wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
When you are at sea, or on the waterways of the kind of flat countryside that we see in these two paintings, the horizon always seems low. The sky dominates; there are no hills or buildings around you to distract the eye or give the scenery a sense of distance and depth. If you stop and contemplate the view, it is the clouds that become the most dramatic feature, and the drama they create is emphasised by the way the light changes as they build, disperse and scud across the sun, and by how it reflects back from the surface of the water.

Jan van Goyen, whose customers lived and worked in an environment of huge skies and constantly changing weather, mirrored this experience in many of his landscapes and seascapes. In both of these paintings -- and as was typical in his work -- he has set the horizon so low that the vast majority of the picture is taken up by sky. Apart from a few glimpses of bright blue, he has used shades of grey to evoke the billowing clouds and the passing curtains of mist or rain. The church and the windmill in the distance and the dark reflections on the water in the foreground are also depicted in greyish -- yet luminous -- tones of green, yellow and brown.

Both of these pictures are of identical size and seem to have been made to hang side by side. With a pair of paintings, Jan van Goyen could engage viewers in a more complex way than he could with a single picture. There are some striking similarities between the two: the low horizons, the islands or mudflats in the middle ground, the outlines of distant buildings, the angle of the navigation marker on the left, the three boats in similar positions in the foreground of each picture. But there are also many subtle differences. The two distant churches may be at a similar point on the horizon, but one has a tower and the other a spire. One navigation marker has two balls at the top, the other only one. In one painting, the clouds are slightly darker, but the distant light is clear; in the other, there seems to be a veil of mist or drizzle across the scene. And while in one the boats are stationary, in the other they are under way.

The two scenes also seem to be set at different stages of the tide. In A River Scene, with a Hut on an Island, it appears to be high water. The muddy shores are covered and we see only greenery on the island. Indeed, it must be near the top of the tide because if the water was much higher, it would inundate the hut. In the other painting, Fishermen hauling a Net, the tide has clearly ebbed and the mud flats are exposed.

By making these comparisons and contrasts, van Goyen is encouraging us to look more closely at each painting. Only by careful attention can we decide whether he has painted two different scenes, or the same view at a different state of the tide. Perhaps he was suggesting that, in both landscapes and paintings, the more we look, the more we see.

Style: Baroque
We don’t know who painted Venice: San Simeone Piccolo and its pendant Venice: The Grand Canal facing Santa Croce, though it's likely they were made by a contemporary follower of Canaletto, eager to take advantage of his success by producing small-scale copies of his work, or by one of Canaletto's pupils as a studio copy.

Inscriptions on the back of each canvas, uncovered during conservation work, state they are genuine works by Canaletto. These were presumably added by an unscrupulous artist or owner: the paintings have clearly been produced by someone imitating Canaletto's style, though rather crudely. Pictures like these formed part of a burgeoning market in Venice during the 1730s and 1740s, enabling visitors who couldn't afford Canaletto’s high price tag to take home a souvenir from their travels.

Style: Baroque, Rococo
These two pictures of dancers in exotic costumes are near life-size. They were were made as part of the decorations of an apartment at 24 Avenue de Friedland in central Paris. It belonged to Maurice Gangnat, a wealthy steel magnate and art collector and one of Renoir’s most discerning clients. Renoir’s son Jean recalled that. 'whenever he [Gangnat] entered the studio, his gaze fell on the canvas Renoir considered his best. "He has an eye for it!" my father declared.' By the time Renoir died in 1919, Gangnat had acquired 158 of his pictures.

These panels were made to face each other, hanging on either side of a mirror above the fireplace in the dining room. They belong to a tradition of decorative art used to enliven architectural features with painted figures, often in poses which mimicked sculptural forms. It was a French tradition which dated back to the sixteenth century and reached its peak in the eighteenth century, and was still popular in Belle Époque Paris in the early twentieth century.

These paintings were made late in Renoir’s career when he was 67 or 68 years old. As a youthful apprentice he had trained as a decorative artist, learning to paint scenes on porcelain plates and also making murals and decorating window shades. It was a discipline which he apparently returned to with some enthusiasm -- around the same time as painting the two dancers he produced two other panels, this time depicting pairs of nudes acting as caryatids - or human supports - for garlands above their heads (Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania).

According to an account by one of the models, Georgette Pigeot, the original idea was to depict the women carrying baskets of fruit -- an appropriate motif for a dining room. This idea was abandoned in case Gangnat decided to move house and wanted to be able to install them in a different room, which he eventually did. Renoir used Pigeot to model both dancers, but it was his maid, Gabrielle Renard, who posed for the head of the figure in Dancing Girl with Castanets. Of the two, this represents the more animated of the figures. The dancer lifts her foot and raises her castanets as she dances to the rhythm tapped out by her counterpart on her tambourine.

The costumes of both dancers have oriental - or near-Eastern - overtones, especially the slippers and short gold-coloured bodices, and the harem pants worn by the woman in Dancing Girl with Tambourine. Parts of these costumes still survive at Renoir's house in the south of France. 

Renoir considered these paintings to be among the most important of his later works and, shortly after they were acquired by the National Gallery, they were praised by the sculptor Henry Moore. He felt that in these pictures Renoir 'had learned to fit his forms into space'. Moore admired their monumental quality but also the 'delicious colour', 'the marvellous supple rhythm' and 'rounded forms' of the figures. 'These pictures represent,' he wrote, 'a significant episode in Renoir’s career, a special effort… that’s why I believe they are the kind of pictures we should have in the National Gallery.'

Style: Impressionist
These paintings are fragments from an altarpiece -- one of the largest of its time -- made for the high altar of the monastery church of the Benedictine abbey at Liesborn, in Westphalia in north-west Germany. The high altar was consecrated in 1465 by Abbott Heinrich von Kleve and was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saints Cosmas, Damian and Simeon, all of whom feature on the altarpiece.

The main panel consisted of a central scene of the Crucifixion flanked on either side by two smaller individual scenes from Christ's infancy, one on top of the other. In 1517, about 40 years after the main panel was completed, two shutters were commissioned from a different artist, the Master of Cappenberg. These were painted on both sides, and depicted the events leading up to Christ's death, his resurrection and events that took place afterwards. They were attached to the outer edges of either side of the main panel.

The altarpiece was removed and replaced with another painting in 1704. We do not know exactly when it was cut up into separate pieces but it may have been in the eighteenth century. Many of these fragments entered the National Gallery's collection after they were acquired from the Kruger Collection in 1854. However, pictures from that collection were resold in 1857, enabled by a special Act of Parliament, and a large number are now in the Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History, Münster (not far from Liesborn); there are some in other collections too. Those retained by the National Gallery include three fragments of The Crucifixion: the head of Christ and two fragments of the figures standing at the base of the Cross, Saint John the Evangelist with Saints Scholastica and Benedict and Saints Cosmas and Damian with the Virgin. Four fragments now in Münster show angels gathering Christ’s blood in chalices -- they would have been shown hovering beneath the wounds in his hands where he was nailed to the Cross.

Two of the scenes that surrounded the Crucifixion are also in the National Gallery's collection: The Annunciation (which was at the top left) and The Presentation in the Temple (the lower of the two right-hand scenes). The other small fragment in our collection shows two of the kings kneeling to worship the infant Christ, who lies in his mother’s lap. This is the central part of The Adoration of the Kings, originally situated at the top right -- other fragments from this scene are in Münster. This configuration of central image flanked by lateral scenes painted on the same panel was fairly common in Westphalian altarpieces of this date.

Two scenes from the shutters are also in the National Gallery's collection: Christ before Pilate and The Coronation of the Virgin. Six scenes from these wings are in Münster (one of the six is on loan from a private collection).

Style: Early Renaissance, Gothic
This tiny, almost postcard-sized portrait measures only 22.7 by 15.3 cm, including the frame. We do not know who the sitter is, and although he is wearing the grey habit of a Franciscan his hair is not tonsured -- shaved on top as a sign of humility -- as was customary for friars. He holds a scroll on which no trace of writing is visible. The precise identity of the artist is also uncertain, although he seems to have been a member of Robert Campin's workshop.

The sitter's face is strongly lit, and stands out powerfully against the dark blue background. His blue eyes gaze into the distance, and his features are slightly misaligned: his eyes don't look in the same direction, and his mouth is asymmetrical. The style of the face resembles that of the female donor in the Merode Triptych (The Met Cloisters, New York), as does the profile thumb. There's a lack of interest in linear pattern, which is characteristic of the pictures associated with Campin himself, such as A Man and A Woman. Infrared reflectography has shown that the artist made various changes during the course of painting the picture. The sitter once held a book, his index finger apparently tucked into its pages -- this was later changed to a scroll.

The gilding is not original, and technical analysis suggests that the frame and possibly the reverse were possibly originally decorated with pinkish marbling. The frame and support are carved out of one piece of wood, Baltic oak, from the same tree as The Virgin and Child in an Interior. Although both paintings are Campinesque in style, they do not appear to be by the same painter, and there are no traces of any hinges to indicate they were part of the same complex. The framed supports must have been made at the same time by the same panel-maker; presumably they were supplied to the same painter's workshop but then, within that workshop, assigned to two different artists.

If the Virgin in an Interior was painted by Jacques Daret when he was working as Campin's assistant, and if this painting is by one of his colleagues in Campin's workshop, possibly the painter of the Merode donors, then both pictures could be dated before 1432, when Daret left the workshop. If this dating is correct, this is one of the earliest surviving portraits where the sitter rests his fingers on the frame, which would become a conventional pose in Netherlandish painting.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
We don’t know who painted this portrait, or who the couple in the garden are. They seem to pause mid-conversation, their expressions enigmatic, leaving us wondering what the relationship was between them. She holds a glove in her hand -- sometimes a symbol of betrothal but always a sign of wealth. He holds a scarf in one hand but points outwards with the other.

Their heavy, black clothes proclaim them as prosperous, if a little out-of-date: by the 1640s, the ruff was still worn but was considered unfashionable. The man’s only nod in the direction of frivolity are the red stockings and enormous garter rosettes on his portly legs, making the woman's red sleeves dim in comparison. On her wrist she wears a coral bracelet, expensive but often worn as a defence against the 'evil eye’.

The picture was once attributed to the Amsterdam painter Thomas de Keyser -- his Portrait of Constantijn Huygens and his (?) Clerk is in our collection -- but it’s now considered more likely to be a copy after one of his works by an unknown painter working in Amsterdam in the 1640s.

Style: Baroque
‘He who plays with cats gets scratched’ -- in other words, he who looks for trouble will get it. This is an old Dutch motto that appears to be a possible source for Judith Leyster's cheerful picture. Children's activities were commonly used in Dutch seventeenth-century painting to point out the bad behaviour of adults, and it’s been suggested that Leyster’s picture was intended to serve as both delightful entertainment and a warning.

In Dutch morality pictures of the time, a little girl would be expected to show a good example. While the girl in this picture may look straight out at us, holding up a warning finger in case you plan something naughty, she has an older brother to lead her astray. She has a wicked twinkle in her eye and the fingers of her other hand curl round the cat’s tail, ready to give it a tug.

The boy has tempted the cat to come to him using an eel, but he holds it up enticingly out of reach. The cat's ears are pricked up in discomfort and anger, and the boy has to hug the animal hard to keep it prisoner. He looks up with a cheeky grin, at some unseen adult perhaps. Leyster has captured his half-guilty, half-unashamed expression -- he seems to be testing just how far he can go.

Leyster has chosen dark, sombre colours for the costumes and background to show up the fresh complexions, sparkling eyes and lively expressions of the children. As was the custom in Holland at the time, they are dressed like mini-adults. The girl's collar and bonnet and the boy's scarf are beautifully white and clean, and their hair is neat and tidy. The brim of the boy's spectacular hat is caught up jauntily at one side in the new fashion. Although they are up to mischief, they are clearly the offspring of a prosperous, middle-class family -- which is unusual for a picture of this kind. Badly behaved children were most often shown as from the underprivileged classes, though usually with affection and sympathy (look at Two Boys and a Girl making Music, for example).

Style: Baroque
An eighteenth-century label stuck on the back of this painting identifies the sitter as Marie Larp. It forms a pendant to the portrait of her husband, the Haarlem silk dyer Pieter Tjarck. The pair must have commissioned their portraits from Frans Hals soon after their wedding in 1634, when Hals was at the height of his career as Haarlem’s most eminent portrait painter. Married couples were usually depicted in this way, each in a separate painting and turned towards each other. They were then hung together with the man to the left and the woman to the right.

Marie Larp is shown seated in an upright position within a fictive oval frame, looking directly at the viewer while resting her left hand on her chest. This hand gesture may reciprocate the affection of her husband (who is depicted holding a rose symbolising the love for his wife), indicating that love resides in the heart. However, the gesture also draws attention to her faultless posture and the rich embroidery on her gown. While the stark black and white of her costume might at first suggest sober restraint, closer examination reveals luxurious and costly details. Hals’s fluid brushwork records the varied textures of fine linen, thick gold embroidery and delicate lace, and imparts a pleasant, personable character to the sitter’s rosy-cheeked face.

Contemporary documents show that Larp was married twice and died in 1675, about forty years after this portrait was made. The first of those marriages was in 1634 to Pieter Dircksz. Tjarck. Their only son, Nicolaas, was born a year later. Hals’s portrait of Pieter Tjarck – on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art – is near identical in size as the National Gallery painting and set in a similar, grey-green, oval-shaped painted frame. It too has a label on the back written in an eighteenth-century hand, which identifies the sitter as Tjarck.

Tjarck and Larp’s pendant portraits remained in the family, being passed down through the generations. They stayed together until the late nineteenth century, when they were sold separately at an auction in Paris. The portrait of Marie Larp eventually entered the collection of the National Gallery in 1972, while that of Pieter Tjarck was acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 1974. Thanks to LACMA’s generous loan, they have now been reunited for the first time since then.

Style: Baroque
Mary Magdalene, statuesque and in a clinging red dress, rests the fingers of her right hand on the shoulder of a kneeling donor. In the other, she nonchalantly lifts a large golden vase, decorated with lions' heads and topped with a finial in the form of a nude woman. This is the pot containing the ointment she used to anoint Christ's feet (Luke 7: 37).

Mary Magdalene was often shown richly dressed in medieval and Renaissance painting, and here she wears a circlet in her elaborately plaited hair, gold jewellery and a rope of pearls. In sharp contrast, the donor is a serious-looking middle-aged man dressed as a canon, with a white surplice over his black robes and a grey almuce (fur cape) over one arm. He appears to be both balding and tonsured.

The back of the panel is also decorated, and shows a bishop painted in tones of black, grey and white. In his left hand he holds a book in a chemise binding, while his right is raised in blessing. On the shaft of his crosier are three crowns, which suggests that the bishop might be Saint Louis of Toulouse, who when he became Bishop of Toulouse renounced the three kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem all previously held by his father. The saint was usually shown as a youth, but the artist who painted this picture may not have known much about him -- he was not particularly celebrated or represented in the Low Countries. Beneath his feet is an unidentified coat of arms.

This is one of two shutters from a triptych, the central part of which is lost. We are not sure who or where they were made for, but the other wing, The Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist, also has an unidentified coat of arms. The coats are similar to those of the Hamal and Kersbeke families: the donor may have been a canon whose father was a Hamal and whose mother was a Kersbeke.

The panels are attributed to Marten van Heemskerck. They were probably painted in around 1540 after his return from Italy, as is clear from the antique drapery, jewellery and hairstyle of Mary Magdalene and her 'Grecian' profile. Van Heemskerck arrived in Rome in 1532, and both classical and contemporary Italian art had an enormous influence on his later work. After his return to Haarlem he received important commissions from both Haarlem and other Dutch cities, including an enormous triptych of the Passion (now in Linköping Cathedral), a Crucifixion scene (Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent) and a triptych with an 'Ecce Homo' in 1544 (National Museum, Warsaw). He also received commissions for portraits and religious paintings from private individuals.

Style: High Renaissance
The sense of activity on the boats and the jetty give a greater sense of movement than in many of Jan van de Cappelle's paintings. But, as is usual, the sea is flat and calm, giving subtle reflections of the vessels, the clouds and two porpoises swimming calmly on the left.

The pilings by the jetty and closer to us, blackened and dripping with weed, give a sense of age and permanence, almost as if van de Cappelle's vision of the sea as calm and unthreatening is true. The geometry of their shapes, heavy and firm, is repeated -- but with finer, cobwebby lines -- by the masts, booms and ropes of the two vessels beyond them.

Sadly the condition of the painting prevents us from seeing the full misty atmosphere the artist intended to evoke through his subtle handling of the colours -- but if you would like to see more of his work, look at A River Scene with Dutch Vessels Becalmed and A River Scene with a Large Ferry and Numerous Dutch Vessels at Anchor.

Style: Baroque
Saint Jerome, wearing his red cardinal's hat, and Saint John the Baptist stand side by side on a grassy hillock. Saint John's sturdy toes interrupt a carpet of wild flowers, including yellow dandelions, violets and strawberries.

Saint Jerome who lived in the fourth century, was a cardinal and biblical scholar who translated the Bible from Greek to Latin. At his feet is a lion. It lifts its paw up to the saint and looks at him with an imploring expression. According to legend, when Jerome was living as a monk near Bethlehem he pulled a thorn from a lion's foot; from that moment it was his companion and protector. In his left hand he holds a Bible, its weighty pages curling over at the top edge. It is open at the first page of the Old Testament which describes the creation of the world. In his right hand he holds a model of a church which may represent Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

This picture and A Pope (Saint Gregory?) and Saint Matthias formed part of an altarpiece made for the canon’s choir of Santa Maria Maggiore. Saint Jerome was an important saint for the church: he had been baptised by its founder, Saint Liberius, and his relics had been moved there in the thirteenth century. There was an altar dedicated to him, and he was also shown in a mosaic in the apse at the eastern end of the church.

John the Baptist wears a pink cloak over a camel-hair tunic which, according to the Bible, he wore when he was preaching in the wilderness about Christ’s ministry and baptising people in the river Jordan (Matthew 3: 4). He carries a scroll beginning with the words he spoke about Christ: Ecce Agnus Dei ('Behold the Lamb of God’). He referred to Christ as a lamb because he was sacrificed as lambs were, to atone for sin. He emphasises this by pointing at the cross he carries, a reference to the Crucifixion. John the Baptist is also represented in a mosaic in the apse. He too was an important figure for the church; the altar of the canon’s choir was dedicated to him.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance