wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
This unidentified young man dressed plainly in black stares back at us from the canvas. He stands upright and motionless while behind him frothy clouds race across the sky. The composition has been carefully centred so that a vertical line could be drawn straight down the bridge of his nose and through the fastening of his jacket. The jacket appears to be of black velvet lined with dark brown fur – small tufts of which poke out from where it is fastened down the front. Catena has indicated all the individual strands of the man’s hair with minute attention to detail.

The head and shoulders view resembles the sculpted portrait busts that were popular in Venice at the time and is reminiscent of a modern passport photo. The symmetry of the composition draws our attention to the slight imperfections of the young man’s features: both his eyes slant slightly down to the right, his fringe is longer and his hair more tousled on the right-hand side. The young man’s impassive stare and expressionless lips record his appearance but reveal little of his personality.

Catena has limited his palette to mainly brown, black and blue, arranged into large areas of colour, creating a strong, arresting image. However, these blocks of colour form a pattern on the surface of the canvas rather than giving a sense that the young man is occupying a real space. This results in a feeling of psychological distance between us and the sitter. Catena may have been taught to paint by Giovanni Bellini and the crisp, formal style of this portrait is similar to those by Bellini, such as his Portrait of a Young Man of about 1490--5 in the National Gallery of Art Washington, or his Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan of 1501--2.

The painting has been attributed to Catena for stylistic reasons since 1897. It may be the portrait recorded as the artist's work in 1643. It was probably painted in about 1510 -- about the same time that Titian, who was also closely aware of Giovanni Bellini's example, painted his Portrait of Gerolamo (?) Barbarigo. Titian turns his sitter sideways into the picture space and captures Barbarigo’s momentary glance over his shoulder at us, creating a strong sense of realism and psychological intimacy. Catena’s portrait must have looked quite old-fashioned in comparison.

However, Catena was an accomplished portraitist, commissioned by important patrons such as Doge Andrea Gritti; the celebrated Italian poet Gian Giorgio Trissino (Louvre, Paris) and Raymond Fugger of the wealthy German banking family (Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin). By the 1520s his style had become softer and more atmospheric in response to the work of Giorgione, with whom Catena had collaborated before Giorgione's death in 1510. Catena’s later portraits also have a stronger sense of the sitter’s individual character, which may be derived from his knowledge of portraits by his Venetian contemporary Lorenzo Lotto.

Style: High Renaissance
This sitter was formerly identified as Charlotte Amelia (1649-1722), daughter of the Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinfels. It now seems more likely, however, that this portrait depicts Madame de Soucarière (dates unknown). The sitter is certainly lavishly dressed: her outfit is heavily embroidered with gold and silver thread, and pearls and heron’s feathers adorn her headdress.

Style: Baroque, Rococo
We see Christ after the Crucifixion, bloody and almost naked. He is shown upright after death; this might seem unusual, but this type of image was very popular in the late Middle Ages as a focus for prayer and meditation on Christ's suffering. His mother Mary holds his limp arm with one hand and touches his wound with the other. Blood drips down his stomach and pools in his loin cloth, only just visible but decorated with gold at its border. Christ’s eyes roll back slightly in their sockets. His muscles are drawn as simple, interconnecting shapes, with white lines highlighting his ribs and diaphragm. The Virgin and Christ’s facial features are outlined simply; they share narrow eyes, with eyelids that converge almost to a point, and a long straight nose.

Giotto, a Florentine artist, was called to Naples to work for its ruler, Robert of Anjou, in 1328. While he was there he assembled a large workshop of assistants. The painter of this panel may have worked with him on creating frescoes for the church of Santa Chiara. The angels above Christ and the Virgin are similar in pose and gesture to the mourning angels in the scene of the Lamentation of Christ in the Arena Chapel in Padua, Giotto’s most famous fresco cycle. The figures are broad and bulky, echoing the fullness of Giotto's forms -- the contour of the Virgin’s veil from head to neck leaves little definition of her neck, for example. This style might also show that the artist was more accustomed to painting in fresco, where bold shapes enabled the viewer to see the image clearly from a distance. The stark image is framed by an intricately incised border, creating a delicate, decorative effect.

The reverse is also painted, but probably not by Giotto or his workshop. The monochrome image shows the Cross of the Crucifixion, erected on a hillock. In front of it is a pot containing three nails, alongside which lies a hammer: the tools of the Crucifixion. Also shown are the spear that pierced Jesus's side, giving him the wound he bears in the main painting.

This panel probably formed the left half of a diptych or maybe even a triptych. Another panel which probably belonged to the same object (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) shows Saint John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalene grieving. Two lamenting angels swoop above, mirroring this panel.

There are two suggestions about who may have owned the picture: a friar called Fra Philip Alquier, who was the spiritual adviser to the nuns of Santa Chiara, where the painter may have worked, or the wife of Robert of Anjou, Queen Sancia of Naples. Both were known for their devotion to Christ's sufferings. Philip is said to have bled, like Christ, from his hands, feet and side, so intense was his prayer. A letter from Sancia describes her prayerful meditations on Christ's body. The presence of Mary Magdalene reinforces this suggestion: Fra Philip was the Guardian of the convent of Santa Maria Maddalena, which Sancia had founded for women who had formerly sold sex. Sancia also owned a relic of Mary Magdalene's finger.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Giovanni Bellini returned to the subject of the dead Christ many times over the course of his career. This type of image of Christ after his death -- close up, showing his naked torso -- was sometimes known as the 'Imago Pietatis' ('image of pity'). It originated in Byzantium but was very popular in Italy from about the thirteenth century, and was supposed to promote meditation upon Christ's suffering and death.

Bellini maintained the focus on the torso and wounds but experimented with differing backgrounds and positions for Christ's arms, which were traditionally shown crossed in front of him. Here Christ is supported by two angels who hold his arms to prop him upright. The resulting pose is appropriately awkward and unnatural; it highlights the weight and inertia of his dead body but also its physicality -- it is thrust towards us, challenging us to contemplate it. This stark confrontation is emphasised by the dark background and the strong lighting, reminiscent of the fashion for portraits in this period.

The resulting sculptural effect shows the influence of the Florentine sculptor Donatello who tackled this subject several times. Bellini probably knew Donatello's version of the subject sculpted in marble for the high altar of the cathedral in Padua, a city near Venice. That work includes supporting angels -- Donatello's inventive addition to the standard image.

The Dead Christ supported by Angels differs significantly from Bellini's earlier experimentations with the 'Imago Pietatis', in which Christ is shown emaciated, his bones protruding from his paper-white skin (see, for example, the version of 1457 now in the Poldi Pezzoli, Milan). Sharp angles emphasise the curious, brittle appearance of rigor mortis, and Bellini seems to have been influenced by Mantegna's more linear approach to composing images (Mantegna was his brother-in-law). The depiction of Christ's body we see in this image is closer to Donatello's sculpture. Donatello was deeply interested in classical sculpture and his works often showed idealised bodies. Although Bellini's Christ is thin, his torso and shoulders are broad and his body resembles a statue of a pagan god more than a corpse. Although his lips are a bloodless grey and there are dark circles beneath his eyes, his facial features have classical forms and proportions.

This is one of Bellini's earliest pictures where he used oil -- analysis has identified walnut oil -- to bind his pigments. Working with oil requires a different technique to working in tempera (pigment bound with egg). Although this is one of his first experiments with oil, he used it to create different effects -- the stroke of white paint under Christ's left eye is painted quite broadly, whereas incredibly fine strokes define individual hairs in his beard. This is quite different from the minute and carefully applied brushstrokes Bellini used in his tempera paintings, such as The Blood of the Redeemer.

Style: Early Renaissance
This intriguing picture is as much a portrait of an object as the three men surrounding it. The figure in black is the Greek cleric John Bessarion, who reached the rank of archbishop in the Greek Orthodox Church. His attempts to unite with the Catholic Church brought him favour in Italy, where the pope made him a cardinal in 1439.

Bessarion became a permanent resident in Venice in 1453, after the fall of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, to the Islamic Ottoman Empire. He joined the Scuola della Carità, a religious confraternity, ten years later; the two men in white robes here are high-ranking members of that confraternity. The one to the right holds an instrument for self-flagellation, a practice that involves whipping your own flesh in order to purify your spirit.

The painting was made as a decorated door panel, and holes for the handles -- now filled in -- are still visible on the right hand side. It was part of a tabernacle which contained the reliquary before which the three men in the painting kneel in adoration. Reliquaries were made to hold relics -- in this case two fragments thought to come from the Cross that Christ was crucified on, as well as two scraps of fabric which supposedly came from his garments. These were contained in compartments above and below the upper arms of the golden crucifix in the centre of the reliquary. Bellini's picture protected the reliquary, reminding those who passed it of its presence, and commemorated Bessarion's generosity.

Bessarion donated the reliquary to the confraternity in the hope that it would inspire western Christians to help Greek Christians after the fall of Constantinople. Appropriately, it was a mix of Byzantine and Italian elements. Part of the paint surface are quite damaged but we can see the gold crucifix at its centre, which originally belonged to the Byzantine princess Irene Paleologina. It was later attached to a wooden box faced with blue and gold enamel, though Gentile has simplified the design. The two figures contained within vertical rectangles on either side of the Cross show the emperor Constantine and his mother Helena. Constantine was the founder of Byzantium, having converted to Christianity in 312 AD; Helena discovered Christ's Cross.

Many of Gentile's pictures celebrate the links between Byzantium and Venice but none quite as explicitly as this one. Less than ten years later Gentile was in Istanbul painting the portrait of the Ottoman ruler, Mehmet II -- a sign of Venice's resilience, commercial attitude and the role of art in diplomacy.

Style: Early Renaissance
A track runs past a cottage into the distance. In the right background the roof of a further cottage is visible, and in the distance are a small clump of trees and a further cluster of houses. The foremost cottage is enclosed by a fence of logs and flanked by trees. This landscape is painted on two sheets of paper mounted onto canvas. It is probable that the more thinly painted landscape at the right was extended by the addition of the left sheet. The sky on the left side, while featureless, is painted more thickly than that on the right, where the thin paint is overlaid with storm clouds in thicker grey paint.

This handling of the sky, and its large expanse, are typical of Michel's work. Further elements, such as the trees and humble buildings, also feature frequently in his paintings and are ultimately inspired by the Dutch seventeenth-century landscapists Salomon van Ruysdael and Jacob van Ruisdael. However, the handling is uneven overall, and it is only possible to associate this painting with Michel, rather than to say it is definitely by him.

Style: Neoclassical, Barbizon
This is one of a pair of paintings, originally commissioned on behalf of the King of Poland, that the British officer and East India Company official Lord Clive (known as Clive of India) bought from Vernet in 1773

Vernet’s own descriptions of the paintings bought by Clive, which were originally called  'Calme' and 'Tempête', were essentially concerned with their composition, light effects and the contrasting states of nature they depict. This painting shows a rocky shoreline buffeted by a violent sea storm. Two ships roll in the giant swell, sails tied down or tattered by the turbulent winds and lashing rain. Bolts of lightning streak from the dark thunder clouds that cover the sun, but the lighthouse lamp is not lit. Huge waves crash over the shore, pouring like waterfalls back down from the cliffs. The remains of a ship lie shattered against the rocks in the lower right foreground. Figures carry salvaged goods up the shore, while an unconscious woman is laid out on a rock, her friends overwhelmed with despair. Further down the coast there is a break in the clouds and sunlight bathes the mountainous landscape. It appears that the devastating storm has arrived suddenly and without warning, leaving no time for the lighthouse lamp to be lit. Perhaps the distant sunlit landscape is to give us hope that the storm will soon abate.

The extreme, turbulent elements depicted here contrast with the tranquil atmosphere of 'Calme', reflecting ideas fashionable at the time about the beautiful and sublime in nature and art. These were set out in Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757; first French edition 1765) -- a text that had a significant influence on the Romantic and Gothick movements in European art and literature. Vernet juxtaposes the tranquil beauty of ‘Calme’ with the sublime power of ‘Tempete’ to inspire our delight and pleasure in untamed nature.

Vernet’s landscapes and seascapes and the effects of weather were perceived as true to nature, and the ships in his marine views were based on careful observation. The heavily armed boats in this picture were probably built in the 1720s or 1730s, their short pennants identifying them as (armed) merchantmen. The ship in the middle distance towards the left is single-decked and appears to be flying a British Red Ensign. The ship on the right is twin-decked, with the gun-ports of the lower deck closed, presumably because of the heavy seas. Painted shipwrecks were fictional representations of an ever-present reality in an age when losses at sea were commonplace.

'Calme' and 'Tempête' are two of Vernet's greatest marine paintings and the type of work for which he was most famous in his day. They are the only great pair of marine views by him in a British public collection.

Style: Romantic
This painting was once the left wing of a triptych which showed a man and woman with their patron saints on either side of an image of the Virgin and Christ Child. Here, Saint Clement presents a man to the Virgin. The saint wears the papal tiara and magnificent embroidered cope as Clement was one of the first popes. He holds his attribute of an anchor: he was martyred by being thrown into the Black Sea tied to an anchor. Saint Elizabeth accompanies the woman. The other panels from this triptych --  Virgin and Child and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary with a Donatrix -- are in private collections.

We don't know the identities of the donors, but they were presumably married, and were probably called Clement and Elizabeth after their patron saints. The writing on the frame, which may be copied from an original inscription, is a contraction of a Latin prayer to the Virgin and Child: credendo sentiamus quod pronobis depreceris ('May our faith let us feel that you are pleading our cause'). The landscape behind the man in our panel continued across to the other two paintings; the angel was one of four flying angels, two of whom were placing a crown on the Virgin's head.

We also don't know the identity of the artist, but he was not hugely skilled. Saint Clement's face is too large and the proportions of the heads to hands are different in each of the three panels. In all three, the noses are flattened and the hands are badly drawn and too narrow; the artist also had great difficulty placing the eyes. Like most of his contemporaries, the painter knew a good deal of the work of Rogier van der Weyden but the angels look rather like those in The Soul of Saint Bertin carried up to God and A Choir of Angels by Simon Marmion. The faces are similar to those in Marmion's later manuscripts. It's possible that our painter was a less skilled follower of Marmion, who may have trained in the artist's workshop at Valenciennes before moving to Bruges.

Technical analysis shows us how the artist worked out his ideas during the course of the painting. He started by making an underdrawing on the chalk ground but didn't always follow it precisely. The underdrawing for the saint and the donor is quite detailed, but the saint's tiara was altered during painting, the anchor was made bigger and realigned, and the donor's mouth was changed. The landscape was sketched in and the sketches were not exactly followed. The angel may be an afterthought, painted over the blue of the sky.

The frame is original (although it was dismantled, and then reassembled) but it has been completely repainted; it seems originally to have been red-brown and probably marbled.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
This mysterious landscape of a dark wood bounded by the sweeping curve of a river was highly innovative for its time. The artist, Cornelis Vroom, was the son of Hendrick Vroom, a well-known painter from Haarlem who specialised in seascapes.

Cornelis began his career working in the same genre as his father but he soon developed an interest in landscapes. He was extremely successful and highly regarded. Records show that he (or just possibly, his younger brother Frederick) received a very substantial payment of £80 from Charles I, and he had a relationship with the Stuart court for some years, though he continued to base himself in Haarlem. He also worked for the most important political figure in Holland, the Stadtholder, Frederik Hendrik.

Not many of his paintings survive, but this important early example shows why he was so admired as a new force in landscape painting. Instead of using trees to create a frame for the composition, with a gap through which you can see an attractive view -- the traditional approach -- Cornelis has focused on the wood. Yet he has still managed to create a sense of depth. The low vegetation, the river bank and the glimpse of a sandy track catching the evening light on the left form a deep foreground. Meanwhile the fields, bathed in sunshine, become a distant view stretching behind the wood.

The trees are backlit with a bright sky, throwing them into heavy shadow and allowing Vroom to explore the effects of light filtering through leaves. Look closely at the foliage and you can see the myriad tiny brushstrokes and shades of green and brown, used to evoke the sun catching the treetops, the tiny gaps in the canopy and the deep almost black shadows in the depths of the wood.

Despite the precision of the painting, it’s hard to identify the trees definitively. The trees on the left are probably willows, which thrive near rivers; the one furthest right in the main group has more the shape of an oak. Willows make excellent trees for harvesting timber through coppicing, so in a country short of woodland we might expect to see more signs of human intervention in this landscape. But Vroom prefers to play down man’s impact -- there is just a single lollipop-shaped coppice on the far bank. The other trees seem neglected, with dead trunks and branches clearly visible.

The tiny figures in the skiff -- an oarsman and two hunched passengers -- are bit players, as are the two cows ruminating quietly under the canopy’s edge. Their presence alerts us to the rough picket fence which runs along the edge of the wood -- the only other sign of human activity, apart from the tower of what appears to be a windmill on the knoll in the far distance. If it is, then even this seems neglected: it has no sails.

Style: Baroque
Meindert Hobbema liked nothing better than to take you for a walk. He leads us onwards and leaves us feeling fresh and windblown. In this painting, his trees are stunted and bent as if blown by a sea wind. Birds wheel overhead in a restless sky, the clouds scudding high and fast. It's easy to feel that if you turn away they might have changed shape when you look back.

He leads us into the painting by the patches of sun that follow one another up the canvas -- but into the picture -- making the image appear three-dimensional. This method of perspective  was often employed by landscape painters at the time. Hobbema gives us sudden glimpses of secret places between the spindly trees. Even the cottages are half hidden, seeming to reveal themselves reluctantly in the undergrowth. Far ahead, where the clouds tower highest, there is perhaps a suggestion of the sea.

On the central path, a woman with a boy at her side is engaged in conversation with the young man. Less obvious is the shadowy figure in the doorway of one of the cottages, and the couple marching at a good pace, the red of the woman's skirt lighting up the many greens of the picture. Further ahead is another couple, wandering hand in hand towards the white picket fence of the cottage glinting in the sun. By making the figures appear smaller and smaller, Hobbema creates depth and entertains us with interesting characters of all ages with a few strokes of the brush.

The finely painted leaves are so detailed that it's possible to recognise, if not to identify, at least three different species. The tree close to us appears to have small, rounded leaves. The one a little further off on the right has longer fronds of elongated leaves. The foliage of the third, albeit lit by the sun and therefore much lighter in colour, appears more delicate. Outside many large towns in the Dutch Republic large parklands could often be found, open to the public, where urban people went in their leisure time. A picture of such a place would be a treasured reminder of those times.

Hobbema lived in Amsterdam all his life. He trained with the great landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael. The two travelled around Holland and elsewhere together, making sketches that they later made use of when composing pictures in the studio. They put parts of their drawings together, moving elements of a scene to enhance the composition, or they would paint a completely imaginary landscape. But they were always recognisably Dutch scenes. Many chose not to romanticise the countryside as some later artists did in an attempt to portray the exotic -- the Netherlands are flat and so, in many cases, are their landscapes. They painted the trees and plants that they and their patrons knew. Van Ruisdael's pictures are dramatic, with waterfalls, threatening clouds and broken trees. Hobbema's are quieter, simple rustic moments, in which the enquiring eye is led towards the distance.

Style: Baroque