Ruffs, laughter and black coats
Frans Hals
Frans Hals in Haarlem, painting fast and leaving the strokes in view. Merrymakers crowding a carnival table of bread and eggs, a young man in a great grey hat raising his glass in an inn while a girl laughs at his shoulder, a boy with a lute, and the scholar Petrus Scriverius and his wife Anna van der Aar, each in a painted oval. Paulus Verschuur stands in black, hand on hip. A copy of a portrait of Hals himself hangs alongside.
As a puzzle
Start from the faces and the white ruffs, which stand out sharply against a great deal of black cloth and dark brown ground; that dark is where the patience goes. The inn and the carnival are crowded with faces, food and colour and take a higher count well. For the portraits in black, keep the count moderate.
A good size here: 40–150 pieces.
Also filed under Dutch Golden Age
Subjects here: PortraitsChildrenEveryday LifeMusic and Dance
7 pictures, pick one to build
