Frans Hals at the National Gallery

so here we are at the National Gallery the France house exhibition and goodness me what a treat what an amazing show this is I think the best thing ever said about France house was said by another painter and he really is the painters painter but this is vano so that's some kind of some kind of pained to be commenting on another what did vanok say about France's house he said dead right house painted nothing but portraits nothing nothing nothing but that but it's worth as much as dant's Paradise all the Raphael's all the Michelangelo and even the Greeks and I think what van Go's driving at there is France House's all-encompassing Humanity um his focus on the individual the person person and the extent to which he pays respect to each and every person he paints whether it's a rich Merchant whether it's a man getting drunk in a Tavern there he is he's about to speak to me and it's it's like walking into the past walking into this show it's like coming face to face not with paint but with actual people such as houses extraordinary Magic and look at this I mean this is wonderful the the the old lady with her owl and her tankered and the way it's painted this impressionistic you can see why van go loved house because you know house is the most modern in his handling of all the Old Masters he's got this virtually abstract sense of pictorial form the the way that the brush Strokes dance and play on the surface of the canvas I another friend of mine not I think of vanok as a friend of mine but another friend um who I really did know the painter Howard hodkin he had a wonderful line about France house um Howard again was a fantastic painterly painter he loved house for what he called his see me dance the poker brush work and I think there's a great example of it here in this portrait of um Isaac Abraham's Massa a merchant who made his money importing Pine from the Baltic um they didn't have any wood in Holland um look at the look at the way that he's painted his sleeve and look at the way that he's painted his rough I mean that rough is is is it's sort of worth a million dollars all on its own I think what van gow was driving at was that the way in which house as part of this extraordinary Society the Dutch Republic it is a republic they don't have nearly as much time for hierarchy as the other societies of the West um and I think what van G was driving at was the way in which house equalizes everybody uh as a republic does and he gives equal weight equal existence equal dignity to everyone high up low down men and women and the Dutch Republic is the first place that I'm aware of in in this extraordinary 17th century Universe um it's the only place where they actually take women properly seriously you know women are equal in in in the eyes of the more enlightened Dutch of this time women are absolutely equal with men and you can't say that about any other society and it's reflected in house I mean look at this we don't know who she was she probably was no one as it were with the capital I important but how important she is as a human being what a wonderful depiction that is of someone you feel that she knows her own mind she's true to herself it's just you know I I I can't put it into words you can tell I can't put it into words but just such a a great painting of what it is in that moment to be alive and you can feel House's sense of this person's importance and I think this goes to the heart if we come back to the beginning of the show there'll be some pictures there that that s of explain this as it were sociologically um this it only in this Society this Dutch Society rembrand has it as well rembrand has it as well this sense that no matter who you you are you are worthy of respect you have dignity uh you have mind the painters attention there's one rather uncanny thing about this exhibition is you're surrounded by these faces these eyes and you know that what these eyes are looking at is the one thing that you can never see France house himself they are watching him as he paints them but we can never see France house because because unlike rembrand who painted so many self-portraits France house didn't leave us with his own self-image so here we are in the midst of his creation and he's not there he has somehow disappeared which I think is somehow symbolic you know he is so involved in the people who made his own world that if you like they form his self-portrait we never see France's house but we we see all the people who saw [Music] [Music] him [Music]

Channel: Andrew Graham-Dixon

Views: 6,294

Keywords: AGD, GrahamDixon, BBC, Art history, art critic, graham dixon, andrew dixon, franshals, halls, franz hals, dutch art, portraiture, golden age

Id: 2042DZen3m0

Length: 6min 43sec (403 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 15 2024