wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
The ruins of this castle seem to have been absorbed by the landscape. Aelbert Cuyp has employed the same palette of colours and the same camouflage patterns to depict the crumbling walls as he used for the autumnal woods and the hillside behind. The reflections in the still waters of the lake add to the impression that the stone towers and tumbledown ramparts are merging into their surroundings.

One dissenting note suggests that there is still force and significance in the castle. The right-hand tower is intact, and the spire on its conical roof breaks through the line of the horizon and the wispy grey cloud above. It is a moment of strength and confidence, a reminder of the castle’s former glory.

This may have had some resonance to a contemporary audience who were likely to have recognised the castle. It is the castle of Ubbergen, near Nijmegen in the Dutch Province of Gelderland. The fourteenth-century building was ruined in 1582 during the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands and as such was seen as a symbol of national independence. This painting isn’t dated but was probably made in 1655, less than a decade after the Treaty of Münster (1648), when the Dutch finally won independence from Spain (an event depicted by Gerard ter Borch in The Swearing of the Oath of Ratification of the Treaty of Münster). The castle no longer exists -- it was finally pulled down in 1712 and replaced with a house.

The red coat of the shepherd and the mounted gentleman beside him catch our eye, and we might think that Cuyp is inviting us to imagine the conversation between the two. Maybe they are discussing the castle’s role in their national history, while the sheep and -- in the distance -- the cattle which graze peacefully on the shore of the lake seem to suggest more peaceful, plentiful times.

The cloud formations against the bright blue-gold of the sky seem to form a plume, emerging like smoke from a volcano -- though this is probably accidental. The nearest live volcano to Dordrecht, where Cuyp lived and worked, is Mount Vesuvius, hundreds of miles to the south, and he never went there. However, he was heavily influenced by Dutch artists who did travel to Italy, usually to train and work in Rome. They returned to Holland with a penchant for using lighter, warmer colours and for painting sunny Mediterranean skies; Cuyp responded to this new Italianate style by developing the characteristic light of his own. Typically, it is reminiscent of the golden light of a late summer afternoon, though perhaps here there is a more autumnal feel than usual.

Style: Baroque
Christ's body has just been brought down from the Cross and is being prepared for burial. The three large nails removed from his hands and feet lie below the ladder, and the crown of thorns is below the jug on the left. Saint John the Evangelist supports the body on its shroud, and the Virgin Mary embraces her son tenderly. On the right, Mary Magdalene anoints Christ's feet with ointment from a small pot -- her attribute. She is also identified by the inscription on her headdress ('M.A.M.A', standing for Maria Magdalena), and her action, recalling how she previously anointed his feet at Bethany.

Another woman washes Christ's wounds with water from a brass basin, a second supports the Virgin and a third looks on sadly. The men entering through a gate on the right are the two secret Jewish converts to Christianity: Nicodemus, who brought spices to embalm Christ's body, and Joseph of Arimathea, who gained permission to bury him after the Crucifixion. According to the Gospel of John, Christ was crucified in a garden in which there was an unused tomb -- presumably the area fenced in by wooden palings here, with the open door of a rock tomb beyond.

The Lamentation is not included in the biblical account of the Crucifixion, but was found in the apocryphal gospels and described in detail in medieval devotional literature. It became very popular in northern European art in the later Middle Ages. This painting most likely formed one of a series of the life of Christ painted by David as part of polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece); the Adoration of the Kings very probably comes from the same altarpiece.

David often reused his own ideas and motifs and his followers, perhaps working from copies of his patterns, continued to repeat his compositions and to vary them by recombining different elements. The figures of Christ and the Virgin come ultimately from a design by Rogier van der Weyden, while Mary Magdalene's head and her headdress recall David's The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor. The composition is related to that of a damaged Lamentation (Santa Barbara, California), which is sometimes given to David himself, and is certainly from his immediate circle.

When this painting was planned, the same design that served for the Santa Barbara Lamentation may have been used, together with pattern drawings of heads, draperies and hands. The composition is so well worked out that it would seem to have been conceived by David himself. However, there are many differences between the underdrawing and the final painted version. This suggests that some parts of the scene (in particular the woman at the far left) might have been sketched in by assistants following an initial design by David, who would then have corrected and altered them during the course of painting.

Style: High Renaissance
This is no shy, hide-in-a-corner painting. It's meant to dazzle, and it does. Van Huysum places us firmly below it: a worm's eye view. We look up at it in a niche suitable for a classical sculpture. It towers above us -- and this is before being placed over the mantelpiece in the grand room for which it was most likely intended.

It would take a long time to identify each species of flower and this is deliberate, part of the purpose of the picture. Van Huysum is after, and achieves, excess: a profusion of natural things, a celebration of nature, an entertaining puzzle and a display of wealth, culture and fashion. There are more than 30 species in the vase -- from florid roses, peonies, mauve and red poppies to the more humble primroses, apple blossom and bachelor's buttons. He adds butterflies, a yellow ant, a fly, and hothouse fruit to the exotic mix, bringing the garden into the house as was the fashion in interior decoration. But one or two of the luscious grapes are past their best, perhaps suggesting the brevity of life but more likely indicating that a painted picture lives on long after fruit and insects, plants and flowers have vanished.

A chaffinch's nest teeters on the edge of the plinth, a little too neat and tidy to be the real thing and probably a studio prop. The burning orange terracotta of the vase speaks of the Italian sun. The two chubby babies playing on the vase are part of this natural profusion. One has stolen flowers from a vase and looks round to see who has noticed. The other watches reproachfully, a tiny bird perched on his finger. Crystal drops of cool water, feathery leaves, delicate petals breathing their scent, the quivering wings of the red admiral butterfly invading the babies' space -- all evoke the senses of touch, of smell, even of taste.

In the Dutch Republic, horticulture was a subject of national pride. This may seem like a haphazard arrangement of random blooms but each one has been carefully selected because it was rare and often very expensive. The flowers van Huysman shows weren't all in bloom at the same time. It's possible he painted the picture in two stages since two dates -- 1736 and 1737 -- are shown at the base of the vase with his signature, but some of it was probably painted from sketches and drawings he made in his own garden and in plant nurseries in Haarlem and in Amsterdam where he lived. This is a rich man's bouquet made to look winsome and natural, but in reality is a carefully orchestrated design with an artful nod to French taste. It displays not only a passion for flowers, but an immense knowledge and understanding of them.

Style: Baroque
This elegant lady is Saint Lucy. She once stood on the Virgin's left in a small altarpiece which Crivelli painted for a side chapel in the church of San Domenico, in Ascoli Piceno in the Italian Marche. At once sinuous and solid, she is the counterpart of Saint Michael who would have stood at the other end of the polyptych. Lucy's aristocratic pallor, golden locks and fine outfit all echo his, down to the green, pink and gold of her cloak which falls in weighty folds around her feet. Even the decoration of the parapet below her, where boughs of pears grow out the ears of a curly-headed putto, recalls the ears and head of Satan in the Michael panel.

In a detail typical of Crivelli, her elongated, bony toes in their pointed red sandals poke out over the edge of the marble parapet on which she stands, linking her heavenly space with ours. Her upturned gaze would originally have rested on the Lamentation over the Dead Christ in the centre of the altarpiece.

Lucy holds her cactus-like martyr's palm in one hand and a circular wooden plate it other. On this rests a pair of hooded, oval eyes, looking disconcertingly like chocolates; they cast oval shadows on the golden wood. According to her legend, Lucy was a Christian convert in third-century Rome, whose mother tried to force her into marriage with a pagan. She refused, having decided to dedicate her life to Christ, and so her frustrated bridegroom denounced her to the  authorities. The Roman governor sentenced Lucy to forced prostitution as punishment, but when the guards came to carry out her sentence, the Holy Ghost made her body so heavy it was impossible to lift. She was then put to death after having her eyes removed. She is now the patron saint of opticians.

Although she lived in the third century, Lucy is dressed as a fashionable fifteenth-century lady. She wears a gold jacket embroidered with flowers and foliage, with a broad gold collar and elaborate clasps of raised and gilded pastiglia. The fastenings down the front have been left open to reveal her linen shift. She wears a necklace of pearls, symbols of chastity, from which hangs a ruby pendant. Her hair is pulled back from her high forehead -- as was the fashion at the time -- and wound in elaborate curls around a circlet of pearls. On her head is a veil so transparent as to be almost invisible. Her smart red sandals are an antiquarian detail: Crivelli has included them as a nod to the kind of sandals worn in ancient Rome.

Style: Early Renaissance
A serene young mother balances a toddler on her lap, tenderly supporting him with one hand and holding an open book in the other. This is no ordinary mother -- she sits on an elaborate throne and is serenaded by angelic musicians, and both mother and child have gilded haloes. This is the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child.

The red cross on Christ's halo looks forward to his future crucifixion. Although she is not wearing a crown, Mary's rich dress, the angels and the elaborate carving of the throne indicate that this is the Virgin as Queen of Heaven, one of her most popular guises. Look closely and you can see the fine gold embroidery around the edges of her cloak, and at Christ's neck and wrists, and the almost translucent scarf around her head and shoulders.

Innumerable variations on the theme of the Virgin and Child were painted during the Renaissance, when Mary was the main focus of religious devotion, especially in Italy (see, for example, The Virgin and Child by Cima da Conegliano, or a version by Giorgio Schiavone, or another by Andrea di Aloigi).  This picture may have been part of a polyptych, which was subsequently cut into pieces, or simply made as a small panel for private devotion: the gentle, maternal Virgin was seen as more approachable and forgiving than God the Father, with whom she could intercede on behalf of sinful humankind.

The artist, Bernardino Bergognone, was the younger brother of one of the leading Milanese painters of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Ambrogio Bergognone. You can make out his name in the letters around the hem of the Virgin's mantle, where her shoe peeps out from beneath it. The styles of the two brothers were similar -- compare this with the Virgin in Ambrogio's The Virgin and Child with Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Catherine of Siena -- although Bernardino was, if anything, even more traditional, and more influenced by Vincenzo Foppa.

Style: Early Renaissance
Jacob van Ruisdael's washerwomen are strong and sturdy. One stands in the river up to her ankles and raises a stick to beat the linen she's washing, while her companion stoops to rinse a cloth. Behind them a heap of dirty washing awaits the attention of their brawny arms. Their dog lifts his head, alert, as two men dump heavy baskets down on the shingle, watched by a small boy. Behind them tower two watermills which are reflected in the river.

The picture is badly worn and much detail has been lost, but van Ruisdael's masterly technique and ability to portray atmosphere can still be seen in the mills, grey clouds and clifftop trees, all seeming to dwarf the little scene of grinding labour taking place in their shadow.

There are similar works by van Ruisdael in our collection, including A Waterfall at the Foot of a Hill, near a Village and Two Watermills and an Open Sluice at Singraven.

Style: Baroque
This is a picture of an idealised city square: the loggia (open-sided gallery or room), marble columns, balustrades, arches and statuary all derive from classical Greek and Roman art and architecture. While it's not a real scene, it has been carefully painted to make sure that the perspective, proportions and the effects of light and shade make it look as realistic as possible. Look at the view straight across the piazza and down the arcade -- it continues along an avenue of trees to open an extraordinarily long vista, an illusion which is maintained into the far distance. Then look at the foreground -- at the reflections in the moat on the right, the splashing jets of the fountain and the shine on the marble columns. The artist has gone to great trouble to make the details convincing.

Dirck van Delen specialised in painting buildings and imaginary architectural views, and the attention to both detail and perspective we see here is typical of his work. This was a popular genre and the architectural styles of the classical world and buildings of the Italian Renaissance were very fashionable. Van Delen probably never visited Italy himself, but several of his fellow artists did. When the famous Flemish painter Rubens returned to Antwerp after a long stay in Rome, he had a house built that was inspired by classical styles. It had a monumental garden entrance similar in concept to the wall and archway we see obliquely on the right of this picture. Rubens’s wall had three arches rather than one, but it allowed a view down the garden to a statue of Hercules, who also appears in this painting -- he is the gilded figure on the fountain, battling the Hydra.

Van Delen often visited Antwerp and no doubt saw Rubens’s house, but as far as we know he almost never copied real buildings in his fantasy paintings. And in any case, in seventeenth-century Holland most  houses, palaces and public buildings were designed in a much more restrained way. A painting of Huis ten Bosch, the summer palace built for the wife of the head of state in 1645--52, shows its avenues of classical-style statues and a grand fountain, but the brick-built facade is not decorated with anything like the same extravagance as the multi-coloured stonework and elaborate marble on display in van Delen’s painting. Much of his inspiration most likely came from other painters working in the same genre, handbooks on the techniques of perspective and on classical architectural forms.

The figures were added by another artist, probably either Anthonie Palamedesz. or Jan Olis. Dressed in expensive, fashionable clothes, they parade elegantly around this grand stage, stepping out from behind columns, doors and archways, and gazing down from the windows. Such are their poses and poise that it is sometimes hard to distinguish some of them from the statues. They are an idealised society, populating an idealised city. Just one, in the centre foreground, catches our eye: perhaps he, at least, is real, a portrait of a friend or the man who commissioned the painting.

Style: Baroque
These  musical angels were originally at the top of the left shutter of the St Bertin altarpiece, an elaborate altarpiece that sat on the high altar of the Abbey of St Bertin in Saint-Omer, northern France. Beneath these angels, Guillaume Fillastre, abbot of St Bertin, once knelt at prayer inside a Gothic building -- you can see its top at the bottom of this panel. The top of the right shutter is The Soul of Saint Bertin carried up to God; the main parts of the shutters are now in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, and show scenes from the life of Saint Bertin.

On the back of this panel is the top part of a Gothic stone canopy painted in grisaille, identical to that on the other wing. The designs for both were transferred onto the panel by pouncing from the same pricked cartoon. When the wings were closed, the stone canopies on the backs of the two panels covered the top part of the central Crucifixion and appeared to project above the niche enclosing the grisaille Annunciation.

Three angels play instruments that look like shawms, a Renaissance forerunner of the oboe, made of brass -- or possibly even gold -- rather than wood. The symbols on the scroll held by the two lower angels are not real musical notation and were never readable. Technical analysis show that the artist was working out the design, or at least adapting it, as he went: the angels' instruments, heads, wings and draperies were all changed between the underdrawing stage and the final painted version.

The unpainted edges at the tops and sides are original but at the lower edges the paint and ground has been scraped away. This took place in 1822/3 when our fragments were cut off their panels by a French dealer who thought their unusual shape would have been 'disagreeable' in a picture gallery.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
The Virgin Mary sits on a marble throne with a luxurious material stretched across it -- a cloth of honour, something often hung behind medieval royalty. She reaches out to touch a book with her right hand, while balancing the Christ Child on her left knee.

Two saints stand with them, and particular symbols tell us who they are. On the Virgin's right is Saint Peter, a key peeping out from beneath his green robe: according to the Bible, Christ said to Peter, 'I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven' (Matthew 16: 19). He holds an open illuminated manuscript up to the Virgin, which she touches gently. We can make out the blue initials and red headings, but the text is no longer legible.

On the Virgin's left is Saint Paul, the sword by which he was martyred leaning against the arch behind him. He holds out a delicate flower to Christ: a carnation. Carnations or pinks were known in northern Europe as  'nail flowers' because their scent resembles cloves, which are shaped like the nails driven into Christ's body when he was crucified. So this little flower may allude to the Passion.

Not everything is so easily explained. It is difficult to make sense of the architecture, but the Gothic arches, the stained glass in the windows and the marble floor all suggest that the building is meant to be a church or chapel. And the two saints are smaller than the Virgin, which is unusual for Bouts: he didn’t usually draw figures on different scales.

These details suggest that this was not made by Bouts himself, but by a less skilled artist in his workshop. They seem to have had access to other paintings and designs by Bouts and his workshop, where elements of this scene pop up. Look at the feet of the infant Christ here, for example – they are very like his feet in Bouts’s Virgin and Child. So this was perhaps painted for a client who had looked through patterns in Bouts's workshop and specified exactly what he wanted. Netherlandish painting was in high demand across Europe and the commissioner may have been Italian: the panel was in Bologna in the eighteenth century and a closely related painting is still in a collection in Sicily.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
The Gospel of Luke (24: 13--53) tells how, shortly after the Crucifixion, two of the disciples were walking to Emmaus when the resurrected Christ himself drew near and walked with them. They did not recognise him. He asked why they were so sorrowful. When they told him it was because Christ had died, he explained that Christ had to suffer to redeem the world.

Melone's painting is unusual in showing Christ dressed as a pilgrim. It was more common in paintings at this time for the disciples to be shown as pilgrims, with Christ wearing his usual robes so he could be recognised easily. The three figures are shown again in the middle distance with Christ in the centre and the others taking his arms, walking towards a fortified hilltop village, typical of Lombardy where this picture was painted. The older disciple is probably intended to be Cleopas or Clopas, while the younger one could be Saint Luke or Saint John.

Christ's hands are marked with the wounds where he was nailed to the Cross but his pilgrim disguise explains why the disciples do not immediately recognise him. The scallop shell on Christ's hat is a token usually worn by those who have made a pilgrimage to Santiagio de Compostella in Spain, and the gold pin is in the shape of a pilgrim's staff. A similar shell and pin can be seen on the hat of the pilgrim Saint Roch in The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Gall, John the Baptist, Roch (?) and Bartholomew by Marziale. The disciples only recognise Christ later in the story when they sit down to eat with him at Emmaus, when Christ breaks bread in an echo of the Last Supper.

The painting is first recorded on 24 June 1627, when it was in the Carmelite church of S. Bartolomeo, Cremona. It was originally squarer in shape and was probably an altarpiece. The square shape was common to other early sixteenth-century altarpieces in Cremona, such as Christ carrying the Cross and the Virgin Mary swooning by Boccaccio Boccaccino. The road to Emmaus is an unusual subject for an altarpiece and it is possible that the painting was donated to the church rather than made for it.

Melone liked painting directly on wet paint, a technique known as wet-in-wet. The feathery brushwork with which the hair and cheeks of the younger disciple are depicted, and the successive dabs rendering vibrant light on the spongy foliage of the trees, are effects achieved only by painting in this way.

Melone's picture has a clarity and monumentality that seem to reflect his experience of working on large-scale narrative frescoes in Cremona Cathedral, which were made to be viewed at a distance. The broad-edged, sharply folded drapery seen in the cloaks here was probably inspired by Boccaccino's late works and is similar to that in Melone's own frescoes of 1518 in the Cathedral. Christ's short cape, hat and shoes look like those worn by Joseph in Melone's cathedral fresco The Flight into Egypt of 1517.

Style: High Renaissance