parts of the painting have a great variety of colour.