Frans Hals: The Painter Who Made the 17th Century Laugh

No one in the 1600s painted people quite as alive as Frans Hals. The National Gallery's 2023 retrospective brought together his most spirited portraits — chief among them 'The Laughing Cavalier', with his upturned moustache and impossibly knowing smile.

Hals worked with dashing, visible brushstrokes that seem almost modern, capturing fleeting expressions — a grin, a glance, a flush of wine — that more polished painters smoothed away. The show traced his influence right down to Manet and the Impressionists.

Bursting with energy and good humour, it was an exhibition that sent visitors back out onto the street smiling — exactly as its subjects had for nearly 400 years.

Image: “Cavalier soldier Hals-1624x” — Frans Hals, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.