wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
This painting was made in 1635, when Rembrandt was 29 years old, just over three years after he had set up his studio in Amsterdam. He had already become one the most famous and successful portrait painters in the city, and the man depicted here, Philip or Philips Lucasz. of Middelburg, was typical of his clients. Lucasz. was wealthy, successful and with some status in Amsterdam society. Then in his thirties, he was an important official in the Dutch East India Company, which was the source of most of Holland’s trading success during the seventeenth century. He had been in charge of the company’s fleet, which had sailed for Holland from the East Indies in December 1633 and was to leave Holland again on 2 May 1635, presumably only shortly after this picture was finished.

In August 1634, Lucasz. had married Petronella Buys of The Hague, who was born about 1605. Her portrait (now in a private collection) was also painted by Rembandt and the two were most likely designed to be hung side by side. The first recorded owner of the two pictures, Jacques Specx, was Petronella's brother-in-law through his marriage to her sister and an important patron of Rembrandt in the 1630s. He and his wife may have commissioned them for themselves, or they may perhaps have been given them by the sitters.

The black tunic and white lace collar Lucasz. wears were conventional at the time, but the gold chain around his neck was not a common item of  men’s dress. However, such chains were often given as a reward for service by the directors of the East India Company to commanders who -- like Lucasz. -- had brought their merchant fleets home successfully.

Although the portrait is signed by Rembrandt himself (on the lower right-hand side), there is a clumsiness about the painting which, it has been argued, suggests that one or more of his assistants may have had a hand in it. The thick black line representing the shadow between the sitter’s lips has been made in quite a rudimentary way, for example, and the painting of the lace collar is also unusual. Instead of the details of the white lace being painted over the black fabric beneath, which would be the normal and logical way of creating the effect, the artist has taken the reverse approach: the collar has been painted as a solid block of white paint and the detail of the lace shapes has been outlined in black. In some places, this was done even before the white paint had dried properly. The same method was used to depict the gold chain in the places where it shows through the lace collar -- the yellow paint has been applied on top of the white, instead of the other way round. But it is possible that Rembrandt was forced to deliver the painting to a tight deadline, and that what we see here are simply signs of overhasty work.

The sitter’s left hand, which X-ray images show was depicted touching the gold chain, has been painted out, perhaps as early as the late seventeenth century. The picture’s elaborate frame was probably made in Holland in the 1690s.

Style: Baroque
Christ's dead body is lowered gently into his tomb. Mary Magdalene and two other women mourn him; Saint John the Evangelist, who was present at the Crucifixion, kneels beside the Virgin Mary, his back to the viewer. The other men are Joseph of Arimathea, who offered his family tomb for the burial, and Nicodemus, who helped remove Christ's body from the Cross, a moment depicted in the distance to the right.

This picture was painted over the top of an engraving by the German artist Martin Schongauer. Made about 50 years after his death, it was an efficient way of creating a painting after one of his compositions. Schongauer played an important role in the development of engraving as an art form.

Style: High Renaissance
Isack van Ostade's little village seems to be a hard place to live. Although there's no snow, the grey clouds threaten and there is a feeling of bone-chilling cold. The old cottage on top of the bank is ramshackle and touched with frost, its roof hardly robust enough to keep the weather out. Beside it, the slope of the rickety bridge silhouetted against the sky may be slippery -- a dog hesitates, almost as if afraid to go across.

In the view towards the horizon framed by the bridge, a man pushes a woman and a toddler in a sledge while another child punts himself along with two sticks, but it all seems heavy work. Closer to us, a lad watches with concern as an old man struggles into his skates, and a mangy dog looks suspiciously at an old basket wedged in the ice. All the animals look thin -- their fur damp and clinging, their heads drooping -- but the white horse pulling a heavy sledge and heading up the riverbank seems a little more spirited.

The people go about their business as best they can, but seem to take little pleasure in the weather -- they just withstand it. No one speed-skates or plays games on the ice. No one shows off splendid costumes, as do the figures in Henrik Avercamp's sparkling, ice-covered river scenes, such as A Winter Scene with Skaters near a Castle. And yet the overall impression of van Ostade’s painting is far from depressing.

Behind the puffs of grey cloud and the chill, silvery light of the sky, there’s a hint of blue. The man climbing onto the bridge carries dead branches on his back and the small tree on the far side is little more than a few knobbly stumps -- but beside it, dominating the picture, the filigree pattern cast across the sky by the big tree seems to hold a fragile promise of life. The white horse moves upwards, its head high. Everywhere there are small glittering touches of frost and the icy river glistens, bringing radiance that overcomes the drabness of parts of the scene.

This was painted in the 1640s, at the beginning of the Little Ice Age when, in the winters, Europe froze to a degree unknown before and the poor people of the countryside knew hardship and poverty. It’s as if van Ostade is celebrating the endurance of the Dutch people, but also faith in the return of spring. Such sentiments would have appealed to an urban collector comfortable in his warm house, and they were portrayed with a realism any owner would have appreciated and found entertaining.

Style: Baroque
A rather anxious-looking bishop holding a book and a crosier (bishop's staff) gazes to his right, while behind him a demure female saint looks at the floor. These are probably Saint Donatus, first bishop of Arezzo in Tuscany, and Saint Antilla, patron of Montepulciano, whose remains were venerated in Arezzo.

They come from a polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece) painted in about 1450 for the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Pratovecchio, Tuscany. Other parts of the Pratovecchio altarpiece are also in our collection.

Medieval altarpieces came in many shapes and sizes, depending on where and when they were made, and where they were meant for. The one from which this panel comes is a traditional form, with figures arranged in tiers, or levels, of different sizes. The most important scene would have been in the middle, with groups of saints on either side. Saint Donatus would originally have been looking at the Assumption of the Virgin in the central panel. This type of multi-storey polyptych might have seemed quite old fashioned by the 1450s -- compare it with the roughly contemporary Trinity -- but altarpieces tended to be conservative and this sort remained popular in provincial Italy into the late fifteenth century.

The saints included would have been ones important to the patrons and ones with links to the place for which the altar was intended. The nunnery of San Giovanni had close links with Arezzo, about 46 km to the south of Pratovecchio, where there was a sister house, San Benedetto. Nuns were allowed to come and go between the two houses.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Many of Claude’s landscapes depict episodes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a Latin poem of well-known stories and characters from Greek mythology. In this painting, Diana, goddess of hunting, carrying a bow and arrows, stands between the huntsman Cephalus and his wife Procris. Procris gives her husband a spear, carried here by an attendant, and a magic dog, which were given to her by Diana (book 7: 693--758). Claude has departed from Ovid's narrative, which doesn't mention Diana being at the pair's reunion following a falling out, caused by Procris's jealousy.

Later in Ovid's story, Procris suspects her husband’s infidelity, follows him to a forest and hides when she hears him approach. Thinking she is a wild animal, Cephalus accidentally kills her with his spear (book 7: 796--865). Perhaps instead of depicting a reunion, Claude intended this painting to show a happier ending where Procris is brought back to life, although this is also not included in Ovid's tale. This alternative ending was included in a famous Italian play performed during the fifteenth century and published many times. In any case, the painting would have acted as a warning to newly-weds of the dangers of jealousy and unfaithfulness.

Most of the composition reflects the beauty of nature, inspired by Claude's trips to the countryside near Rome, where he spent most of his life. The eye is led back and forth across the landscape in stages so that every detail can be appreciated. Large trees in the centre, painted with precise, brushstrokes, frame the figures. The different buildings and ruins in the landscape create a sense of scale and distance. The warm, pink sky highlights the subtle green tones and the contrast between light and shade on the foliage and foreground landscape. The reflections of the herdsman and his cattle in the pond's surface are painted with meticulous attention to detail.

This picture was painted in 1645 for an unknown patron in Paris. Claude returned to this subject many times during his career. Another episode from this story, Landscape with the Death of Procris, is attributed to his studio. The subject was popular with other artists in the seventeenth century. The Gallery owns Nicolas Poussin’s Cephalus and Aurora (1630) and Peter Paul Ruben’s Aurora abducting Cephalus (1636/7).

Claude's painting and its pair, A Seaport, were among the first works bought by the National Gallery in 1824, from the renowned collection of John Julius Angerstein.

Style: Baroque, Academic
In a vaulted green hall a pope blesses Saint Francis, watched by a king and nine cardinals (eight dressed in red, one in blue). Francis's companions kneel behind him between seated cardinals, while a crowd of clerics and laymen look on. Over the doorway is the papal coat of arms, with crossed keys; these also decorate the cloth of honour behind the pope.

This the third of eight panels depicting scenes from Saint Francis's life, made as part of a sumptuous double-sided altarpiece by Sassetta. It was completed in 1444 for the friars of Borgo San Sepolcro. The back showed Saint Francis in Glory (Berenson Collection, Villa I Tatti, Settignano) surrounded by these episodes from the saint's life, seven of which are in our collection. According to the scripta, the written instructions setting out the subject matter for the altarpiece, this scene shows Pope Honorious III granting Francis the Indulgence of the Portiuncula in 1216. Francis had boldly asked Honorius for a plenary indulgence (one that grants complete remission of sins) to be given to pilgrims visiting the Portiuncula, a tiny chapel which Francis had reconstructed and which was the cradle of the Franciscan Order, on 1 and 2 August. To the amazement of the cardinals, the Pope approved. The Portiuncula Indulgence still takes place yearly.

This is a rare scene and Sassetta seems not to have had access to a written account of the granting of the indulgence. Instead, he adapted Ambrogio Lorenzetti's painting  Saint Louis of Toulouse before Pope Boniface VII (San Francesco, Siena). This explains the inclusion of a king, an unlikely figure at the papal court: Lorenzetti's fresco included Saint Louis's father, Charles of Anjou, who was present on that occasion. The friars of Borgo San Sepolcro may have requested this episode because they believed, wrongly, that the Blessed Ranieri Rasini, a local holy man who was buried below the altar at San Sepolcro, had witnessed this event. The friar at the far left, turning to look over his shoulder, is possibly intended to represent Ranieri. The prominence of the Pope's hands, which have a red circle in the centre of his white glove, may be an allusion to Francis's stigmatisation, which was shown in The Stigmatisation of Saint Francis. The stigmata were understood in Franciscan theology as Christ's seal upon the indulgence Pope Honorius had granted Francis.

The altarpiece from which this panel comes was constructed and painted in Sassetta's workshop in Siena and then assembled at San Sepolcro. The main tier and pinnacles consisted of four separate vertical planks, painted on both sides and dowelled together so they were easy to transport (this method was also used by Taddeo di Bartolo for his altarpiece at San Franceso al Prato, Perugia, which was one of the models for Sassetta's altarpiece). The eight scenes of Francis's life were painted in pairs on the backs, with four standing saints on the other side. When the altarpiece was dismantled, the panels were sawn down the middle: the standing saints are now divided between the Berenson Collection at Settignano and the Louvre, Paris.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
Saint Francis of Assisi kneels in a rocky landscape, hands raised in prayer, gazing up at a vision of Christ floating in the sky. Christ has the six wings of a seraphim and his arms are extended as if on the Cross. Rays from Christ's stigmata -- the wounds he received at the Crucifixion -- impress the same wounds on Saint Francis. Both the saint and the rocky landscape with its tiny chapel are illuminated by the light emanating from Christ; Francis's body and the fingers of his raised left hand cast a shadow on the ground behind him.

The stigmatisation, the culminating miracle of Francis's life, occurred in 1224. According to his official biography, the Legenda Maior, he spent 40 days fasting and praying on Mount La Verna, near Arezzo. One morning when deep in prayer, he had a vision of seraphim embracing the crucified Christ. When the vision vanished, he found that his hands and feet were marked as if nails were protruding from front and back, and a scar appeared on his side, which welled blood -- tokens of his spiritual transformation into another Christ.

This painting is the fourth of eight scenes representing the life of Saint Francis that were made for the back of a large and magnificent double-sided altarpiece painted by Sassetta for the high altar of San Francesco at Borgo San Sepolcro. The back showed Saint Francis in Glory (Berenson Collection, Villa I Tatti, Settingnano) surrounded by eight scenes of episodes from his life, seven of which are in our collection. The scenes were arranged in pairs: this one was on the bottom row on the left, next to Saint Francis before the Pope: The Granting of the Indulgence of the Portiuncula.

This is in many ways a traditional composition: the saint's pose, the winged seraphim and inclusion of Brother Leo, the figure seated on the ground at the right, are all recognisable from Giotto's fresco of this scene in the Upper Church of at Assisi. There are, however, unusual details. Prominently placed in the middle of the scene is a carefully carved recess containing a bare but bleeding cross, on which is hung a crown of thorns. The perspective of this scene is carefully coordinated with that of its neighbour, the Granting of the Indulgence, and the chapel on the left is a formal echo of the door set in the wall behind the papal throne, as if you could walk from one scene into the other.

The positioning of the scene in the cycle is also is surprising. Traditionally, this episode was shown immediately before the saint's death, as the culmination of his imitation of the life of Christ, but the scripta, the written instructions given to Sassetta by the friars, put it next to Granting of the Indulgence. This placing was not accidental. The Portiuncula Indulgence, one of the first  to grant absolution from all sins, was controversial as it had not been confirmed by a papal bull. Franciscan writers vigorously defended it, explaining that instead of a written authorisation, God had granted Francis the stigmata as a visible sign of divine approval.

Style: Gothic, Early Renaissance
If pictures had a smell, then Ambrosius Bosschaert's paintings would fill the air with exotic scent. In this picture, his many different flowers are displayed against an almost black background to show their colours, shapes and textures to the fullest -- pale roses, yellow and white narcissi, a single yellow chrysanthemum. The delicate petals of a purple cyclamen hide behind its broad leaf in the shadows at the base of the arrangement, where a fritillary hangs its head close to a red rosebud. A mauve anemone seems suspended in the dark space between two handsome tulips, one white, one yellow, streaked with flames of red, standing out stiff and proud against the profusion of petals below them.

But there's one flower, on the left, that seems not to fit any particular description. The petals are splayed open as if exhausted. This too is a tulip, but faded, its time done. Bosschaert is showing us the lifespan of these flowers, but subtly, and placed together, still making them a thing of beauty. The white tulip is partly in bud; the yellow, fully open; the third, with its frilled petals, dying. The roses too show nature's progression -- the tight red bud in the shadows, the white rose, open and perfect, and just below, the full-blown, grey-pink, fragile bloom at the end of its brief life.

Bosschaert lived in Middelburg, where a large botanical garden had just opened. During the seventeenth century, 200 new species of plants were discovered, and many of them were grown there. There was great interest in the new 'natural sciences', and pictures of flowers were sought not just as decorative items for the home but as a reminder of the wonders of biology. The paintings were extremely expensive, so as well as revealing the owner as cultured and sensitive to beauty, they showed off his wealth.

The insects in the picture are demonstrations of the artist's skill in painting lifelike creatures in detail, but, like the flowers, show the lifespan of all living things, including ours. The shiny little caterpillar climbs up the stalk of the tulip. The white butterfly, the adult creature, folds its wings on the dying tulip. The fly at the foot of the vase, with its brief lifespan, takes the cycle to its end. Even the roemer, the wine glass that holds the flowers, is fragile, likely to be short lived. Again Bosschaert proves his skill in capturing the transparent delicacy of the glass with its tear-shaped beads reflecting the light, close to and comparing with the veined, translucent wings of the fly.

Although apparently close to nature, the picture is anything but natural. Roses, cyclamen and narcissi aren't in bloom at the same time of the year. This is an assembly of specimens, rather than an elegant flower arrangement. Bosschaert is likely to have made a watercolour drawing of each flower to record it in bloom, and then used those drawings to paint them into the picture at a later stage.

Style: Baroque
In 1884 Pissarro settled with his family in Eragny, a village to the north of Paris, where he was to live for the rest of his life. During this period he painted a number of views of this meadow, which is planted with small trees, young saplings still surrounded by their protective cages. It is late afternoon and the long shadows thrown by the trees radiate out in a fan shape towards the left corner. As is typical of Pissarro's landscapes, he has included a solitary figure standing in the sun, a basket in one hand, the other on her hip.

In 1885 Pissarro met Georges Seurat and Paul Signac and subsequently adopted Seurat's pointillist technique of applying small dots of colour alongside each other on the canvas to create an optical mixture, as can be seen in Seurat's The Channel of Gravelines, Grand Fort-Philippe. The technique was rooted in the scientific theories of colour published by the chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul and physicist Ogden Rood, and notable features included the juxtaposition of complementary colours, dots of yellows and oranges added to sunlit areas, and blues and purples to shadows. Here Pissarro has created a shimmering surface with numerous separate touches of paint. In the grass, an under layer of greens and yellows is overlaid with pinks and yellows, the areas of darker greens overlaid with blues, mauves and the odd touch of orange. In the landscape these brushstrokes are strongly horizontal, whereas in the trees the foliage is created with more vertical strokes in varying shades of green, dark built up to light. The creams, yellows and blues of the densely applied curvilinear strokes in the sky reinforce the pervading atmosphere of shimmering light.

At the eighth and last Impressionist exhibition in 1886, the pointillist paintings of Seurat, Signac, Pissarro and his son Lucien, were displayed in a separate section. Their appearance prompted the critic Félix Fénéon to invent the term 'Neo-Impressionism'. Over the next year or so, however, Pissarro gradually abandoned this technique, finding that the laborious application of paint took away any spontaneity in painting.

Style: Impressionist