Van Gogh’s hero: there’s more to Frans Hals than The Laughing Cavalier

Why did Van Gogh, Manet and Cezanne worship this incendiary painter of everyday people? Because, as a new show reveals, his range and compassion were staggeringNot many of the world’s greatest works of art can be called funny. Yet The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals has an undeniable cocky humour. A painting of this unknown man has hung in London’s Wallace Collection since the 19th century, his flamboyant upward turned moustache and tiny point of a beard setting off the confident bri