The National Gallery has put together what must be the most comprehensive array of the portraits of the 17th-century painter Frans Hals ever assembled, filling eight rooms on the museum’s main floor with a subtly lit splendour of black silk, white ruffs and orange flags. I was bored rigid.
Right from the start, something is off. In the first room, an unknown man and woman hang side by side. He’s holding a skull and looks grave. She’s inscrutable. Encountering these people I felt nothing, and it only got worse. I found myself walking back and forth increasingly adrift and unhappy, past one technically brilliant painting of a flushed face after another.
