Before Frans Hals, few portrait painters had convincingly captured people in the spontaneous act of living. Hals trained in Haarlem with Flemish painter Karel van Mander and was admitted to the painter's guild there in 1610. Except for a trip to Antwerp in 1616, Hals never left Holland. Traditionally, portraits had been posed and were prized for restraint, but Hals conveyed the sense of capturing
