Frans Hals is a Dutch Baroque painter (United Provinces), considered, with Rembrandt and Johannes Vermeer, as one of the most important of the Golden Age. A major artist, considered one of the great masters of portraiture, he also produced, especially at the beginning of his career, several genre scenes. His paintings are distinguished by their expressiveness. The detached brushstrokes are characteristic of his manner, and he participated in the introduction of this liveliness of style into Dutch art. Hals also contributed, with his portraits of civil guards and regents, to the evolution of group portraiture in the 17th century. His style was also to exert considerable influence, more than two centuries after him, on representatives of the realist movements like Gustave Courbet, and impressionist like Van Gogh, Monet and Manet.