What kinds of paintings did Frans Hals make early in his career?

Early in his career, Frans Hals primarily focused on two types of works: sober portraits and group portraits of members of local guilds and military societies.1

By at least 1620, he began incorporating a jovial spirit into his art, producing numerous paintings of "merrymakers." These works often featured expressive, lively subjects, such as in Merrymakers at Shrovetide (c. 1615), The Merry Toper, and his depiction of the laughing old woman in Malle Babbe (c. 1630–33). His group portraits, such as the Banquet of Officers of the Civic Guard of St. George at Haarlem (1616 and 1627), were revolutionary for their time, replacing austere, traditional compositions with a sense of spontaneous joie de vivre and harmonious interaction among the subjects.21

Throughout these early works, Hals utilized a distinctive, loose brushstroke technique that prioritized immediacy and vitality over the slow, elaborate finishing methods common among his 17th-century contemporaries.1