Inside, Outside – The World of the Artist (Frans Hals)

Established in 1994, THE COURSE offers innovative and exciting lectures in Art History, Literature, Music and Opera.

In INSIDE, OUTSIDE, The World of the Art, Nicole Mezey will look at how creativity reflects the personal and professional experience of the artist. This series focuses on a different artist each week, looking first at the life behind their creations – the mental asylum in which Richard Dadd produced some of his greatest works, the pressure of eight children on the output of Frans Hals – before moving on to explore their work and the way it reflects that experience.

Frans Hals (c.1582 – 1666), Bold and Vivacious

Behind Hals’ vivid, joyous portraits, so characteristic of the Baroque, lay a life in which he never left the confines of his native Haarlem, and in which money worries were so constant that all his goods were once seized by bailiffs to pay a baker’s bill. A devoted father, he struggled to maintain his large family, creating masterpieces to feed the demands of his ever-present creditors.