wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
This portrait shows Captain Robert Orme (1725--90) at the age of 31, during the war against the French for supremacy in the North American colonies. The portrait was not commissioned by the sitter or his relatives, and was never owned by him, but was painted on speculation by Reynolds with the hope of selling it or displaying it to gain more work.

Orme was first commissioned as ensign in the 34th Foot. He transferred to the Coldstream Guards on 16 September 1745 and was promoted to lieutenant on 24 April 1751. He was aide-de-camp to General Edward Braddock, commander-in-chief of the British forces in America. Orme became friends with the young George Washington, who in May 1755 volunteered to serve under General Braddock.

On 9 July 1755, General Braddock and his forces were ambushed and defeated by French and Native American riflemen near Fort Du Quesne on the Ohio River. Braddock’s troops were virtually massacred and he was mortally wounded. Orme was also wounded but George Washington was unharmed.

In Reynolds’s portrait, Orme stands beside his horse, as though about to leap on and ride off with reports of the battle. The dispatch in his hand is illegible but it may carry news of Braddock’s death. Orme wears his campaign uniform as an officer of the Coldstream Guards: a scarlet frock-coat with blue lapels and cuffs over a grey waistcoat (all trimmed with broad gold lace), buff breeches and black gaiters over buckled shoes. His sword-belt is worn under his coat and only the hilt and tip show. His long hair is tied behind his neck and a blue and gold sash is looped over his horse’s saddle. Orme’s face, with its urgent, haunted expression, is set against a break in the thunderous clouds and smoke rising from the battlefield, which is glimpsed to the right, below the tails of his coat. The drama, action and heroism of battle are expressed in the Captain's tense, dynamic stance. The poses of both Orme and his horse are derived from one of the lunette frescoes by Jacopo Ligozzi in the church of Ognissanti in Florence, which Reynolds drew in 1752 in his Italian sketchbook. Copying elements from old master paintings was typical of Reynolds's approach.

Orme probably sat for the portrait late in 1755, soon after his return to England. Reynolds was keen to keep heroic full-length portraits on display in his studio, so that his sitters might be persuaded to commission something more ambitious than a mere head-and-shoulders likeness of themselves. For a time, Captain Orme hung with Reynolds's portrait of Commander Augustus Keppel (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich), where it drew much notice for its 'boldness and singularity'. Perhaps Reynolds also hoped that a portrait of a military hero might attract an engraver and so increase his own fame. However, Captain Orme was never engraved. The painting was eventually bought in December 1777 by 5th Earl of Inchiquin, simply as a fine example of Reynolds's work.

Style: Academic, Rococo, Neoclassical, Georgian
With this painting, Costa invented a type of image that would become very popular in northern Italy, particularly Venice, in the sixteenth-century -- look at The Music Lesson and A Concert, for example. While pictures of people playing musical instruments and singing are now often called 'concerts', they may have been intended to depict private moments.

The band of singers is engrossed in the camaraderie of their music; as she sings, the young woman keeps time by tapping her fingers against the marble ledge and her companion's shoulder. He is deep in concentration, his eyes lowered towards the open book containing the musical composition -- its notes have only been roughly sketched in. His lute, by contrast, has an elaborately carved rosette which has been painted with great attention to detail. The young man behind him appears to be straining to reach or hold a note and he too is tapping time on the ledge.  The trio's concentration and exertion are tangible, and the intensity of the moment is enhanced by the deep black background. The song is perhaps a complex one. It might be a frottola -- a three-part song written for tenor, soprano and bass accompanied by a lute.  The woman's dress, with its cloth of gold sleeves and jewelled gold collar, provides some luxurious embellishment to an otherwise stark image.

The small violin-like instrument is a rebec; a recorder leans across it. The end of the rebec projects over the edge of the ledge, adding an extra dimension of space to the image -- the space between us and the ledge. The inclusion of these instruments not only suggests the musical skill and versatility of the musicians but also the depth of the ledge.

It has been suggested that the singers might be members of the Bentivoglio family, who commissioned an altarpiece -- featuring their portraits -- from Costa for the church of San Giacomo Maggiore, Bologna, at around this time. A painting in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid shows a group of figures huddled around a sheet of music, and includes inscriptions identifying them as members of the Bentivoglio family; the comparison with the faces of our musicians is not entirely convincing. As the score and musical instruments aren't painted with complete accuracy, some have suggested that the picture could have been intended as an allegorical representation of Harmony or the art of music. But it seems most likely that the picture was made to entertain an educated and wealthy patron who, like his contemporaries, embraced the fashion for cantare a libro ('singing from a book'), a developing trend in northern Italy. We know from surviving fifteenth-century letters that members of the Este family, the rulers of Ferrara, for example, enjoyed performing together for their own or others' entertainment.

Style: Early Renaissance
None of the Gospel writers describe Christ standing triumphantly upon his tomb as he is shown here. He holds the banner of the Resurrection, the white flag with a red cross. Although he appeared to his followers in the days after his death, these were in more personal moments -- such as his appearance to Mary Magdalene which is part of this  series.

According to the Gospel of Matthew, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate set a guard of soldiers at Christ's tomb to prevent anyone from stealing his body; they did not expect Christ to rise from the dead. Here we see that the soldiers have fallen asleep and are completely unaware of Christ's resurrection.

This scene was popular in Renaissance painting as it provided visual affirmation of the Christian belief in Christ's bodily resurrection. The tomb -- a classical-style marble sarcophagus -- is set upon the same rocky mound as in The Maries at the Sepulchre, providing visual continuity across the series of three pictures. Unlike in that picture we do not see dead tree stumps, but rather a large and graceful tree with small fresh leaves, a symbol of life and hope which, in its height and grace, echoes Christ's pose upon his tomb.

The soldiers asleep at the bottom of the rocky mount recall the disciples who fell asleep while keeping watch in the Garden of Gethsemane, moments before Christ's arrest. The motif of the sleeping soldiers unaware of the resurrected Christ also reflects the traditional design of Byzantine icons of the Transfiguration. This was the moment Christ climbed to the top of a mountain and his face and clothes suddenly shone with a bright light; God spoke, affirming that Christ was his son. The disciples were so in awe that 'they fell on their face, and were sore afraid' (Matthew 17: 6). The Transfiguration was seen as a foreshadowing of the Resurrection. In the Gospel of Matthew, the angel who rolls away the stone enclosing Christ's tomb, revealing that it is empty, is described in a similar way to Christ at the Transfiguration: 'his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow' (Matthew 28: 3). In the Gospel of Mark, the figure is described as a man and not an angel, 'clothed in a long white garment' -- making it unclear whether it was in fact Christ himself (Mark 16: 1--8).

As with the other pictures in the series -- The Maries at the Sepulchre and Noli me Tangere -- the painting is in the style of Mantegna, but the quality is not comparable and the contours of the hills beyond reflect the style of a slightly later period.

Style: Early Renaissance
This back view of a standing male nude is an académie, which is a study, usually a chalk drawing or an oil painting, made from a live male model in the studio. It is one of two académies in the National Gallery’s collection. These life studies formed part of the classical training of (male) artists from the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, particularly in France. This example is almost certainly French and probably dates from the early decades of the nineteenth century.

Models typically held 'action' poses, in part to display the musculature beneath the skin. In this study, particular attention has been given to the back and to the tautened left leg. This model also raises his left arm in a defensive gesture, as if carrying a shield or deflecting a blow. The Gallery's other académie shows a model who does carry a shield and a spear.

This académie is particularly well painted and has previously been attributed to Géricault, although there is no evidence to support this. It has been cut a little along the top and bottom edges, and is also unfinished: the raised clenched fist is just an outline, a feature that provides an insight into how the picture was painted.

Style: Realist, Neoclassical
This picture of a female sparrowhawk is one of two known paintings of birds by the Venetian artist Jacopo de' Barbari, who worked in the noble courts of Germany and the Netherlands. It is a probably a fragment of a larger painting made quite late in Jacopo's life, perhaps when he was working in the Netherlands.

The bird is painted alive, bathed in bright natural light -- the lean creature and its perch cast a strong shadow on the wall. A small bell just above its left foot would alert its handler to its whereabouts as it was flying. It is tied by a slender piece of rope, but its bright eye shows how keenly alert it is to the world.

Style: High Renaissance
In this tranquil forest a stag rests on the grass while a hind drinks from a pool. A few rays of sunlight reflect off the surface of the water and the nearby trees. The effect of dense foliage, which casts shadows on the scene below, has been achieved by Courbet’s use of a stippled brush to paint in the mass of leaves.

Courbet used a range of tools to apply paint, from small and thick brushes to a palette knife; he even used his thumbs. These techniques went against the formal conventions of the French art academies, but they meant that Corubet's paintings had a rough finish that expressed the spontaneity he wished to capture.

Courbet painted numerous forest scenes. Most of them show the woods of the Franche-Comté, but some depict the forest of Fontainebleau, 60 km south-east of Paris. His approach to landscape painting was very modern. Traditionally, landscapes were used as the backdrop to biblical, mythological or historical events, but Courbet chose to capture the natural world in its own right, in all its vitality and immediacy.

While Courbet would often paint outdoors rather than in his studio, the placement of the stag and the hind suggest that this is an imagined scene, made up from multiple studies of the forest and its wildlife. He may have been particularly drawn to this type of picture as he was an avid hunter.

Style: Barbizon
A fortified town sits at the edge of a peaceful lagoon -- we see just a few boats and a handful of people. These boats may be carrying supplies to and from Venice; for centuries, the city had profited from strong trading routes with mainland Italy and across the Mediterranean. The foreground figures are dashed in with a few flicks of the brush, their movement bringing the scene to life.

We don't know who painted this small scene, but it has similarities to those created by Guardi. His imaginary views, known as capricci, were inspired by the areas surrounding his home city of Venice. This artist has used broad brushstrokes to describe cloud formations, and simple blocks of colour for the buildings and beach.

Style: Neoclassical
This painting is based on the main panel of an altarpiece made by Gozzoli for the Confraternity of the Purification of the Virgin and of Saint Zenobius in Florence. It was probably made shortly afterwards by a member of the artist's workshop.

As in Gozzoli's original picture, the Virgin Mary and Christ Child are seated on a throne surrounded by angels, each holding a lily stem, a symbol of purity. But the two angels seated on the throne's steps are additions and resemble the lute-playing angels in the central panel of an altarpiece Masaccio made for Santa Maria del Carmine, Pisa.

Another difference is the background: the area behind the high back of the throne is gilded and then patterned using a metal tool to create decorative indentations in the soft gold leaf.  This would have been simpler and faster than painting a landscape. The grassy foreground and the vase of flowers represent a garden, which is significant -- the 'enclosed garden' was a sign of the Virgin's purity.

The Virgin's halo is inscribed, 'AVE. MARIS. STELLA. DEI. MATE(R)' ('Hail Star of the Sea. Mother of God'), as is Christ's: PAX. VOBIS ('Peace be with you'). The words spoken to Mary by the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation (Luke 1:28) appear on the haloes of the angels: AVE. (MARIA) GRAZIA. PLENA ('Hail Mary, full of Grace').

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
The son of the court portrait painter and miniaturist Jean-Baptiste Isabey (1767--1855), under whom he trained, Louis-Gabriele-Eugène Isabey was a successful painter, lithographer and watercolourist in his own right who tackled a diverse range of subjects including historical and genre scenes as well as landscapes. He was among the first of the nineteenth-century French painters to be inspired by the Normandy coast, which was to become an important location for artists such as Boudin (one of his students) and Monet.

Yet despite its title, this small picture may not be set in Dieppe, a fishing port on the Normandy coast; it was more likely inspired by seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish still life painting, and the people are wearing historical costumes rather than contemporary clothes. The picture shows Isabey’s skilful use of shadows and darker tones, in part to produce a contrast with the more brightly lit areas, such as the fish stall, and to create an effect of distant space, framing the clifftop chateau we can just glimpse in the background.

A similar scene, The Fish Market, was painted by Philippe Rousseau around the same time. Rousseau was influenced by Isabey (the two artists may even have collaborated on Rousseau’s painting) and by Chardin.

Style: Realist
The 12 small pictures in this group show the 'labours of the months' -- the activities that take place each month throughout the farming year. They were painted on canvas and then each glued to a wooden panel. It is possible that they were made to decorate the recessed panels of a pair of doors. The paintings seem to have been planned in pairs with the figures facing each other and are currently displayed in two frames in groups of six.

A young man kneels beside a wooden block and cuts stakes with a hatchet. A line of stakes has already been set in the field behind him, which is ploughed into rows ready to be planted, perhaps with vines or olives. The stakes would be used to support the young plants.

Although each painting is supposed to show a different month, the weather throughout the year appears remarkably similar -- a clear blue sky with a haze of white over the distant blue mountains.

Style: High Renaissance
These paintings were originally part of a multi-panelled altarpiece dedicated to the martyrdom of Saint Catherine. Its side panels could be closed to cover the central image and as the backs of these wings could sometimes be seen, they were also decorated. That's where these four figures once appeared, although they have since been separated from the wings' inner faces.

This altarpiece was one of the first commissions Cranach made for the electors of Saxony and was almost certainly displayed in the electors’ chapel in the castle at Wittenberg. The central panel, now in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, shows Electors Friedrich the Wise and, possibly, Johann the Steadfast as witnesses to Saint Catherine's martyrdom. The inner faces of the wings each show a group of three female saints. On the left shutter Saints Dorothy, Agnes and Cunigunde are depicted; on the right are Saints Barbara, Ursula and Margaret.

Saints Genevieve and Apollonia appeared on the reverse of the wing showing Saints Dorothy, Agnes and Cunigunde. Saint Genevieve, patron saint of Paris, holds the candle that miraculously relit after the devil blew it out while she was praying in a church. Saint Apollonia, patron saint of those with dental problems, had her teeth pulled out with pliers as torture for her commitment to her Christian faith.

Saints Christina and Ottilia were shown on the reverse of the other shutter. Saint Christina of Bolsena was tortured by her pagan father and martyred for her conversion to Christianity. Her father’s many attempts at torture, including throwing her into a river with a millstone tied to her, were all miraculously thwarted. Saint Ottilia was born blind but her sight was restored when she was baptised into the Christian faith. She revived her brother after he was accidentally killed by their father, and went on to found Augustinian monasteries.

Style: High Renaissance
Velázquez painted these two works as companion pieces during his early career in Seville, in around 1618. They were perhaps intended to promote the recent celebrations in the city of a papal decree defending the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, the belief that the Virgin Mary was conceived without sin. This teaching was popular in seventeenth-century Spain, and particularly in Seville, where artists such as Velázquez and his teacher Francisco Pacheco played an important role in promoting the idea visually to the city's churchgoers.

We don't know who commissioned The Immaculate Conception and Saint John the Evangelist on the Island of Patmos, in which John has a vision of the Woman of the Apocalypse (the source of much of the imagery associated with the Immaculate Conception). They are first recorded in 1800 in the chapter house of the Convent of the Shod Carmelite Order in Seville. The Carmelites were particularly devoted to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. These works were certainly commissioned and conceived together, but may have originally formed part of a larger complex, perhaps incorporating polychromed ('many coloured') sculpture.

The paintings are not only linked by theme, but by composition and colour. Saint John and the Virgin both appear in the foreground, surrounded by objects identifying who they are, strongly illuminated from the top left. The colours of the Virgin's clothes are echoed in reverse in Saint John's, and both paintings demonstrate Velázquez's skill in conveying a strong contrast between light and shade.

Both figures look like they're based on real models; one interpretation of these pictures is that Velázquez painted himself as Saint John and Juana Pacheco, whom he married in 1618, as the Virgin. Saint John's angular face is in contrast to the Virgin's more delicate features.

He gazes upwards towards heaven and his vision, while the Virgin casts her eyes downwards. She is the most important figure in both paintings, as she links the heavenly and earthly realms.

Style: Baroque
This is the final scene in the series of panels that tell the story of the life of John the Baptist, which once formed a predella. It shows the moment that Herod, King of the Jews, was presented with John's head on a plate.

The story of the saint's execution is told in the Gospel of Matthew. Salome -- we see her here in a pink dress -- was the daughter of Herod's wife and danced for Herod at a feast. He was so delighted with Salome's dancing that he promised to give her whatever she wanted. Her mother, Herodias, asked her to demand the head of John the Baptist. Herodias bore a grudge against John -- he had criticised her marriage to Herod, as she had previously been married to his brother.

Herod knew that many people revered John and believed him to be a prophet, and so did not want to kill him. Nonetheless, he kept his word. Here we see him appalled at the sight of the saint's decapitated head. His guests cover their eyes, unable to look at the grisly sight.

Like in the first scene of the series, which shows the saint's birth, here Giovanni di Paolo has included archways which lead into other rooms in the background. To the right we see a glimpse of a garden with a trellis and rosebush. These details give the impression that the feast is taking place in a grand and spacious setting -- Herod's palace. As with the scene of the baptism of Christ, Giovanni di Paolo seems to have been inspired by a sculpted bronze panel made by Donatello and Giovanni di Turino for the font of the Baptistery in Siena in around 1427, which shows the presentation of the saint's head to Herod. It seems to have inspired both the architectural setting and the gestures and arrangement of the figures.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance, International Gothic