Ritratto di un uomo con cappello

We do not know who this man is. Hals painted him in 1634 in the Dutch city of Haarlem, on a small wooden panel barely bigger than a sheet of paper. What makes it worth stopping for is how it is painted. Instead of the smooth, invisible finish most portraitists of the age prized, Hals worked in quick, visible strokes, letting a few loaded slashes of the brush stand for a collar, a moustache, the glint of an eye. The effect is a man caught alive in a single moment. That freedom of hand fell out of fashion after Hals died, then drew French painters like Manet to Haarlem two centuries later, and the young Impressionists copied it closely.