フランス・ハルス

Frans Hals stands out as the portraitist of the Dutch Golden Age who caught life itself—the glint in an eye, the fleeting smile—with unmatched speed and freedom. Born in Antwerp, he moved to Haarlem as a child and made the city his studio for life, famously insisting his sitters come to him rather than the other way around. Working across the seventeenth century, he painted wealthy merchants and civic guards, marrying couples and militia officers, even the occasional philosopher like Descartes.