Ruth Leon recommends… Frans Hals – National Gallery

Frans Hals – National Gallery

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Last month we took a forensic look at a single painting in the National Gallery’s Frans Hals’ exhibition, rivetingly explained by the Gallery’s Curator of Dutch and Flemish Paintings, Bart Cornelis.

In this new film, he takes a broader look at the entire exhibition and explains what it is about Hals’ portraits that speak to us across hundreds of years, thereby totally transforming the art of portraiture and elevating the art of his time to another level. In his hands, Cornelis argues, portraiture moved from being simply the setting down of a likeness, rather like a photograph, and therefore not at that time considered any more than a mechanical act, to being an artform in its own right.

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