wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
A lone driver steers his horses and wagon down a steep bank into what seems like a deep ford, his whip raised to encourage the animals. Rubens has tucked the wagoner into the right foreground, but has made sure we notice him by dressing him in a bright red jacket. We must assume that the driver will soon re-emerge from the river onto the pale, sandy road in the middle distance. That expectation helps draw our eye deeper into the landscape, following the track as it disappears through the long shadows of the trees in the centre of the painting.

It’s an idyllic scene evoking afternoon light filtering through woodland, and the subject is typical of Rubens’s burst of interest in landscape paintings in the last five years of his life. He and his studio in Antwerp produced prodigious numbers of paintings, from portraits of the rich and famous to pictures of historical events and of biblical scenes. They were expensive commissions and Rubens became enormously wealthy on the back of them. By contrast he made only about 30 landscapes, mostly for pleasure rather than profit, especially after 1635 when he spent more of his time on his new estate in the countryside of Brabant.

From then until his death in 1640, he wasn’t always in the best of health, suffering from arthritis and the severe gout that eventually killed him. But he seems to have enjoyed his time as a country gentleman, living with his second wife and young family, and the countryside surrounding the estate became a new inspiration. He would often sketch and draw from nature in preparation for larger paintings, and in those five years he made about 20 landscapes, some of monumental size. One of his most famous is in the National Gallery's collection: An Autumn Landscape with a View of Het Steen in the Early Morning. It is named after his estate, and depicts the house and the sweeping views across the countryside just after dawn.

A Wagon fording a Stream was probably painted about 1635. It was made on paper and later stuck to canvas, and is unfinished -- you can tell this from the black chalk drafting lines, the way the foliage of most of the trees has been only roughly sketched and the orangey-brown coloured background that has yet to be covered. The attribution to Rubens has in the past been doubted, but it is now considered to be by him. It seems to be a full-size preparatory sketch for a painting which is now in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam: Evening Landscape with Timber Wagon. The finished painting is of a similar height, but is about 16 cm narrower and omits the trees on the left-hand side of this sketch. There are some differences to the trees and the river, and there is another figure standing on a bridge, but the position of wagon and its driver are very similar in the two paintings. It may also be related to a drawing in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.

Rubens's landscapes were also highly influential on British painting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially on artists such as Thomas Gainsborough and John Constable, whose most famous painting, The Hay Wain, also shows a cart fording a river.

Style: Baroque
This small panel is dominated by a craggy rock formation.  Deep below the forested plain is a cave. The figure standing at its dark and foreboding mouth is Saint Benedict, who lived as a hermit. Hands clasped in prayer, he looks up to a basket being lowered towards him -- it's attached to a rope that is affixed to a scaffold fitted with a bell. This was the ingenious invention of Saint Romanus, who devised a way to deliver food to Saint Benedict despite the inaccessibility of his dwelling: when the basket was lowered, the bell would ring to alert Benedict to collect it.

According to the Golden Legend the devil -- shown flying in from the left -- threw a stone which broke the bell; Saint Romanus simply found new ways to deliver the food. The devil's gesture is almost identical to that of the angel emerging from a gleaming golden light to the right of the picture. The angel and the building at the panel's right edge belongs to the next legend in the life of Saint Benedict, as told in the Golden Legend. In that story a priest receives a divine order to share his Easter meal with the saint, who, because of his isolation, was not even aware that it was Easter Sunday. The building is most likely the priest's house. Before the panel was cut down, that scene would have followed on continuously from this one.

The gold borders, coat of arms and inscription ('ME DUCE', meaning 'Lead me' in Latin) are not original, and were probably added in order to give the impression that this was an individual panel. The coat of arms belongs to the Da Verazzano family from Florence, who must have owned the picture at one stage.

It was once thought that this panel formed part of a predella on account of its small size and the narrative scene. However, the panel's wood grain is vertical and predellas were almost always painted on long, horizontal planks. It might have formed part of a piece of painted furniture, such as a cupboard door -- like The Vision of the Dominican Habit by Fra Angelico.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Aelbert Cuyp is best known for landscapes which evoke a strong sense of peace, plenty and prosperity. He often painted this view across the water to his home town of Dordrecht, which is defined by the large bulk of the Grote Kerk (Great Church). But normally in Cuyp’s paintings the scene is a calm one -- the water is mirror-still and sails hang limp from the mast.

This picture, which is probably an early work, is very different. It is defined by the lightning which flashes across the sky above the town. Instead of a sense of timelessness, it captures an instant -- the moment when the gleaming rooftops and the church tower in the background have been illuminated by the sudden blaze of light, while rain pours from a leaden sky. In the foreground, the clouds seem to be clearing and a burst of sunlight catches the spray thrown back over the bow of the boat nearest us. The churning waves are capped with foam and the sail is blown taught against the rigging. Oarsmen in a small boat heave against the choppy sea.

While freezing this moment of turmoil and violence, Cuyp nevertheless evokes a strong sense of the force of the storm. The horizon is set very low in the picture and emphasises the great dynamic sweep of sky with a series of strong diagonals: the lines of cloud, the clusters of birds, the shape of the lightning bolt and the angle of the ship's mast and spas. The diagonals are countered by Cuyp's energetic brush strokes -- broad and swirling for the deep grey clouds, short and choppy for the sea. In the midst of this drama, there is a quiet stoicism. While nature rages around them, the sailors keep a low profile. Rather than wrestling with ropes they seem calm and controlled. If there is heroism here, it is the quiet heroism of endurance in the face of adversity. They are riding out the storm rather than battling against it.

The three boats which are struggling against the squall are know as damloopers ('dam runners') because they could be hauled over dams and dykes. They were slow, sturdy trading vessels with a shallow draft, built for Holland's inland waters. Instead of a deep keel, they had leeboards on each side which were lowered individually to stabilise the boat. This is a very useful design in shallow waters, but makes for slower progress when tacking against the wind -- as the boats are doing here.

Cuyp painted at least one other scene of a lightning flash at around the same time as this picture (Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection, Zurich). But it is very different, depicting a view of Dordrecht across a landscape grazed by cattle.

Style: Baroque
This painted Crucifix is one of the earliest works in our collection, but we don't know the artist’s identity. It has been connected to a group of works that includes a picture of Saint Francis made for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, near Assisi -- so the person who made them is known as the Master of Saint Francis. He may have been a Franciscan friar because he painted so many works for that religious order.

The Crucifix has a precious, jewel-like appearance. Ultramarine, the most expensive blue pigment, has been used for the background; the rectangular terminals that punctuate its points are decorated with a gilded trellis pattern and the whole object is edged with gold borders. Its magnificence belies the horror and sorrow of the subject matter. Christ is painted as though hanging upon the Cross. His eyes are closed and his body, limp in death, sways dramatically to one side. Red blood drips from his palms, vivid against the blue background.

The panel behind Christ's loincloth is known as the apron and here, on either side, are figures mourning his death. To the left, the Virgin Mary is supported by Mary Magdalene, who holds her firmly by the wrists to prevent her collapsing in grief. To the right is John the Evangelist, whom Christ named his ‘beloved’ disciple, with his hand on his cheek  -- a melancholic gesture. Behind him is a Roman soldier. He may represent the officer in the Gospel of Luke who, at the moment of Christ’s death, recognised him as the son of God. These mourning figures emphasise sorrow and grief. Such images were made to encourage meditation upon and empathy for Christ’s sufferings, a mode of prayer particularly promoted by the Franciscans.

Small painted Crucifixes like this were popular in Umbria, a region of Assisi. The workshop of the Master of Saint Francis produced several, some of which are painted with similar images on both sides, like the one in the Galleria Nazionale dell' Umbria in Perugia. This meant that they were visible from all directions in religious processions. The wood of this Crucifix is very thin, suggesting it was split in half some time before it was purchased for the National Gallery, possibly on account of damage caused by frequent use. A restorer has repainted and regilded the side terminals, probably following the spirit of the original design.

The gold circles in the terminals and above Christ’s head were very likely topped with glass discs. The central one almost certainly contained a relic, perhaps a piece of the Cross itself, because it contains a square cavity which has been filled in. The painting was not just a representation of Christ’s death but also a precious reliquary, an object made for the preservation and display of sacred objects.

The inscriptions in the upper terminal and on either side of Christ’s head remind the worshipper of Christ’s conquest of death through the Resurrection. The Latin words at the top -- which are not original, but probably a (mispelled) copy of the original text -- translate as: ‘Behold this is Jesus Christ, king of the Jews, saviour of the world and our salvation, who hung for us on the tree of life.’

Style: Gothic
The courage and beauty of the Jewish heroine Judith are celebrated in this painting, which expresses both the sensuality and the gore of her legend. When her hometown of Bethulia was besieged by Assyrian forces, Judith infiltrated the enemy camp. Disarmed by her looks, the soldiers believed her when she offered them assistance. She gained entry to the tent of the Assyrian general Holofernes, and when he was drunk after a banquet she seized his sword and cut off his head.

Liss shows the moment immediately afterwards, with Judith placing Holofernes' head into a sack held open by her maid; the white of his upturned right eyeball is just visible. Her gaze is steely and resolute as she turns to look at the viewer, but her cheeks are flushed, her skin shiny with sweat and her fleshy lips glossy. Tendrils of hair in a spiral have escaped from her turban and rest against the smooth flesh of her neck. Judith's body is partly bare -- the exertion has loosened her chemise, revealing her back and shoulders. Holofernes is half-naked, with only his wrinkled bed sheets covering the lower part of his body. These hints of sensuality reflect the intimacy of the murder, which took place when the two were alone at night in the tent: Holofernes believed that Judith was trying to seduce him, not kill him.

It is impossible to avoid the streams of blood, so thick that they catch the light, gushing relentlessly from Holofernes' mutilated neck, depicted more squarely than Judith's face. His muscular torso is cast partly in shadow by her body, highlighting the juxtaposition of their brightly lit left arms. His muscles are echoed by the billowing folds of her voluminous sleeves, emphasising the victory of feminine guile over masculine strength.

Their limbs and bodies are positioned so that they create a continuous circle up through the sweeping curve of Judith's body, through the three heads -- Judith's, the maid's and Holofernes'-- and down to Holofernes' bloodied wound, along his right arm and back to Judith. Her thick silk draperies and the creamy texture of her thickly painted turban contrast with the yellow sheen of Holofernes' corpse and the glint of his cold armour at the very bottom of the picture. Contemporary viewers would have known that, according to the Book of Judith, she remained pure and undefiled, the chastity of her conquest making her victory all the more righteous. This composition and the variety of textures enhance the narrative, juxtaposing delight with horror and tricking the viewer just as Judith tricked Holofernes.

The drama of the composition, the powerful gestures and the use of strong contrasts of light and shade are typical of the Baroque period and particularly reflect the work of the Italian painter Caravaggio, whose paintings Liss must have seen while he was in Rome in the 1620s.

Style: Baroque
This imposing, life-size double portrait shows the youngest of the seven sons of the 3rd Duke of Lennox: Lord John Stuart, on the left, with his brother Lord Bernard Stuart, later Earl of Lichfield. The two young men -- they were probably aged 17 and 18 at the time -- ooze aristocratic superiority. There is nothing natural or spontaneous about their poses; they are instead the embodiment of affectation.

One brother, leaning nonchalantly on a stone parapet, does not even deign to notice us. The other glances down over his shoulder, lifting his cloak to reveal its fabulous silver lining and to emphasise the tip of his elbow, which juts out directly at the viewer in a distinctly unwelcoming way. In fact, Anthony van Dyck seems to have been so concerned with underlining this passive-aggressive gesture that, in order to point the elbow as directly as possible towards us, he has ignored anatomical accuracy: the young man's upper left arm emerges in a very unnatural way from his shoulder.

We tend to overlook this distortion because our eye is distracted by the confidence -- or arrogance -- of the poses and by the brothers’ extravagant lace-trimmed costumes. Van Dyck’s ability to evoke the sheen and textures of silk and satin on such a large scale was one of the reasons his portraits were so popular with the British aristocracy at the time. Here he has enhanced the effects further by using the clear, simple angular lines and muted colours of the background as a foil for the folds, curves and rich colours of the fabrics.

Van Dyck was also admired for the way he was able to suggest the relationships between his sitters as well as their characters. In this picture, he has created an interesting tension. The brothers stand close to each other, their postures overlapping, each with his left hand on his hip and his torso turned towards the other. But their eyes do not meet. One leans back rather passively, apparently lost in thought. The other, who looks directly at the viewer, takes an active step forward, his spurs and sword clearly on display. Even their clothes suggest opposites -- blue and yellow are complementary (strongly contrasting) colours, while silver and gold clearly evoke very different metals.

The portrait may have been commissioned as a remembrance of the two brothers before they set out on a journey to Europe. We know that they were granted a licence to travel overseas for up to three years on 30 January 1639, with six servants and £100 in cash. However, no other records of their trip have survived and we cannot be completely sure that they made the trip. This was a time of increasing political tensions between the king, Charles I, and Parliament. By 1642 civil war had broken out. As distant cousins of Charles, who was, like them, a descendent of the House of Stuart (or Stewart), the Lennoxes were loyal to the crown. Both brothers were later killed fighting on the Royalist side. Lord John died of his wounds after the battle of Cheriton in 1644 and Bernard died at Rowton-Heath in 1645.

Style: Baroque, Stuart
The Christ Child sits on the lap of his mother, the Virgin Mary, and looks directly at us. He holds a little bird in his left hand. In many religious paintings Christ is shown with a goldfinch, a symbol of the Passion, but the bird here is missing the typical red plumage around the beak. But it may still symbolise the Passion, which would explain the sorrowful gaze with which the Virgin looks down at her son: she seems to anticipate his sacrifice.

While the Virgin wears several layers of veils and garments, beautifully ornamented with pearls and precious stones, Christ is wrapped in a simple white cloth, leaving most of his body exposed. The wall that could provide protection is crumbling, but a young tree sprouting in the background suggests salvation to come. A walled city by the riverside leads the eye into a distant landscape.

The meticulous attention to detail in the depiction of the stone wall recalls the work of Fra Diamante (about 1430 -- about 1498), one of the most gifted pupils of the Florentine painter Fra Filippo Lippi. Both were Carmelite friars. Fra Diamante assisted Lippi in the execution of the fresco cycles in the cathedrals of Prato and Spoleto, and took care of Lippi's illegitimate son, Filippino, who would also become a celebrated painter. Fra Diamante’s most important independent work is an altarpiece which shows the Nativity against a similarly ruinous wall (Louvre, Paris).

It is with small devotional paintings like this one that an artist like Fra Diamante would have earned his living, especially since his teacher had already built a strong reputation with paintings of the Virgin and Child. Lippi's intimate portrayals of the relationship between mother and son were in high demand within the highest ranks of Florentine society, and famous examples showing the Virgin and Child seated against a landscape background can be found in the Uffizi, Florence and the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Such paintings are likely to have decorated a bed chamber, where they offered a visual aid for prayer. It is said that our picture came from a family from Prato who lived in Florence.

If this work is by Fra Diamante, it's unlikely that he painted the cityscape in the background; he could have relied on the help of workshop assistants while he concentrated on the most important parts: the Virgin and Christ Child. The blue and red roofs and the comma-like windows of the buildings reappear in a painting that is probably contemporary to this one: the Adoration of the Kings by Sandro Botticelli and Filippino Lippi. Although there is no documentation of this, both landscapes may have been done by the same artist. Fra Diamante, Botticelli and Filippino were all members of Fra Filippo Lippi's workshop, where minor artists may have specialised on landscapes.

There are several versions of this painting by different artists, which suggests that workshop assistants replicated what may have been a very successful design.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Rembrandt was an exacting teacher as well as a great artist -- at least, he knew how to school the apprentices who came into his workshop so that they could paint just like he did. Sometimes they produced paintings so close in style and subject matter to his own that they have created confusion and the opportunity for fraud.

In this portrait we can see many skills and techniques which Rembrandt used with such great effect. Look at the intense and detailed focus on the face, the skilful layering of paint, the subtle mixing of different skin tones and the use of texture and colour to suggest stubble and pores. Then there are the highlights on the gold band around the sitter’s hat and the chain around his neck. The pink patterned scarf is also painted with the same sort of long brushstrokes Rembrandt favoured when depicting fabric of this type.

In summary, it's a highly accomplished painting, in a distinctly Rembrandt-like style. We now know that it is a self portrait by one of his most successful pupils, Govert Flinck, but for many years it was thought to be a signed self portrait by Rembrandt himself. It was only in 1926 that cleaning revealed that his signature had been forged to cover Flinck’s own. This was probably done in the nineteenth century in order to add value to the painting. The forgery was removed so that you can now see the original, together with the date 1639, on the lower right hand side of the background.

Even once the correct signature was rediscovered the painting was still thought to be a portrait of Rembrandt. It was only in the 1960s that comparison of the face with known likenesses of Flinck led to a consensus that it must be a self portrait made when the artist was 24. Although he had left Rembrandt’s studio two or three years previously, and was later to develop his own style and become a successful Amsterdam artist in his own right, this painting is still strongly influenced by his former master and not only in the painting style.

Flinck here seems to be responding to a new type of self portrait which Rembrandt was developing around this time. There is an excellent example in our collection -- Self Portrait at the Age of 34 -- which shows Rembrandt leaning his elbow and forearm on a stone sill. It was a pose used by great painters of the Italian Renaissance and he dressed himself to reflect that. He radiates confidence and seems to be proclaiming himself heir to that great tradition.

In this painting, Flinck focuses more tightly on the head and shoulders, cropping out the arms, but the position and turn of the head, and the antiquated clothing he wears, is highly reminiscent of Rembrandt’s new approach. Rembrandt's self portrait is dated 1640, but the etching on which it is based was made in 1639. So it seems that Flinck was responding immediately to his former master’s development of a new type of self portrait.

Style: Baroque