This painting was of the sort that helped Frans Hals make a name for himself.

Later, he would go on to do other portraits in a notably jolly and loose style, like Gypsy Girl, but these were his bread and butter.

As stated in the title, this is a painting of the St. George Civic Guard. They were a voluntary paramilitary force that both policed and protected the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Though voluntary, the Haarlem schutterij, as they were otherwise known, ended up being the primary fighting force for the city for most of the Dutch Golden Age. Of course, there is a good reason why you haven’t heard of this spectacular fighting force and that is because they weren’t really all that intimidating. While they thought very highly of themselves, they were still just weaponized boys clubs, and, as a German spy once put it, “If it ever came to a siege…the resistance would be less strong than the citizenry itself imagines.”

Frans Hals was a member of one of the Haarlem schutterij and did some fighting for Dutch independence, which was not particularly rare. Volunteering to do your part was highly encouraged, and there was lots of poems and other propaganda encouraging service. With time, however, this has created a rather humorous linguistic situation. See, one of the words used to describe the average citizen in Haarlem in the 1600s was “burgher.” So if you look into patriotic 17th century Dutch literature, you will find a bunch of passionate calls for the rise of Haarlem’s “burgher-soldiers.”