wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
Risen from the dead, Christ appears to his grieving follower, Mary Magdalene, in the Garden of Gethsemane. At first she mistakes him for a gardener but then reaches out her hand in wonder. Christ says, 'Do not touch me' (in Latin, noli me tangere); it is time for his followers to let go of his earthly presence and await the Holy Ghost (John 20: 14--18). The focus of the picture is on the interplay of gesture and gaze between Christ and Mary Magdalene. We do not know for whom the picture was painted.

This is one of the earliest works by Titian in the National Gallery's collection. Its high-key colours and the way the figures are set in a natural landscape echo the style of Giorgione, with whom Titian trained. Titian had already succeeded in uniting figures with the landscape five years earlier in The Holy Family with a Shepherd, but here he has done something more subtle and sophisticated -- the hills, trees and shrubs play a part in the drama. The intersecting lines of the tree and the hillside draw attention to the line of eye contact between the figures. This was an approach that Titian was to develop further in his great altarpiece The Death of Peter Martyr, completed in 1530 (for SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, but now destroyed), where the trees contribute dynamically to the action.

The figure of Christ is in a graceful and entirely believable sinuous, twisting pose which reveals Titian's increasing understanding in this period of the nude and its dynamic potential. This must partly have been due to his study of prints of and drawings after works by Raphael and Michelangelo, who each in their way made the articulation of the nude figure and the study of antique sculpture central to their practice.

The group of buildings on the right appears in reverse in Titian's Sacred and Profane Love (Borghese Gallery, Rome), which is dated fairly securely to about 1514, as well as in his Sleeping Venus (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden) of around the same time. The rendering of Noli me Tangere, however, is particularly evocative in its observation of the tumbling mists and play of light across the fields as dawn breaks. We also see the expressive brushwork and interest in the textural possibilities of paint that became the hallmark of Titian's mature and late styles. The whites of Mary Magdalene's veil, of Christ's flowing burial shroud and his loincloth are subtly differentiated, each rendered with dragged brushstrokes of lead white that catch the texture of the painting's canvas.

Noli me Tangere probably also dates to about 1514. X-ray images reveal that Titian made numerous changes to the landscape during painting but he never seems to have shown the empty tomb or Calvary -- the hill on which Christ was crucified -- included by almost all other artists painting this subject.

Style: High Renaissance
Like many of Adriaen van de Velde's paintings, this is a quiet picture. The conversation between the milkmaid and the man with the basket seems amicable, with nothing to disturb the rhythmic swish of the milk into the pail. One pig sleeps while another hauls itself up on its haunches, looking as if it will roll over and snooze again in the spring sunshine.

The skeleton of the dead oak tree stands out starkly against the sky, but the clouds are soft and fluffy, moving slowly. To soften the harsh outline further, van de Velde has covered the lower branches with shaggy ivy. High up, an old rook's nest is balanced, somewhat precariously, in a crook. Beside the tree, the new shoots of a pair of willows fan out softly from elegantly curved trunks. Beneath it, spikes thrust up from the heap of sticks echo the twigs left on the crooked branches. They're likely to have been cut from it as kindling -- nothing was left to waste on a well-run seventeenth-century Dutch farm.

Van de Velde painted the picture when he was only 22 years old and it shows remarkable maturity for one so young. The three distinct groups of animals and figures, each a satisfying vignette on its own, are bound together by the wide pool of warm sunlight. The brilliant blue of the milkmaid’s skirt enlivens the mellow browns, creams and greys of the foreground and harmonises with the blue of the sky.

At the time the picture was painted, van de Velde was influenced by the animal painter Paulus Potter, whose images of statuesque cattle, particularly bulls, were popular in Holland. Van de Velde silhouettes the horns on his grey bull, drawing attention to its strength and substance, as Potter does in his Cattle and Sheep in a Stormy Landscape, in which he silhouettes the black bull’s horns against a break in the storm clouds.

In his early career, van de Velde worked in the studio of his father, Willem van de Velde the Elder, alongside his elder brother, Willem van de Velde the Younger -- both of them marine artists of great reputation. But Adriaen chose to become a landscape painter rather than follow their path, although he frequently collaborated with his elder brother, painting the figures in some of his works -- as he did in The Shore at Scheveningen. This practice of sharing a work was common practice in Holland at the time.

Style: Baroque
In the wilderness a winged angel has appeared to Elijah (1 Kings 19: 5--11), who was banished from Israel by Jezebel for defending God against the worship of the pagan deity Baal. Having travelled across the desert Elijah is close to death. He sits under a tree and the angel brings him food and water, although these items are not shown.

Here, the angel points towards Mount Horeb with one hand and towards Elijah with the other, encouraging him to venture to the mountain in the distance. Elijah gestures towards God, sitting in the clouds above them, who with an outstretched arm directs a lightning bolt towards the mountain and causes a great storm. The town nestling the hills in the distance is probably Beersheba, where Elijah stopped before his journey to the mountain.

The painting was once simply called The Storm; its subject was unclear to viewers even during Dughet's lifetime. The figure of Elijah has been mistaken at various times for different biblical characters. However, the vast rural setting of this scene with no one else in view, and the fact that the man is bearded and elderly, suggests that he is Elijah, and that the current interpretation is correct.

A bright heavenly light shines onto the angel's face and illuminates its white robe, which moves gracefully in the wind. Dark and imposing clouds give way to a brighter sky in the distance. The Bible mentions the powerful wind created by the storm, and Dughet has shown branches and foliage bending in the tempest, while a large branch has fallen into the path just behind the figures. The storm's destruction is also visible in the centre of the painting as a branch is torn away from the tree trunk.

A glistening waterfall spills over the rocks into the valley below. The foreground trees frame the scene and the variety of details in the background lead our eyes back and forth across the composition.

Style: Baroque, Academic
The Virgin Mary gazes down at the infant Christ Child, who lies on a woven manger: wisps of hay poke through the sides of the basketwork. Beside them  Saint Joseph leans on a stick; on the right the shepherds look on in wonder, their humble gift of a lamb lying on the floor beside the manger. Other figures crowd around the edges and a small dog even perches its front paws on a step in an attempt to get a better view of the baby. This is the  Adoration of the Shepherds as described in the Gospel of Luke (2: 16--17): the Virgin has laid her son in a manger as there was no room at the inn, and the shepherds have come to Bethlehem to see the new-born Messiah. In spite of the ox and the donkey, the setting evokes a classical ruin rather than a stable, perhaps intended to signify the pagan religion which Christianity replaced.

The painting entered the Gallery's collection, damaged and largely repainted, in 1884. It has been ascribed to both Spanish and Italian seventeenth-century artists, with its recorded purchase from a monastery in Naples in the 1860s supporting the latter. At one time it was attributed to Bernardo Cavallino but recent conservation has revealed the painting to be a typical work by the idiosyncratic Neapolitan painter, Giovanni Battista Spinelli. According to his eighteenth-century biographer, Spinelli was a pupil of Massimo Stanzione and gave up painting for alchemy, dying during an experiment in 1647. The story is unreliable, however, for Spinelli is still documented in Naples in the 1650s.

Style: Baroque, Academic
This group portrait shows the officers of the Coopers' and Wine-rackers' guild of Amsterdam, which included men who made barrels for the wine imported into the city and those who sampled and bottled it. The name of the guild is written on the seal which hangs over the edge of the table, while in the background is a painting of Saint Matthias, patron saint of coopers, holding an axe. The adze and broad axe carved in the frame were the tools used by coopers to make barrels.

The sitters are named on the document lying on the table: Philips van der Neer, Jan van den Eeckhout, Tomas Hendrick and Jan Hendrick. We don’t know which is which, but Jan van den Eeckhout was the painter's brother and is probably one of the younger men -- he was 37 or 38 years old when this portrait was made.

Group pictures like this -- representing the leading figures of trade guilds and military companies, and the trustees or governors of schools, orphanages and hospitals -- were very common in seventeenth-century Dutch art. They represented a formal record of those who held office at that moment and would hang on the walls of the guild’s hall or offices. They were usually all male groups, but some women did appear, especially in charitable institutions.

The sitters were the leading figures of their communities, and the challenge for the artist was to make the group seem natural, authoritative and lifelike while also capturing the likenesses of individuals and reflecting any differences in status. However, each man might pay the artist for his own portrait within the group, so by spending more it was possible to make yourself more prominent.

One of the absolute masters of the genre was Rembrandt. The Night Watch and Syndics of the Drapers' Guild (both in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (The Mauritshuis, The Hague) are all examples of group portraits and are among his greatest paintings. He had an uncanny ability to make such gatherings seem natural and the moment depicted spontaneous. Van den Eeckhout was his friend and pupil and has clearly learnt from Rembrandt. The four men might seem a little disconnected from each other, but the figures are carefully arranged and balanced. The two in front of the table mirror each other's poses to form a symmetrical frame to the composition. Each has his own preoccupation. One of the men behind the table turns the pages of a book, while the man leaning on the back of his chair holds a quill; both look up to engage the viewer. The other two men seem to be deep in conversation. The man holding the book is a particularly successful figure -- he seems the most relaxed, with one foot casually resting on the bar under the table. We don’t know the significance of the dog -- it may have belonged to the man on the left.

Van den Eeckhout has also demonstrated his skill as a still-life painter. The seal and its stamp, the paper knife and the ink stand form a neat display in the centre of the picture, and he has depicted the reflections on the different metals with a subtle realism.

Style: Baroque
This painting shows the inside of the famous rotunda at Ranelagh Gardens in Chelsea. Ranelagh opened in 1742 as one of London’s most prestigious pleasure gardens, and its main attraction was this vast circular building in which fashionable society could attend balls and listen to music (the young Mozart even performed there in 1764). Despite the popularity of these grand pavilions and formal gardens during the eighteenth century, they fell out of fashion as the century progressed; the rotunda closed in 1803 and was demolished in 1805.

Made almost entirely of wood, the rotunda had an internal diameter of 150 feet and contained 100 private supper-boxes. Concerts were performed on a grand stage -- and here, to the right, an orchestra plays, filling the cavernous space with music. They catch the attention of a small crowd while other visitors sit around tables, enjoying refreshment under the colonnade (admission fee included a cup of tea or coffee). Small groups stroll around the central column, which is exquisitely painted and gilded with Rococo  motifs, and encases a huge fireplace that would entice visitors during wet and chilly weather.

We look down on the elegant clientele, which, along with the light that floods the space, emphasises the building's loftiness. While sunlight peeks through a doorway on the left, it's not strong enough to fill the room, and is too low to light the walls and central column in the way we see. Instead, Canaletto’s theatrical lighting comes from the upper left corner, highlighting the smooth curvature of the roof, archways and windows, and sparkling on the delicate chandeliers. We are not just watching the concert -- we watch the men, women and children scattered across the scene, as if on an enormous stage. They too provide a sense of the building's scale.

An inscription in Italian on the back states that the picture was painted in 1754 during Canaletto's stay in England, during which he dominated the London market for view paintings -- no other artist, native or foreign, could compare to him. This is one of six views commissioned by Thomas Hollis, a close friend of Joseph Smith, Canaletto's loyal patron, and one of many British travellers who had likely become captivated by the artist's work during their trips to Venice.

This view relates closely to a print by Nathaniel Parr, An Inside View of the Rotunda in Ranelagh Gardens, published in 1751 -- around the same time as Canaletto's earlier version of this subject taken from the opposite side of the interior (Compton Verney, Warwickshire). One other painting in our collection dates from Canaletto’s time in England: Eton College.

Style: Rococo, Neoclassical
'Ecce Homo', the Latin title of this painting, is taken from the Bible, and means 'Behold the man!’ These were the words of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, when he was sitting as the judge during the trial of Christ, as described in the Bible (John 19: 5). It's a critical point in the story of the events leading to Christ’s crucifixion -- the moment when he is left alone and isolated, spurned and condemned by his own people.

Pilate, here shown wearing a turban and rising to his feet, is presenting Christ to the crowd. He rejects the long rod of justice the Jewish elders are offering him, his indication that there is no fault for which he can find Christ guilty. But as a seventeenth-century audience would have known, the priests -- depicted by Rembrandt as ugly caricatures clamouring at Pilate's feet -- continued to accuse Jesus of claiming to be 'King of the Jews' and the crowd demanded his crucifixion. 'We have no king but Caesar!' was their chant, a sentiment Rembrandt has echoed visually with a monumental bust of Tiberius Caesar that towers over the right-hand side of the scene. The hand of the clock behind him points to six, the time specified in the Bible (John 19: 14), which goes on to tell of Pilate’s weakness and his agreement to Christ’s crucifixion.

The picture evokes the fevered atmosphere of this show trial and is dominated by images of earthly power and authority: soldiers, priests, judges, the emperor and the mob. But Christ has an air of detachment, despite the bindings, the crown of thorns that has been mockingly placed on his head and the sharp blades of the soldiers’ spears that stand threateningly behind his head. He is slightly higher than his captors, and is the only figure looking upwards towards the 'true' judge, God.

This small black and white painting (known as a grisaille) was not made for sale. It is a full-scale preparatory study for one of Rembrandt’s etchings -- the only known example of such a work. The painting, which is on paper, was laid onto the etching plate, onto which the design was traced with a stylus. A print -- a mirror image of the study -- would be made from that. Indentations made during this tracing process are visible in the outlines of the key figures and features, and are especially clear around the clock tower. Despite the lack of colour (which wasn’t necessary for an etching) Rembrandt has focused considerable attention on Pilate and the priests in the foreground. He has used thick layers of paint and white highlights to capture the raking light on their exotic costumes and anxious expressions. Much of the rest of the painting, especially on the right side, has been only lightly sketched in. More detail was added to the final etching.

Rembrandt was a prolific print maker and his studio produced hundreds of images for sale. This was one of his most popular and by the eighteenth century it had become known as ‘The Thirty Guilder Print’, reflecting the high price paid for impressions of it.

Style: Baroque
Mrs Siddons (1755--1831) was the greatest tragic actress of her time, remaining at the top of her profession for 30 years. The writer and critic William Hazlitt wrote that 'She was Tragedy, personified...To have seen Mrs Siddons was an event in everybody's life'. Gainsborough painted her in the winter of 1784--5, during her third London season.

As Sarah Kemble, she was born into a theatrical family. Four of her brothers became actors, the most famous of whom was John Philip Kemble. Aged 18, she married the actor William Siddons in 1773 and was thereafter known professionally as Mrs Siddons. Although she had acted in provincial theatres since childhood, Mrs Siddons's first London appearance, at Drury Lane in 1775, was not a success. However, when she returned again in the winter season of 1782--3, she created a sensation, causing the theatre management to put up her salary from £5 to £20 for the next season and resulting in a 'long and unbroken line of carriages' rolling towards Drury Lane.

Most of Mrs Siddons's earlier portraits depict her in character; one of the most celebrated is Reynolds's portrait Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse signed and dated 1784 (now in the Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino) and exhibited that year at the Royal Academy.

Mrs Siddons was forever 'on the wing' between the theatre and her young family, for whom she was the only effective breadwinner, and she had less and less time to sit for all the painters wishing to portray her. Gainsborough probably began his portrait of her early in 1785, shortly before her thirtieth birthday. Like Reynolds's Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse, Gainsborough's portrait was painted in the hope of finding a buyer or engraver, rather than commissioned. He made a particularly careful chalk drawing of Mrs Siddons (Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio), suggesting that he couldn't count on more than one sitting for the portrait. In April 1785 Gainsborough exhibited the finished portrait in his London studio.

Mrs Siddons is shown off-stage and in fashionable contemporary dress. She wears a black beaver hat trimmed with ribbon and ostrich feathers, like those worn by other ladies Gainsborough portrayed around 1785, such as Mrs William Hallett. Mrs Siddons's blue striped gown, tied at the waist with a blue sash, is known as a 'wrapping-gown' and would have been comparatively easy for a busy actress to slip on and off. Her yellow mantle is edged with fox fur and she holds a fox fur muff. The sombre red curtain dramatically framing Mrs Siddons's head, similar to those in portraits by Rubens and Van Dyck, is not often found in portraits by Gainsborough. He apparently found some difficulty in capturing Mrs Siddons's distinctive features, and is said to have exclaimed: 'Confound the nose, there's no end to it!'

Mrs Siddons was known for her grand manner -- she was said to look, walk and move like a woman of superior rank. At the time Gainsborough painted her, she was playing her greatest role – Lady Macbeth. Something of the power and passion of that part can be felt in the portrait, considered by some as the artist's masterpiece.

Style: Neoclassical, Romantic, Georgian
Moses stands on the left, his hand raised as he beckons people to gaze upon the bronze serpent coiled around the pole held by Eleazar, a priest. The scene is taken from the Old Testament: God had sent a plague of ‘fiery serpents’ to punish the Israelites for their sinfulness and lack of faith (Numbers 21: 6), but anyone who followed Moses' instruction would be protected. Curled brushstrokes show where snakes fall from the clouds.

Some of the group ignore Moses’ warning and are left to wrestle with the snakes that coil around their bodies and bite them. The woman on the far left raises her hands in distress; her skin is pale and clammy, as if she is on the point of death. By contrast, the woman in the centre wearing a black dress stares directly at the bronze serpent and is protected from harm. Her warm, glowing complexion and golden-blonde hair distinguish her from the mass of figures around her. The dramatic, tempestuous sky and writhing bodies increase the intensity of the scene and make the fixed gaze of this woman even more unusual. It's thought that she is based on Rubens’s young second wife, Hélène Fourment, who he included in many of his later pictures. The young boy sitting on her lap may be their eldest son, Frans, who was born in 1633.

While Rubens has depicted distinct individuals in this picture, some of the figures, including the old man and woman, were models he used in some of his other pictures. He probably painted this in the late 1630s, towards the end of his life, and while he did the majority of the picture, it's likely that the composition was blocked out by some of his studio assistants with the help of a modello he had produced. Some pentimenti are visible to the naked eye: the thumb of the woman in the black dress was once longer, while the child to the left originally looked out of the picture and rested its chin on its hand. Just beneath the baby held aloft by a woman who originally wore a white dress, the face of an old man has been painted out.

Style: Baroque