wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
A tempting pyramid of exotic foods stands out against the dark background of Jan Davidsz. de Heem’s sensuous painting, evoking delectable flavours and scents. At the base, three fleshy oysters curled up in their shells are placed in a triangle echoing the pyramid form. A single, half-full glass of red wine makes the apex, the reflection of a window glittering on one side.

In seventeenth-century Holland these were costly luxuries, but de Heem surrounds them with more mundane things: blue bindweed and scaly ears of wheat twine and trail through the picture. The plant stems meet above the wineglass in a cluster. The whole pyramid seems to hang down in space from these knotted stems, but is anchored to the shelf by the two large fruits -- the clementine orange and the lemon, both grown in the hothouse of a wealthy family's estate. The lemon is partly peeled, ready to accompany the oysters and give a tingle to the tongue. A snail meanders along as if to look at itself in the gleaming skin of the cherry. The picture is painted on an oak panel, which allowed de Heem to work in great detail, with vivid, fresh colours and far more speed and fluidity than he could have done on canvas.

De Heem was one of the most successful still-life painters in the seventeenth century . He was prolific and innovative, perhaps particularly in his flower painting. He turned the stiff, almost two-dimensional arrangements of earlier artists like Balthasar van der Ast (who may have been his teacher) into fully rounded arrangements of flowers -- compare van der Ast’s Flowers in a Vase with Shells and Insects with de Heem’s Flowers in a Glass Bottle on a Marble Plinth (private collection, on loan to the National Gallery). Later, de Heem’s style was taken to the ultimate in naturalistic flower painting by artists like Rachel Ruysch -- see her Flowers in a Vase.

Yet de Heem retained one technique that seems to be common to almost all the seventeenth-century Dutch flower painters. The convolvulus is a spring flower, certainly not in bloom when either cherries or wheat are ripening. Although the picture looks real, it's an imaginary composition painted from sketches and created to celebrate the abundance of nature, the passing of the seasons and the prosperity of the Dutch nation, where such luxuries were being brought in from abroad by merchant ships.

In some of his paintings, such as Vanitas Still-life (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), de Heem used direct symbolism -- a skull as a reminder of the shortness of life, for instance -- but it’s not necessarily present here. Perhaps it’s enough to savour the richness of colour, the textures and sensuality in this small, jewel-like painting -- qualities that a seventeenth-century Dutch collector would also have enjoyed.

Style: Baroque
The meaning of this scene, which takes place in a rocky landscape at sunset or sunrise, is difficult to decipher, largely because the painting is very damaged and many areas are not original.

The sunset and the foreground pebbles appear to be by Giorgione and are well preserved. The two foreground figures are genuine and they may represent Saint Roch and his attendant Gothardus, who tended the plague sore on Saint Roch's thigh. If this is the case, the picture may have been painted to commemorate relief from the plague, against which Saint Roch was invoked in the Veneto in 1504. The sinister little beaked creature or devil emerging from the water also seems to be genuine, although its meaning is unclear.

The other figures are more puzzling. The 'hermit' in the cave on the far right is extensively repainted, but his head and arms could be based on original fragments. The Saint George on a rearing horse attacking a dragon is a later addition to cover a large area of damage, as is the monster in the centre of the lake. What now appears as the dragon's tail is original paint, but might have begun life as tree roots.

After its rediscovery in a villa not far from Venice in the 1930s, this painting underwent several phases of restoration. It had suffered substantial damage and loss of paint in the trees on the left, in the very centre of the canvas and in the rocks at the upper right. Lower down on the right there was a hole through the canvas, surrounded by considerable flaking and overpaint.

The picture was sent to a restorer called Augusto Vermehren, who also worked for the Uffizi in Florence. He cleaned and lined the canvas before filling the losses with putty and retouching. Shortly after this, the picture was bought by a young Russian art dealer called Vitale Bloch, who, having obtained a licence to export the work from Italy, sent it to Theodor Dumler in Rome to be restored again in 1934. Subsequently, the mounted figure of Saint George appeared in the area of the large loss on the right, as well as three rocks in the water. The restorer constructed Saint George using patches of old painted canvas, suggesting that he and the dealer were hoping to conceal the extent of damage to the painting from a future purchaser.

After restoration, the painting was moved to a London bank vault, where it remained unseen until the important Giorgione exhibition in Venice in 1955. Following the exhibition, the National Gallery decided to buy the painting and it was eventually purchased in 1961. The Gallery's restorer, Arthur Lucas, removed the three rocks in the centre of the pool, but replaced them with the monster -- perhaps when he realised the extent of the damage in this area.

Although various parts of the picture that we see today are not original, the distant landscape with its atmospheric dissolution of light is evidence of Giorgione’s work.

Style: High Renaissance
The Virgin Mary has been interrupted from her reading. She raises one hand in surprise at the Angel Gabriel's announcement that she will bear the son of God (Luke 1: 26-8). Her other hand reaches for her book as she looks down in modest confusion. Rays of golden light beam down upon her as she conceives Christ by the word of God. Her lectern and folding chair, of the so-called 'Savonarola' type, reflect contemporary domestic furnishings. The door of the lower cupboard of the lectern is open, revealing the Virgin’s woven work basket containing her ball of wool and her shears.

This scene and its companion The Angel Gabriel are related to a set of four other panels by Gaudenzio Ferrari which are now in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin. The panels came from a multi-panelled altarpiece (known as a polyptych) painted between 1508—9 for the church of Sant’ Anna in Vercelli. It was commissioned by the local confraternity dedicated to Saint Anne for the altar of their oratory. The panels depict scenes from the life of the Virgin’s parents, Saint Anne and Saint Joachim, culminating in the Annunciation to the Virgin and the birth of Christ, who appears as an infant with his mother, grandmother and angels in the central panel.

The altarpiece was arranged as follows; main tier, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Angels (Turin) flanked by the Meeting of Joachim and Anne and the Expulsion of Joachim (both Turin); upper tier, God the Father (Turin) centrally placed above the Virgin and Child, flanked by the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary.

The stone parapet behind the Virgin and the Angel Gabriel continues across both pictures, as does the cloudy sky. The tops of the trees are just visible above the parapet suggesting that the Annunciation is taking place in an upstairs room. The low vanishing point certainly suggests that this panel was intended to be placed very high up.

Style: High Renaissance
This painting is part of Romanino's high altarpiece for S. Alessandro in Brescia. It depicts Saint Gaudioso and is situated to the left of the central panel of the Nativity, above the panel of Saint Alexander.

Saint Gaudioso had a particular relevance to Brescia and the church of S. Alessandro, which explains his inclusion in the altarpiece. He was a fifth-century bishop of Brescia. He died in about 445 but his bones were rediscovered in a stone chest in 1454, when the church of S. Alessandro was under construction. They were conserved as a relic in one of the altars.

Here Gaudioso wears his bishop’s mitre and a large oval morse fastens the jewelled border of his cope. The figures on the morse probably represent the two persons of the Trinity -- God the Father and Christ. Gaudioso holds a bishop's crosier with a curling end resembling a vine, symbolising his role as a shepherd of Christian souls. He does not look at the book he holds in his left hand but gazes thoughtfully into the distance. The face of Saint Gaudioso may be a portrait of a distinguished churchman of Romanino’s own day.

There is little space around Gaudioso -- both of his elbows and the top of his mitre are not shown so that his figure fills almost the entire image. It was important that panels such as this, which would have been displayed high up, had a simple powerful composition that could be seen clearly by worshippers below.

Style: High Renaissance
In this moving painting, Saint Francis is shown meditating in a landscape. His cowl (or hood) is pulled back and light catches the left side of his face, marking out his strong nose and pronounced cheekbone, while leaving the other side in deep shadow. Francis looks intently towards heaven and his hands are marked with the stigmata, the wounds of Christ's crucifixion .The kneeling saint leans against a rock, on which rests a book, and cradles a skull in his right hand.

Saint Francis founded the Franciscan Order in the thirteenth century. The fraying and patched habit he wears -- the texture of which Zurbarán paints so effectively -- is a visual reminder of the saint's vow of poverty. This pledge to live without material possessions is something that led to his nickname il Poverello ('the little pauper'). The landscape behind the saint represents the world he has renounced, but the presence of a simple hut suggests that he is not in complete isolation.

Saint Francis in meditation was a popular subject in seventeenth-century Spain, and the theme was treated often by Zurbarán and his assistants. This work is signed and dated -- we see Zurbarán's name and the year 1639 on the cartellino in the lower right corner. It probably dates from around the same time as his other version of the subject in our collection, which shows the saint kneeling in a confined space, holding a skull to his chest.

In both pictures, the skull symbolises mortality and refers to the suffering of the crucified Christ -- the focus of the saint's meditation. But Saint Francis's spiritual experience is expressed very differently in each painting: here, his upward gaze, slightly open mouth and upturned palm suggest he is actively in conversation with God, while in the other picture Zurbarán emphasises the saint's internal spirituality and contemplation.

Style: Baroque
In a gloomy forest, two riders pause to get directions from a group of peasants resting at the side of the road. The man on the white horse points towards the sunlit valley beyond, mirroring the gesture of one of the seated figures. A shaft of warm evening light cuts through the dense canopy of trees and falls on the figures, their red and blue outfits standing out against the rich, earthy tones of their surroundings. In the middle distance, two shadowed figures are set against the glowing landscape.

In 1640 Rosa was invited to Florence by Prince Gian Carlo de' Medici, brother of Ferdinand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany. This is one of fifteen landscapes painted by Rosa for the prince during the 1640s. With its golden light and band of travellers on the road, this composition shares qualities with the Italianate landscapes of the Dutch artist Jan Both, who worked in Rome from about 1635 to 1641. The peaceful setting sun in the distance is equally reminiscent of Claude, whose paintings Rosa had previously seen in Rome (there are several examples of works by Claude painted around the same period in our collection, including Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah and Landscape with Narcissus and Echo).

In spite of these influences, the scene is imbued with Rosa's unique approach to landscape painting. The wide vistas and balanced compositions of Claude's landscapes are replaced here with towering trees and a sinuous path that leads our eye through the picture. The twisting tree trunks, curious rock formations and variety of plants growing in the foreground are typical of the picturesque details that characterise Rosa's landscapes. During his time in Florence, Rosa spent time in the rocky countryside around Volterra in northern Tuscany, where he produced detailed studies of crags, plains, mountains and waterfalls. He combined these studies with the power of his imagination to produce wild, dramatic scenes in which the natural world is imbued with meaning and power.

From 1649 Rosa settled in Rome, where he remained for the rest of his career. He wished for greater artistic freedom than was available at the Medici court and, inspired by a circle of distinguished individuals, he began to paint increasingly learned subjects taken from ancient history and philosophy, such as Landscape with Mercury and the Dishonest Woodman.

Style: Baroque, Academic
A group of men and women dressed in the fashions of the late 1650s play a game known by the French name La Main Chaude ('the hot hand'). It involved one person hiding their face on the lap of another, placing their hand behind their back and then guessing who has hit that hand.

The artist, a follower of the Flemish painter Hieronymus Janssens, has placed the man bent over at the middle of the painting's composition, so that his upturned hand is a central point around which the action of the scene develops. On the far right, a serving boy watches the game, taking his eyes off the glass balancing precariously on his platter. Four people crowd around the woman who is about to use her shoe to smack the prone man's hand, either looking up at her or waiting expectantly for his reaction. Behind those playing the game, another group looks over in curiosity.

Standing prominently to the left is a lady wearing a feathered hat and holding up her yellow skirts, possibly in order to tip-toe away from the game or perhaps to cause a diversion. A small dog, meanwhile, is distracted by something outside the picture frame.

Style: Baroque
This painting is a copy after Pierre Subleyras's Charon ferrying the Souls of the Dead over the River Styx (Louvre, Paris), which was probably painted around 1735 and certainly before 1746, as part of the composition can be seen in his painting made that year of his studio (Akademie der Bildenden Kunst, Vienna). The date of this copy is unknown, but it must have been made before the early nineteenth century when the canvas was lined. However, it probably dates from several decades earlier.

In Greek mythology and literature, Charon was the boatman of the underworld who ferried the souls of the dead across the River Styx to Hades. The shrouded figures at the feet of the figure here are the spirits of the dead. Subleyras’s depiction of Charon is unusual, as he is shown as a relatively young man, who is also nude, unlike literary descriptions of him. For example, he is described in Virgil’s Aeneid as having an unkempt beard and squalid clothes.

Although Charon’s pose has been compared to Guido Reni’s Samson (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna) and to the standing male figure in Giambologna’s sculpture The Rape of the Sabine Women (Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence), it owes more to the tradition of the académie. This was the academic study of the male nude in various poses often with one foot or knee resting on a ledge and the opposite arm raised, typically holding a pole or rope for support. Subleyras had studied at the French Academy in Rome, where students were encouraged to draw from the male nude and classical sculptures and from draped and half-draped figures. Both Subleyras’s painting and this copy are essentially académies presented as subjects from classical literature. This copy is significantly darker than Subleyras’s painting and the distant fires of Hades less distinct, as the canvas is covered by yellowed varnish.

The National Gallery has two académies in its collection -- An Académie, especially, shares some similarities with this picture.

Style: Rococo, Neoclassical
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 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 they are currently displayed in two frames in groups of six.

A man sits beneath a tree through which a vine has been trained. A large bunch of red grapes hangs from a leafy stem. He uses both hands to squeeze the juice from another bunch of grapes into a wooden vat on the ground at his feet. The grape juice will be turned into wine and possibly stored in the barrel we see being made in an  earlier scene. The repeated pattern of strong reds, blues, white and green in this little picture gives it a charming decorative quality.

Style: High Renaissance
This painting shows two stories from the life of Saint Benedict happening at once. Benedict, reading in his cell, had a vision that one of his disciples was drowning. On the left, we see him tell Saint Maurus to run down to the lake and rescue Saint Placidus, who has fallen in while fetching water. Maurus has walked out on to the lake as if it were land and is pulling Placidus -- still grasping his jug -- out by the hair. On the right, Benedict visits his sister, Saint Scholastica, who is near death. When he refuses her invitation to stay the night, she prays for him to remain and a miraculous rainstorm prevents him leaving; you can see the rain lashing the roof.

Saint Maurus's halo was initially left out, perhaps by mistake, and was added later using a type of lead-white oil mordant (or adhesive) that Lorenzo Monaco used elsewhere in the altarpiece.

Although members of the Benedictine Order wore black, here they are dressed in the white habits of the Camaldolese Order, founded in the eleventh century as a reformed branch of the Benedictines, as this panel was painted for them. It comes from the predella of a large polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece) painted for a church just outside Florence. That church, San Benedetto fuori della Porta Pinti, was eventually destroyed, but it belonged to the Camaldolese Order. Saint Benedict was the church's patron saint, and the small scenes in the predella show episodes from his life (another is also in our collection -- Saint Benedict admitting Saints Maurus and Placidus into the Benedictine Order). A third panel, showing Saint Benedict's death, is on permanent loan to the National Gallery.

The predella originally had three compartments with two scenes in each. When they were in the altarpiece, the predella panels were set into shaped compartments in the base of the frame, which diagonally covered the top and bottom left-hand corners. When the frame was removed it left unpainted triangles which have been filled in with modern paint. The predella panels seem to have been done by different painters, presumably assistants in Monaco's workshop.

The scenes in the predella emphasise not just Benedict but the role of his followers, especially youthful monks, and the power of prayer and obedience. They would have been very suitable for San Benedetto, only recently founded as a dependent house of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence.

We don't know exactly when the altarpiece was taken apart, but the predella panels show no sign of the water damage which affects the main tier panels. If, as seems likely, this damage was caused by the devastating floods of 1557 in Florence, the predella must have been separated from the rest of the altarpiece before then, probably in 1529 when the church at San Benedetto was destroyed.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Monet was in his early twenties and at the start of his artistic career when he painted this picture. He was living in Paris but had travelled to Normandy in the last week of May 1864 with his fellow artist Frederic Bazille in search of fresh motifs. He was particularly drawn to the coast, painting several sea views during the summer and autumn that year. This picture is related to a group of works that show the view across the breakwaters to the headland of La Hève. It was an area Monet knew well as he had spent his childhood in nearby Le Havre, and the beach at Sainte-Adresse was just to the west of his father’s summer home.

The picture was probably made on the spot as a study for a larger studio painting, La Pointe de la Hève at Low Tide (Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth), which Monet showed at the Paris Salon in 1865. For the Salon picture, Monet deleted the rowing boat, replacing it with a cart in the water and figures and horses on the beach, emphasising that this was a working landscape.  Originally a small fishing port, Sainte-Adresse was also developing into a holiday resort where many wealthy people had weekend villas, but this is not evident in the study or the larger picture. Several of Monet’s later views of the Normandy coast, such as The Beach at Trouville, would feature fashionable people relaxing by the seaside.

Here the slightly desolate shingle beach is rather more as Monet remembered it. It has a slightly desolate air. It is empty of people, but there are the three figures in a boat rowing energetically towards us. It feels wintry; the people in the boat are wrapped up against the cold and smoke rises from the chimney of the cottage on the cliff. In the distance sailing boats race along the horizon, their dark sails set against the glimmer of sunlight below the bank of grey cloud. Crisp dabs of paint suggest the pebbles on the beach, while in the foreground broad flat brushstrokes surrounding the boat and conveying its reflection on the water hint at the direction Monet’s art would take in future. The luminous sky and subtle tones reflect the influence of his early mentors, Boudin and Jongkind, who also painted this view.

The acceptance of the Salon picture and its companion piece, Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur (Norton Simon Museum, Passadena), marked the official beginning of Monet’s public career. They were well received, with one critic writing ‘The two marines of M. Monet are unquestionably the best in the exhibition; the tone is frank, the breeze penetrates as on the open sea and the treatment is naïve and young.’

The painting was bought by the famous baritone singer Jean-Baptiste Faure, who owned several paintings by Monet and other Impressionist painters. The subject of the northern French coast obviously appealed to him: he had a villa at the Normandy coastal town of Etretat and commissioned Monet to make a painting of the cliffs there. The picture featured in the first one-man show devoted to Monet held by the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in 1883.

Style: Impressionist