Archers met on their saint’s feast day in dress uniform for a grand
banquet. The celebrations sometimes lasted an entire week, prompt-
ing an ordinance limiting them to three or four days. These events
often involved a group portrait.
In Archers of Saint Hadrian,Hals attacked the problem of how
to represent each militia member adequately yet retain action and
variety in the composition. Whereas earlier group portraits in the
Netherlands were rather ordered, regimented images, Hals sought to
enliven his depictions.
In the Archers portrait, for example, each man is both a troop
member and an individual with a distinct physiognomy. The sitters’
movements and moods vary enormously. Some engage the viewer
directly. Others look away or at a companion. Whereas one is stern,
another is animated. Each man is equally visible and clearly recogniz-
able. The uniformity of attire—black military dress, white ruffs, and
sashes—did not deter Hals from injecting spontaneity into the work.
Indeed, he used those elements to create a lively rhythm that extends
throughout the composition and energizes the portrait. The im-
promptu effect—the preservation of every detail and fleeting facial ex-
pression—is, of course, the result of careful planning. Yet Hals’s viva-
cious brush appears to have moved instinctively, directed by a plan in
his mind but not traceable in any preparatory scheme on the canvas.
WOMEN REGENTS OF HAARLEM In The Women Regents
of the Old Men’s Home at Haarlem (FIG. 25-10), Hals produced a
group portrait of Calvinist women engaged in charitable work.
Although Dutch women had primary responsibility for the welfare
of the family and the orderly operation of the home, they also popu-
lated the labor force in the cities. Among the more prominent roles
that educated women played in public life were regents of orphan-
ages, hospitals, old-age homes, and houses of correction. In Hals’s
portrait, the regents sit quietly in a manner becoming of devout
682 Chapter 25 NORTHERN EUROPE, 1600 TO 170025-10Frans Hals,
The Women Regents of
the Old Men’s Home at
Haarlem,1664. Oil on
canvas, 5 7 8 2 .
Frans Halsmuseum,
Haarlem.
Dutch women played a
major role in public life
as regents of charitable
institutions. A stern puri-
tanical sensibility suffuses
Hals’s group portrait of the
regents of Haarlem’s old
men’s home.
25-11Judith Leyster,Self-Portrait,ca. 1630. Oil on canvas,
2 53 – 8 2 15 – 8 . National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (gift of
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss).
Although presenting herself as an artist specializing in genre scenes,
Leyster wears elegant attire instead of a painter’s smock, placing her
socially as a member of a well-to-do family.1 ft.1 ft.