wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
Previously attributed to Géricault and Couture, this painting has recently been attributed to the Breton artist Louis Duveau (1818-1867). It is believed to be one of several versions of the composition by the artist, the final version of which (now likely lost) was made into a print by Emile Louis Vernier, published in 1860. Born in Saint-Malo, Duveau trained and worked in Paris but Brittany and the Breton coast remained a source of inspiration throughout his career. Breton peasants and fishermen form the subject of many of his paintings. The coast depicted in this painting is that of Penmarch, in Finistère, south-west Brittany.

Three young people find themselves in a perilous situation, having been cut off from land by the incoming sea. They wear traditional Breton dress, for example the woman's red waistcoat and the boy's trousers (bragou berr). Under a tormented sky, surrounded by a threatening sea, two women cling to each other in distress while a young boy waves a flag or cloth, desperately calling for help. Rolling waves come roaring and foaming, encircling the half-submerged rock on which they stand precariously, signalling impending danger. Buffeted by the wind, overwhelmed by anguish, the standing woman clasps her soaked skirts, their fabric stiffened and weighed down by cold seawater and salt. The melodrama and colouring are both characteristic of the romantic vein in nineteenth-century French painting.

Paintings with themes drawn from Brittany’s life, legends and history became popular in France from the 1840s onwards, with a number exhibited at the Paris Salon. (French: Poussin, Pierre-Charles, Pardon Day in Brittany (NG810) is one example.

Style: Realist
Philips Koninck, who is said to have been a pupil of Rembrandt, is above all known for his panoramic landscapes in which a road or a stream leads the eye into the far distance. This painting isn't the wide, pastoral landscape that Koninck often portrayed, and that seemed to invite exploration (such as An Extensive Landscape with a Hawking Party).

This is a vast, dark landscape, strange and rather eerie under grey, lowering clouds. It seems to defy even the most adventurous to explore it. A small lake catches light reflected from the sky, but the waters look cold and still. Beyond it a little town is sketchily painted in chalky whites and shadowy, fading reds. Its towers and turrets seem fragile and crooked, as if it's a ruinous place, no longer lived in.

Although there's no sun, a lone woman in red with her back to us shields her eyes to peer into the foliage at the roadside. It's as if she's looking for something but the thick hedge bars her way. The path she stands on seems to turn sharply to the right, and gets lost in the trees -- there's no visible way through the woods in the direction she's looking. Behind her a flock of sheep and cows seem to hesitate; some look back at the man and the child behind them. The man looks down at the little boy, who also wears red, a stick hoicked over his shoulder. They seem to hesitate too.

It's unlikely that Koninck had a particular story in mind, although he has given the figures character so that they seem to have a tale to tell. He has left it to the viewer to decide what that is.

Style: Baroque
Two men in turbans are seated under a tree that provides little shade. One has his back to us; the other, who wears his clothing in layers, has a bushy moustache that gives him extra character. He rests his right arm on a jar and looks across the scene, though his eyes are hidden by his headgear.

Depictions of people in Eastern Mediterranean dress were very popular during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially in prints. We know that Giovanni Battista Tiepolo studied and owned several similar prints by seventeenth-century artists such as Rembrandt and Benedetto Castiglione.

This is one of four decorative paintings commissioned from Tiepolo for a room in the Palazzo Cornaro on the Campo San Polo, Venice. The others -- Seated Man, Woman with Jar, and Boy, Two Standing Figures and Rinaldo turning in Shame from the Magic Shield -- are also in the National Gallery’s collection. All four scenes are inspired by the popular sixteenth-century epic poem Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso.

Style: Baroque, Rococo
Saint John the Evangelist is seated on a stone ledge. He holds a very fine quill in his right hand, while his other rests on a blank scroll which curls over his knee. He turns to look up over his shoulder towards a heavenly light, as if ready to take dictation from on high. Saint John was one of Christ's apostles, and is generally identified as the 'beloved disciple' and the author of one of the four Gospels; as such, he is often shown with writing materials.

This small painting was originally part of a large multi-panelled altarpiece made for the high altar of the oratory of S. Pietro in Vincoli, Faenza. It would have appeared on the upper tier of the altarpiece, opposite an image of Saint John the Baptist. The two Saints John were often shown together in medieval and Renaissance art. Here they are larger in scale than the two saints in the lower tier: Saint Peter and Saint Philip. This was not uncommon in large polyptychs, as all the figures needed to be clearly seen and those on higher levels were further away from the viewer. They were probably not quite as high up as the panel showing the dead Christ supported by angels, which originally formed the upper part of the altarpiece, as this would have left a large gap between the saints in the lower and upper tiers.

Style: High Renaissance
This is one of three oil sketches Rubens made in preparation for an altarpiece for St Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent. This scene appeared on the left panel, while the central panel depicts Saint Bavo being received as a monk by saints Amand and Floribert. The two women wearing gold crowns are Saints Gertrude and Begga, the sisters of Saint Bavo. Judging by her closeness and familiarity, the woman in the white headdress is probably a companion of the sisters, possibly Saint Bavo's daughter.

The trio stand on a ledge, their bodies positioned towards the scene in the central panel. Gertrude and Begga followed their brother's example by relinquishing their privileged lifestyles to become nuns. Gertrude is shown clutching her long gold necklace in order to remove and discard it. The opulence of the sisters' embroidered gowns and gold jewellery draws our attention, the thick impasto applied by Rubens using quick, short brushstrokes giving the impression of light reflecting off of these luxurious materials. These details are more clearly defined than those in the rest of the panel. This is especially noticeable with the figures in the background on the staircase, who have been depicted as hazy blocks of colour rather than clearly defined forms. The group of people crouching in the foreground are an extension of the scene in the central panel, where a man donates Saint Bavo's riches to the poor, and gaze towards it.

Despite the sketchy quality of some of these figures, lots of small details bring the chaotic and crowded scene to life. A little dog jumps up by Saint Begga’s feet, while in the foreground a baby clings to the head of its breastfeeding mother, a chubby finger stuck in its mouth and a worried expression pointed in the direction of the man behind them. A young child next to the woman holds out a tunic, ready to catch the coins that are being handed out. The man behind holds one of these coins in his hand, gazing at it with a look of awe on his face.

Some pentimenti can be seen using X-radiography and infrared reflectography. The arm of the boy who clings to the pillar at the top of the composition was originally shorter, and the leg of the boy below him was originally further to the right.

Style: Baroque
A pyramid of flowers in full bloom. The cool, clear light, so pale it might even be moonlight, makes each flower glow against the grey wall. Full-blown roses, carnations and a snake's head lily, jostle with wallflowers, snapdragons and lilac. At the top a stately iris crowns the arrangement, a fragile butterfly perched on its furled petal.

But it's the three tulips that rise on a diagonal line through the centre of the picture that were the prize blooms. When van der Ast painted them, they were hugely expensive. A flower painting such as his was treasured because they were beautiful decorative additions to a wealthy household, but also because they demonstrated the owner's interest in science.

Scientific exploration and discovery flourished in the Dutch Republic at this time. As in this painting, art and science often went hand in hand. Artists began to use newly invented microscopes to enable them to paint plants, insects and small animals in accurate detail -- to see the markings and curled feeler of the peacock butterfly, the armoured shell of the cricket and the delicate legs of the spider exploring the yellow primrose. The wasp seems to hover in the air before zooming down to the fallen rose petals.

The first tulips had been brought in from Turkey as great and desirable wonders. Within months, the Dutch Republic was in the middle of 'tulip mania'. A single bulb could cost the equivalent of thousands of pounds in today's money. Each nurseryman aimed to grow a more exotic specimen than his neighbour. Striped petals or unusual colours were especially sought after and the great ambition -- unfulfilled at the time -- was to grow a black tulip.

Roses and tulips, lilac and snake's head lilies, aren't all in bloom at the same time, so van der Ast would have made sketches and drawings of them at different points in the year, later incorporating them into the picture. Nor would the flowers have been cut -- they were far too costly. They would have been left to grow and produce more of their kind for the following year.

Almost as expensive as the flowers were exotic shells. Brought from far-flung eastern countries by the merchant ships of the Dutch East India Company, the three in the painting would have been fetched from the sea bed by young men wearing no equipment, often diving to great depths to find them. In reality, the shells are unlikely to have been left on a shelf as they appear in the picture, but would have been locked away in a 'cabinet of curiosities' and shown to appreciative guests.

So van der Ast's picture is a strange fiction. What he paints is so realistic that the objects are almost tangible. In one way they're presented as scientific specimens, but in another as a precious, unfading vision of nature that could never have existed in reality.

Style: Baroque
This panel comes from  an altarpiece of the Virgin and Child surrounded by narrative scenes depicting the life of Saints Joachim and Anne and miracles of the Virgin. The two scenes on this panel show stories from the life of the so-called saint Helsinus, an English abbot who introduced the Feast of the Immaculate Conception to England. The miracles shown were recorded in a twelfth-century sermon by an English monk called Eadmer, who supported the idea that the Virgin Mary was conceived without sin. They promote the idea of celebrating the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, showing that the Virgin is herself in favour of it.

Helsinus had been sent to Denmark by William the Conqueror, who invaded England in the eleventh century, to investigate rumours of a potential attack. On the way back Helsinus and his crew were caught in a violent storm. The boat is shown almost capsized, surrounded by enormous swirling waves. A swarm of devil-like creatures -- with webbed feet, horns and dragon's wings -- tear at the sails, suggesting the storm has a demonic element. White swirls against the edge of the boat look like sea spray, and were created by flicking a brush loaded with paint against the surface of the picture. In desperation to keep the boat afloat, sailors throw cargo overboard.

All they can do is pray to be saved -- we can see Helsinus wearing a black hood, clasping his palms together. Upon praying, they see a vision of a bishop saint, shown here with a large gilded halo and wearing a bishop's mitre as well as a crown. His words are inscribed in Latin on the scroll he holds: 'You will escape death if you celebrate the Feast of the Conception of the Virgin on the sixth day before the Ides of December.'

The lower part of this panel continues the theme of demonic shipwrecks. The story tells of how a French canon was travelling across the Seine, returning home after an adulterous liaison. All the while, however, he was singing the Office of the Virgin, a series of hymns, psalms and scriptural readings devoted to the Virgin Mary. A pack of devils attacked his boat, smashing it against the rocks. According to Eadmer's sermon 'a great horde of demons ... capsized his boat and snatched away his soul for torment.' The artist has shown two devils pulling the canon's soul -- represented as a baby -- from his mouth, as he lies dead in the water.

In the sky above, the Virgin Mary has appeared with a group of angels. She points towards another angel, who is swooping down towards the canon. A devil nearby holds his hands to his ears, as though trying to block out the Virgin's words. According to the sermon the Virgin appeared three days later and asked the devils why they had snatched the canon. They answered that it was because he was doing their work.

Both stories are concluded on Helsinus Preaching the Celebration of the Feast of the Conception and (below) The French Canon restored to Life.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
A man sits on a spit of land, his body reaching towards the sea, the line of his gaze drawing our eyes to the boats he watches. Perhaps he longs to be on board; perhaps he looks out for someone about to land. Or perhaps he's just held by the visual poetry of the vessels themselves, the seemingly endless number of blues in the vast sky or the perfect reflections in the limpid water.

Whatever his thoughts, his eager pose -- echoed by the man in the prow of the small boat pushing into the picture on the left -- leads us past the motionless craft and out towards the distant horizon and the open sea. It lends just a small touch of adventure to an otherwise tranquil scene.

On the right, a Statenjacht (state yacht) waits for the breeze that may get it going. Its sail is barely moving, the Dutch colours at its peak droop and its crew is idle. Lit pale gold by the morning sun, the sails are almost sculptural, a furled cone from the mast, rhythmic folds sweeping down from the peak. Below them, almost perfectly mirrored in the water, is the great scoop of the leeboard (which was lowered to keep the boat steady in a high wind). On the left, another Statenjacht fires a salute, the smoke from the gun puffing out towards a warship nearby. Most of its sails are neatly furled, but there are men at work up on the yards on the one partly lowered sail. The men are little more than dots, but Hendrick Dubbels still manages to portray their industry and concentration with a flick of the brush.

The state yachts were used to transport members or guests of the States General to The Hague, and Dubbels's picture is presumably set on the coast near the town. The salute was fired when someone of importance came or left the vessel, perhaps from one of the small craft moored alongside.

Life in seventeenth-century Holland was largely lived on the water, and apparently shipping in all its forms held a fascination for the people. There were so many marine artists it seems that if the Dutch weren't on a boat, they were looking at pictures of them. Dubbels was one of the most successful of these artists, and also trained another -- Ludolf Bakhuizen (several of his paintings are in the National Gallery's collection, for example The Eendracht and a  Fleet of Dutch Men-of-War and A View across a River near Dordrecht). Dubbels did, like Bakhuizen, paint stormy seas with ships scudding across the water sails billowing, but he is perhaps best known for his tranquil waters, perfect reflections and the colours of his skies.

Style: Baroque
A battle rages before a mountainous landscape. There is no clue to which battle is represented, although the figure on a white horse in the foreground appears to be playing a leading part. It has been suggested that this picture may be a later copy of one of the lost frescoes by Piero della Francesca painted in the ducal palace in Ferrara. By the time Vasari visited Ferrara in 1541 or 1542 the frescoes were no longer visible, probably having been destroyed during works to modernise the palace undertaken by Duke Ercole d’Este. There is no record of the subject of the frescoes.

Leonello d’Este (1407--1450), Marquis of Ferrara, appears to be portrayed in profile at the bottom left of the National Gallery’s painting, suggesting that he may have commissioned the frescoes. It was common at the time for the patron of a painting to be portrayed in it. His appearance can be compared with Giovanni da Oriolo’s Portrait of Leonello d’Este and seems to be derived from Pisanello’s portrait of him in the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo.

There is another possibly related battle scene in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, which is of a similar size but lesser quality than the National Gallery's painting. The two battles are hand-to-hand combats with closely interwoven figures of men and horses. Both paintings include fifteenth-century elements in the compositions but other stylistic elements that suggest they were painted by an artist from sixteenth-century Ferrara. The costumes suggest a date in the 1530s but the presence of Leonello d’Este and other details seem to reflect an earlier style. The paintings were probably both produced around the workshop of Dosso Dossi at Ferrara, but possibly not by the same artist.

The central figure on the white horse and the group of warriors in the middle distance resemble the style of Piero della Francesca, although the Walters Art Gallery regards the idea that these are copies of Piero’s frescoes as unconvincing. The horses in the panels are also so close to those of Uccello in the panels of The Battle of San Romano of 1457 that the Baltimore painting was once attributed to him. The foreshortened horse seen from the rear is also an element common to the work of Pisanello, and the rearing horse is similar to those found on antique coins. The Baltimore and London paintings also reveal the influence of French miniatures.

The paintings may have represented scenes of ancient history or exploits of the house of Este associated with chivalric legends. An inventory of the 279 manuscripts at the Este Library in Ferrara in 1436 records that 58 of them were French chivalric romances. Ferrara is particularly associated with chivalric literature derived from the old French Chanson de Roland. The black Saracen in the Baltimore painting suggests that the subject may relate to the legend of Roland (Orlando in Italian). It has also been suggested that the London painting may be related to the story of Scipio Africanus, and the Baltimore work to the story of Hannibal.

Style: High Renaissance
This picture, inspired by the landscapes of Salvator Rosa, was probably painted by an Italian artist working during the eighteenth century. A rock in the foreground to the right of the figures bears a prominent 'SR' monogram -- a ruse to encourage potential buyers to believe that the painting was a genuine Rosa.

We look down a gentle incline towards a calm lake. The buildings dotted around it are made small by the steeply sloped mountain that towers above them, emphasising man's fragility in the face of nature's grandeur and power. In the foreground peasants rest and cattle gather at the water's edge.

The scene is filled with a golden Italianate light, though the landscape itself is almost certainly fictitious. The broken and silhouetted branches growing out of the rocky outcrop on the left are typical of Rosa's landscapes, and were likely included to emulate his style.

Style: Baroque, Academic, Rococo, Neoclassical
A warm light cast from the left illuminates a dark red curtain raised behind the sitter. This light seems to soften the man's stern expression and the stark white of his stiff collar and cuffs.

The old man in Nicolaes Maes’s portrait hasn’t been identified, even though he appears to be a man of some importance. He wears a tabbaard -- a long black gown that’s lined with fur. The gown, together with the book he holds in one hand, suggests he may be a scholar.

Maes has shown the old man sitting stiffly in his chair, his wrinkles, balding head, double chin, quirky eyebrows and two-toned moustache all exactly as they are. But there is, it seems, a feeling of sympathy and respect for his years and experience.

Style: Baroque
There was once an inscription -- 'L. Cornaro' -- on the open book in this painting, leading to speculation that it might be a portrait of Cardinal Luigi Cornaro, by Titian. But cleaning revealed that the inscription was not original and had been added later in the picture's history.

Although it looks like a portrait of a cardinal, because of the man's red robes, it is actually a painting of the fourth-century saint, Jerome. He was often depicted in this way as recognition of his high status in the Catholic Church, even though the office did not exist during his lifetime. He was a scholar whose major achievement was to translate the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin (known as the Vulgate). This was the version used by the Catholic Church for centuries.

The saint is shown here with his work. He appears to be contemplating the passage he has just read as he gazes -- not at us but, distracted, somewhere beyond us -- into the middle distance, his thumb marking his place. The religious order of monks dedicated to Saint Jerome, the Hieronymites, was founded in Toledo, where El Greco lived from 1577 until his death in 1614.

The Hieronymite monasteries in Toledo were famous for their libraries and so it makes sense that El Greco's image focuses on Jerome's scholarship. At a time when the Protestant reform movement in northern Europe was translating the Bible into the vernacular -- languages spoken by the contemporary congregation -- the Catholic Church was eager to reinforce the ancient and divine origins of its preferred Latin version. El Greco's picture might be an attempt to reinforce this idea through a painted image.

El Greco and his studio painted at least four versions of this image, the best of which are those in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and a later version in the Frick Collection, New York, in which the saint is shown life-size. Our painting, which is on a smaller scale and now quite worn, is of inferior quality to the others and may have been made as a reduced copy to show to prospective clients. It is possibly one of the 'reducciones' (small-scale replicas of El Greco's paintings) seen in the artist's studio in 1611 by Francisco Pacheco, who described them as ‘the originals of every work he had painted in life, painted in oils on smaller canvases’. An inventory of three years later describes the contents of El Greco's studio at the time of his death and mentions a painting of Saint Jerome of almost identical dimensions to ours.

Style: High Renaissance, Baroque