wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
A patch of sunlight lights up the thatched roof of an old watermill and the white foam of the turbulent river passing its door. Allart van Everdingen has made little of the wheel and posts in the water that mark the cottage as a mill, concentrating on the mood created by the water and the colours of the surrounding landscape. Many watermills were being abandoned at this time  in Holland; perhaps the artist was suggesting that this one too has outlived its usefulness. The day shown is a chill one, but there's no smoke coming from the mill's chimney.

In spite of the warm tones of the grass, the soil at the side of the water, the trees and even the mill, the painting has a melancholy air. A grey sky seems to promise rain and below the clouds two tall larch trees stand gaunt, bending a little in the wind. The distant hills look barren and lonely, and the high cliffs on the right seem to threaten; only a few sparse trees clinging on to them break their harsh contours.

On the left, the leaves of a young oak tree turn autumnal yellows and oranges in the sun. It frames the picture, seeming to hold the mill in the curve of its slender trunk. Beneath the steep bank on which it stands a few sheep graze, watched over by a woman -- almost lost in the layers of varnish that darken the picture -- in a blue dress. She sits slumped over, legs apart, perhaps holding something now indefinable in her lap. Her dress and strange red hat seem unconnected with Dutch costume for the time; it may be that they owe something to van Everdingen's earlier life.

In the 1640s van Everdingen had travelled in Norway and he returned to Haarlem with drawings and sketches of the landscape there, very different to the flat Dutch terrain -- waterfalls, mountains and tall, coniferous trees. He turned them into finished landscapes painted in the studio, combining his experience of Norway with objects, such as the mill, that were more typically Dutch.

Van Everdingen is also well known as an inspiration for Jacob van Ruisdael, probably the greatest of the seventeenth-century Dutch landscape artists. Ruisdael began to use the Norwegian drawings as a source for his own increasingly turbulent and atmospheric paintings. You will find several in the National Gallery's collection, including A Landscape with a Waterfall and a Castle on a Hill, in which two tall conifers pierce the clouds in a familiar way, and A Torrent in a Mountainous Landscape, in which a single tree is featured.

Style: Baroque
The subject of this painting is only identified through an inscription on the tree-stump by the group of reclining figures in the centre. It is the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca from the book of Genesis (24: 1--67). The couple are dancing with tambourines, surrounded by others enjoying the festivities. The flat landscape and expanse of water stretching far into the distance are imaginary, but inspired by the landscape around Rome. Claude spent most of his working life in the city, and made frequent trips to sketch the surrounding countryside. The mill and a town in the background and naturalistic sky are common features of Claude's paintings.

The picture, with its pair Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, was painted in 1648 for Frédéric-Maurice, duc de Bouillon. Unlike its pair, this painting does not include the patron’s name, although the subject of a wedding may have interested the duke as he was happily married to Eléanor-Catherine de Bergh. A round tower appears in both paintings. Although commonly found in Claude’s works, this was an emblem of the duc de Bouillon -- his family name was De la Tour d’Auvergne (the Tower of Auvergne). The paintings escaped seizure during the French Revolution despite Bouillon's successor, Jacques-Léopold Charles, being imprisoned in 1794 and his property confiscated.

During the early nineteenth century, the English banker John Julius Angerstein purchased both paintings for the very high sum of £8,400. They were among the first works to be bought by the National Gallery in 1824 from Angerstein, whose house was near to where the Gallery now stands. Claude’s renown among later artists is shown by the fact that when J.M.W. Turner bequeathed to the Gallery his Sun rising through Vapour and Dido building Carthage, he made it a condition that they were hung next to Claude's two paintings.

Another version of this composition also by Claude in the Galleria Doria-Pamphilj, Rome, is known as ‘The Mill’. The subject of the painting and identity of the patron would have been unclear to a seventeenth-century audience as this version has no inscription.

Style: Baroque, Academic
A crown of thorns was placed on Christ's head in the lead up to his crucifixion, while Roman soldiers mockingly declared him 'King of the Jews' (Matthew 27: 29). This detailed portrayal of Christ's face convincingly conveys his anguish in the aftermath of this torment. Barbs pierce his forehead and blood dribbles down his cheek, and he looks heavenward with an expression of pain and desperation.

 Guido Reni and his studio produced numerous versions of this composition, though this work may have been painted by a later follower of the artist, perhaps as late as the early eighteenth century. The early provenance of the work is unknown, though a painting by Giovanni Paolo Panini shows it on display in Cardinal Valenti Gonzaga's picture gallery in Rome in 1749 (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford).

The Head of Christ or Ecce Homo is one of the most frequently represented subjects in seventeenth-century painting. Portrayals of Christ's suffering became increasingly popular after the Counter-Reformation, as such images provoked empathy and devotion in viewers. One of the functions of seventeenth-century art was to instil an understanding of human experience, and Reni's expressive, close-up images of the suffering Christ did just that. In keeping with Counter-Reformation ideals, Reni's inclusion of Christ's blood in many of his representations of the subject may allude to transubstantiation in the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist (that is, the conversion of the substance of the Eucharistic bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at consecration).

Style: Caravaggist, Academic
The Christ Child lies on a bundle of straw before his mother, the Virgin Mary, on a grassy patch in the foreground of this picture, his head supported by a kneeling angel. Making direct eye contact with the viewer, he suckles his index finger in a gesture that may have been understood as a kiss of peace. The Virgin, her hands joined, prays towards her son, while her husband Joseph rests on a saddle and holds a staff in his left hand. Behind him rise the ruins of an ancient building -- a distant landscape with little buildings can be seen through its arches.

The crumbling ancient buildings, a common feature of Italian Renaissance nativity scenes, express the idea that Christianity superseded the pagan religions practised at the time of Christ's birth. Another common feature of religious paintings of this period is Joseph's characterisation as a passive bystander, uninvolved in the miracle before us. It was only through the foundation of confraternities dedicated to Saint Joseph and the promotion of his cult from the late fifteenth century onward that he received a more favourable treatment in art. The tradition of showing the Christ Child lying before his mother, rather than in her arms, was inspired by the influential writings of the fourteenth-century mystic and Saint Bridget of Sweden, who described such a vision during her journey to the Holy Land.

This painting may have been made by the Florentine painters Agnolo di Domenico del Mazziere and his brother Donnino, who specialised in the production of devotional paintings in Florence in the decades around 1500. Their identities were only discovered in 1988 -- they were formerly known under the pseudonym ‘Master of Santo Spirito’, in reference to three major altarpieces in the prominent Florentine church of that name. The Mazziere brothers seem to have run their own workshop by the late 1480s. Surviving payment records chart their activity until about 1515, with important commissions for altarpieces and fresco cycles for confraternities, churches and civic buildings, both in Florence and outside of it. Praised for their draughtsmanship, works by the Mazziere brothers were much in demand at the time but they were overshadowed by their more famous contemporaries, from whom they often drew inspiration.

A painting like this one was part of the core production of every workshop of this period. Its shape would have guaranteed the interest of customers in Florence. Circular paintings, known as tondi, typically adorned the chamber of their owners, providing a focus for prayer. This tondo stands out for its sheer size, measuring 126 cm in diameter; it is not impossible that a painting of this size would have been placed over an altar or decorated a civic building, although only a few such examples are documented.

It's possible that the landscape background was painted by a different artist. Similar buildings appear in the background of works by Sandro Botticelli, who often didn't paint his own landscapes -- he was even criticised by Leonardo da Vinci for not caring much about them.

Style: Early Renaissance
In Greek and Roman mythology, the god Saturn was warned that one of his offspring would overthrow him. In order to avert this prophecy he ate his children at birth. To protect their son, his wife Ops took the infant Jupiter to the island of Crete to be raised by the Corybantes, a group of dancers who worshipped the goddess Cybele. They used the rhythm of their dancing and the clashing of their cymbals to disguise the baby’s cries so he would not be discovered by Saturn.

The infant Jupiter sleeps in a basket cradle on a small verdant island while the nine Corybantes in the background make music. This panel was created by Giulio Romano and his workshop as part of a comprehensive redecoration of the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua in the 1530s. It was made for the Sala di Giove (Room of Jupiter) as one of a series of 12 mythological panels depicting the rule of Jupiter, with allusions to Federigo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, who was Giulio’s patron. The focus on youthful scenes from the life of the god was probably intended to refer to Federigo’s son and heir, Francesco, who was five years old at the time. Elaborate stucco decoration on the same theme still survives in the room. This panel once belonged to King Charles I, and four of the paintings in the series are in the Royal Collection, London.

Giulio Romano had been one of the most important assistants in Raphael's studio and decorated the Vatican Stanze (rooms) with him. After Raphael’s death in 1520, Giulio's importance grew to such an extent that Federigo Gonzaga brought him to his court in Mantua, where he remained until his death in 1546. The most important work Giulio carried out in the city was the Palazzo del Te, built between 1525 and 1536. Giulio was responsible for the design and construction of the building and grounds and also for the decoration. For this he would have had large teams of artists and workers.

In the same way, the painting of the large-scale decorative scheme for the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua would probably have been carried out by studio assistants working from Giulio’s designs. Giulio’s highly finished drawing for the composition of the Birth of Jupiter is now in the Devonshire Collection in Chatsworth House. Giulio’s drawings were particularly noted during his lifetime for being inspired by his knowledge of Roman sculpture. In the Birth of Jupiter he quotes from Michelangelo's now lost sculpture of Sleeping Cupid in the Gonzaga collection, which was itself based on an antique sculpture. The drawing was made into a larger cartoon, which was then transferred to the panel  to be painted.

The group of Corybantes on the right had to be reduced in scale as they looked too large in the final painting once the distances had been created using aerial perspective. Giulio Romano may have retouched the finished painting himself, as he did the frescoes for the Palazzo del Te.

Style: High Renaissance, Mannerist
This panel shows Saint Ursula, and was once the right-hand shutter of a three-part folding altarpiece made for Paul Withypool, an English merchant and courtier. The opposite shutter, also in the National Gallery's collection, shows Saint Catherine, while the central panel (in Bristol Museums and Art Gallery) shows Withypool in prayer before the Virgin and Child.

Saint Ursula is shown in profile, holding an arrow, the symbol of her martyrdom. Ursula, like Saint Catherine, was a princess, the daughter of King Maurus of Brittany. She married a pagan prince on the condition that he convert to Christianity and allow her to travel with him on pilgrimage to Rome. According to legend, she was accompanied by 11,000 virgins about to be married. On their return via Cologne they were all slaughtered by the Huns who were besieging the city, after Ursula refused to marry their leader.

Like Catherine, Ursula wears a lavishly bejewelled red dress with a verdant green cloak. Solario has painted the pearls with great delicacy, imitating the effect of their sheen with subtle highlights. She is accompanied by an angel playing a harp.

The reverse is inscribed with the words spoken by Elizabeth, the Virgin Mary's cousin, when she learnt that Mary would conceive the son of God (Luke 1: 42): BENEDICTA TV INTER / MVLIERES ET. B[ENEDICTVS] F.[RVCTVS] V.[ENTRIS] T[VI] ('Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb'). Also on the reverse are two cherubs holding a medallion that contains an image of Saint Paul, the donor's patron saint. The coat of arms of the Withypool family are below.

Style: High Renaissance
Although Roelant Roghman made many topographical drawings, A Mountainous Landscape is almost certainly an imaginary view, conjured from sketches and drawings by himself or other artists who had travelled abroad. The rounded hills, craggy distant mountain and the strange little trees on the edge of the cliff don't belong in a typical landscape painting of the flat Dutch countryside. It's an image that appeals to the imagination.

The figures have their backs to us -- a man fishing in the river, a shepherd and his little boy wandering up the meandering path on the left and a horseman and his companion crossing the flimsy bridge over the yawning chasm on the right. Seen almost in silhouette to add to the air of mystery they are dwarfed by the landscape, like actors on an enormous stage under a turbulent sky.

Style: Baroque
This is one of five paintings intended to hang together, each of which denotes one of the five senses -- a common theme for painting in the Low Countries in the seventeenth century. In each painting Gonzales Coques has used a traditional activity to represent the relevant sense. This is Sight, depicted as a painter holding up his palette and a picture of what seems to be a camp and some figures in a landscape.

Each sense is also a real portrait. This is Robert van den Hoecke (1622--1668), a painter and engraver who worked in Antwerp and Brussels. He became Contrôleur des Fortifications in Flanders -- the plan on the table, the baldric (belt hung over the shoulder) and the sword presumably refer to this office. He has been identified by an inscription on an engraving of the portrait published in 1661.

Style: Baroque
A man with a characterful head looks out at us engagingly. His features are carefully described – small eyes with pointed stare, a bulging nose, heart-shaped lips, a double chin and receding hairline. The identity of the sitter is unknown but his dress, with elegant fur trim across the front of the jacket and a delicate fringed tie around the collar, indicates that he is quite affluent.

The paint has been swiftly applied, with the brushstrokes remaining visible in a number of areas: see, for example, around the eyes where the daubs of paint indicate the socket and eyelid, or the parallel strokes suggesting shading on the underside of the chin. The loose, impressionistic technique is that of fresco and results here in great freshness and immediacy. Although fresco painting is usually associated with a fixed wall surface, portable works on wicker, slate or, as here, terracotta tiles, were quite common in Florence. A famous precedent is Andrea del Sarto’s self portrait, mentioned by the biographer Giorgio Vasari and now in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, which is painted on a tile. The rapid and fluid brushstrokes displayed throughout this picture demonstrate the freedom of execution achieved through the fresco medium.

The painting entered the collection in 1921 as a work by Guido Reni. The name of Franceschini, one of the most famous and prolific fresco painters in seventeenth-century Florence, was first associated with the painting in 1929. The painting is now considered to be definitely by him.

Style: Baroque, Academic
This small painting is an incomplete copy of a panel titled The Perfect Accord (L’Accord parfait), which Watteau probably painted between 1717 and 1719. An oil painted on a chestnut panel, Watteau’s original painting has been in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art since 1988. This pastoral scene of a couple strolling in the countryside as other people make music is typical of a fête galante, which Watteau excelled in painting -- for example The Scale of Love.

For some time this copy was described as being from the ‘studio of Watteau’, but there is no reason to believe it was painted in his workshop. Nor is it the only copy, as over a dozen have been identified. The colours are close to the original but it is covered by a coating of thick yellowish varnish. There are visible cracks in the surface and there has also been some loss of paint, particularly at the bottom of the picture and along the edges. Watteau’s painting includes a bust of Pan, the Greek god of wild nature and rustic music, in the upper right corner, but it cannot be seen in the copy.

Style: Rococo, Neoclassical
An angel stands in a fluttering red robe, knee bent, playing a lute. He looks distracted from his music, staring intently at something or someone outside of the picture. The object of the angel's fascination is a statue of the Virgin Mary which he and a companion angel, placed on her other side, are serenading with their music.

Both panels were part of a large, elaborate altarpiece that included a sculpture of the Virgin Mary and a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, now known as 'The Virgin of the Rocks'. The angels were probably designed as graceful musical accompaniments to frame the sculpture, which stood above Leonardo's painting. Later on, in the late sixteenth century, when the chapel that the altarpiece had been specifically made for was destroyed, the altarpiece was moved and re-designed: some parts of it were sold, while others were moved around. The angels ended up on either side of Leonardo's painting. Later still, Leonardo's painting was removed altogether and the angels switched position again.

At some point during all this moving around, the angels were extended, cut down and placed within grey arches, painted to resemble niches for sculpture. The stark simplicity and rough painting of these niches looks out of place next to to the rich reds and gold-browns used here. Compared to its pair, An Angel in Green with a Vielle, it is more restrained: the range of colours is more even and there is less use of dramatic contrasts between areas of light and shade. For this reason it appears slightly less three-dimensional and has a more decorative effect overall.

Ambrogio de Predis was named in the original contract for the altarpiece which was signed in 1483. He was the court painter at Milan at the time, and Leonardo stayed with him when he first arrived in the city in the early 1480s. A surviving document from the early 1490s shows that both painters were asking for additional payment, claiming that the materials they had used had cost more than expected. This petition is useful because it reveals that the paintings must have been finished by that date and it confirms Ambrogio's involvement in the altarpiece. What we don't know is whether he was ever paid what he asked for.

Style: Early Renaissance, High Renaissance
A burly man stands behind a stone ledge. The artist has reproduced his features -- dark, arched eyebrows, a deep frown line, thin lips and a jowly neck beneath a small, flat chin -- with the greatest care. This is Alvise's only surviving signed work. On the ledge there's an inscription painted on a piece of paper which, from its creases, looks like it has just been unfolded. The inscription gives the date the painting was made (1497) beneath the artist's signature, written in Latin: Alvise Vivarini of Murano made this.

The ledge and the piece of paper (called a cartellino in Italy) came from Netherlandish portraits; we see it, for example, in van Eyck's Portrait of a Man. The portrait is slightly larger than those usually commissioned for private purposes at this date, which suggests that it might have been made for a semi-public location. The man's blue tunic is the colour that was worn by members of Venetian confraternities, so it may have been displayed in the headquarters of the group that he belonged to, known as a scuola.

Alvise has followed, to a degree, the style of Antonello da Messina, who developed a formula for painting portraits of men that became the height of fashion in Venice in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. As there was such a high demand for this kind of portraiture it's not surprising that a number of Venetian painters took it up: Alvise was always eager to ensure that his paintings reflected the latest trends.

Antonello used elements of contemporary Netherlandish portraiture, including posing the sitter so that we see three-quarters of his head. This angle replaced the profile format drawn from coins and medals which had persisted until this time. Setting figures against a dark background and lighting features with a strong light from the left were also key elements of Antonello's style, as was having the sitter look directly at the viewer. The sixteenth-century Venetian writer Marcantonio Michiel commented that Alvise's portraits had 'great strength and vivacity, especially in the eyes'. This portrait shows that Alvise was clearly preoccupied with creating a sense of comunication between this man and the viewer -- technical evidence shows that he repositioned the pupils a number of times.

Alvise has strayed from Antonello's formula by showing more than just the man's head and shoulders: he has extended the torso, enabling him able to include the man's right hand. This apparently minor detail was in fact itself a new invention in portraiture which also came from Netherlandish painting, where it was pioneered by Hans Memling. Alvise's nod to this new and fashionable detail allows him to put space between the man and the stone ledge that he appears to be standing behind. This emphasises the illusion of the man's real presence within the picture.

This portrait shows how, from the 1480s onwards, Alvise imitated more than Antonello's format for portraits, like the manner in which he used paint to shape the face, relying on tonal variations, and broad areas of light and shade to define its contours, rather than lines.

Style: Early Renaissance