Did Hals & Rembrandt copy the other's art?

Since 1990 when I started my art history degree, of all the paintings in the Western World, my absolute favourites have been Dutch works painted in the C17th. Instead of painting saints and monarchs, Dutch artists then preferred ordinary but dignified people: milkmaids, merchants, inn-keepers and loving families with children. Because the new Dutch Republic was a wealthy, merchant driven society rather than a Catholic monarchy, art moved out of huge cathedrals and into smaller middle-class homes. This led to detailed genres like landscapes, seascapes and cozy domestic interiors. Even the Dutch still-lives with skilled glassware & porcelain reminded viewers of the fleeting nature of life, mixing tactile precision, philosophical mood and the simple things in life in small, finely crafted paintings (See Art of the Everyday: Realism in 17th-Century Dutch Genre Painting). Idealised splendour was absent, thankfully.Frans Hals (c1583-1666) was one of the most famous and innovative painters…

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