Desc: Frans Hals: Snapshots uit het verleden: Directed by Hans Quatfass. Frans Hals lived and worked in Haarlem shortly after the transition from a catholic society to a protestant society in The Netherlands. During the first half of the 17th century the violence that accompanied the start of the war with Spain came to an end. New rules hadn't quite set in yet. At the same time prosperity was growing rapidly in Holland. These factors in combination with his talent allow Frans Hals to become the pioneer of modern portrait art. Many fixed elements in our pictorial tradition that we now can freely improvise on while making portraits of all kinds--be it painted portraits, wedding reports, newspaper reports, advertisements, holiday snapshots, films, or documentaries--once were taboo. Frans Hals was in the forefront of liberating of our pictorial expression. In the first half of the 17th century he had the courage to picture people in a way no one had ever done before. British historian Jonathan Israel describes him as 'the inventor of the spontaneous vivacious portrait, in which an instantaneous atmosphere was caught. He was the first to create snapshots of personalities during that time'. How could this happen in Haarlem during that period of our history and by this painter? That is the question this documentary answers. It truly is a story that never has been told before on video.