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THE JESTER

This roguish-looking guitar player was painted by Frans Hals, a Dutch artist. Hals distinguished himself as a

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portrait painter. Nearly all the people in his pictures seem to be brimming over with fun. He painted officers, churchmen, learned men and artists, old women and girls, jesters (like this guitar player), and gypsies; but whether his subjects were rich or poor, young or old, they all found it impossible to sit opposite "jolly Frans" without catching his good spirits. Some of them laugh outright; some merely smile, and others seem to be just on the point of smiling.

Hals painted people exactly as he saw them in the streets and in the country, just as they looked in ordinary daylight, without bright spots or deep shadows.

He understood human nature well. With a few vigorous, skillful strokes he could show a man's character and personality. All his work is strong and joyous.

FRANS HALS
(1584-1666)

Hals was born at Antwerp, Belgium, but his family was Dutch, and he settled in Haarlem while he was still a young man and became a citizen of Holland.

He was twice married. A pleasant portrait of Hals and his second wife, Lysbeth, shows them sitting in a park; they are both laughing and jolly. Lysbeth is not a pretty woman, but she looks very good-natured and we feel sure that her marriage with Frans was a happy one. They brought up a large family of children.

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Frans was inclined to be idle and pleasure-loving, but his great talents made him respected by his townsmen. In his old age, when he was very poor, the city of Haarlem granted him a pension.

The shepherd's horn at break of day,
The ballet danced in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay
Sung in the silent greenwood shade:
These simple joys that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale.

-Rogers.

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