The painter Jan Asselyn 1650

Frans Hals painted this portrait of Jan Asselyn with oil on canvas. Oil paint enabled the kind of sophisticated modeling of light and shadow that we see here, especially in the sitter's face and collar. But it's really Hals's brushwork that makes this painting sing. Notice the assured way he has built up the forms with individual strokes. This technique gives the portrait an incredible liveliness, as if Asselyn is about to turn and speak to us. Hals wasn't aiming for a photographic likeness. Instead, he captured something more essential: the quickness of human perception, the constant flux of experience. What’s more, a painting like this represented a significant investment of time and skill. Hals was a master craftsman, and his portraits were highly sought after by the rising merchant class of the Dutch Golden Age. So, while the painting depicts an individual, it also speaks to broader social and economic forces at play in 17th-century Europe.