wrmthorne/National_Gallery_style_classification huggingface dataset:
According to his son, Cezanne spent several months over the summer of 1888 working in and around Chantilly, some 24 miles north of Paris. This is one of three similar oil paintings of the park surrounding the chateau at Chantilly that Cezanne produced during his stay there. The two other paintings are in the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio and the Berggruen Museum, Berlin. There is also a watercolour of the same view, most likely a page from a sketchbook, in a private collection.

In all these paintings, Cezanne focused on the avenue or path running through the Chantilly forest rather than on the town’s famous castle, which, although framed by an arch of trees, remains largely undefined. This vista, with its innate geometrical format, may in part have appealed to Cezanne not for its historic associations, but because it reminded him of the avenues of chestnut trees at the family home, the Jas de Bouffan, in Aix-en-Provence.

Both Chantilly and the Jas de Bouffan offered Cezanne views with clearly defined structures that he sought to describe in paint. The problem of how to represent three-dimensional space and volume on a flat surface was one that engaged Cezanne for much of his career. He has addressed this challenge here by choosing an overtly symmetrical view of a landscape that itself had already been designed -- with an avenue cutting through the trees. Human presence is further represented by the wooden fences that cross the avenue in the middle distance and by the single post in the centre foreground (standing in for both the artist and the viewer). Cezanne created an effect of depth by building up the landscape as a mosaic of carefully organised coloured patches whose relation to each other is affected by the size and direction of the brushstrokes and by Cezanne's control of colour and tone.

Colour, for Cezanne, was the basis of perception, and by the 1880s both his use of it and his oil painting technique had been shaped by his experience with watercolour. The method Cezanne developed in his watercolours is evident in the looser, more open technique of his oil paintings from this time and in his use of overlapping planes of colour. For this picture Cezanne has lightly sketched in the composition with pencil lines, which were then overlain with areas of colour. Some of these areas were reworked, particularly near the centre of the picture, but elsewhere he has left the creamy beige primer visible so that it forms part of the overall colour scheme. Warm colours (for example, the terracotta red of the roof near the picture's centre and the ochre of the avenue) contrast with cooler blues, greens and greys, and variations of tone suggest the play of light on foliage. Alternating bands of light and shade create an effect of depth, and darker touches of blue and green define the structure of the trees and fences.

Style: Impressionist
Cezanne was about 40 years old when he painted this self portrait in his apartment in Paris around 1880--1. This was a significant period in his life, as he had stopped exhibiting with the Impressionist group after 1879 and was spending more time in the south of France, away from the capital. He was now middle-aged with a family to support, and the intensity of his earlier self portraits has given way to a more distant and reflective presence. Although relatively small, this portrait has a monumentality and authority to it. Despite its simple format, Cezanne has created a composition formed of subtle dualities and repetitions

Most likely looking into a mirror, Cezanne stares at us calmly and dispassionately, his face devoid of overt expression. The light coming in from the left of the picture, probably from a window, illuminates one side of his head and casts the other in shadow, giving volume to the cranium placed against the flat plane of the wall. Cezanne constructed the dome of the head with layers of paint formed of short oblique patches of colour laid down in parallel strokes. He used the whites, reds and ochre we might expect for skin tones, but his ear and the top of his head are outlined in blue, and there are also bluish shadows and touches of light green on the right side of the head. These colours echo tints in the jacket and in the slightly lighter tones of the dull olive-green wallpaper. On the left, a vertical band of plain pale blue relieves the potentially oppressive effect of the dominant olive-brown palette and suggests space beyond.

The wallpaper itself, which appears in other paintings, is not merely a decorative backdrop, but has an important structural role in the composition. By repeating elements of its pattern throughout the picture, Cezanne has fully integrated himself with his surroundings. For example, he positioned himself against the wallpaper so that the triangle formed by his outline is echoed by the two sides of a triangle behind the top half of his head. He has also deliberately halted the diagonal lines of the wallpaper pattern before they reach him. As a result, his pale head not only stands out more clearly against the dark paper, but his curved cranium is both emphasised by and contrasts with the three straight lines of a large diamond. Like a halo it frames the left side of his head, the curve of which is echoed by the right shoulder. The lines of the wallpaper only make contact with Cezanne himself at his upturned left lapel, its zigzag outline repeating the pattern of the paper. Similarly, the wallpaper’s motif of star-crossed diamond-shaped lozenges, which themselves echo the principal pattern of the paper, is repeated by the shape of his right eye and ear. The eyes themselves are not quite symmetrical: the left is flat and set back in shadow, while the right is fully open and alert. A gleam of light on the iris is rendered by a tiny lick of golden-brown paint.

Style: Impressionist
A woman wearing a long dark dress and yellow straw hat, holding a long stick, stands next to a cow on a path which draws the viewer into the landscape. Long shadows are cast by the bushes and tree on the left . There is an even, harmonious tonality throughout, from the soft grey-greens of the foliage, to the lavender blue of the hills and the pale blue of the sky. The view is near Dardagny, a village in Switzerland west of Geneva, and in the background it is the hills of the Jura which descend from left to right.

Perhaps influenced by his Swiss maternal grandfather, Corot visited Switzerland more than any other country in Europe. In 1825, on his way to Italy, he stayed in Lausanne. In 1852 he visited the country in the company of the painters Armand Leleux (1818--1885) and  Charles Daubigny. When he returned the following year he was invited to stay with Leleux’s parents-in-law in Dardagny, and it was during this visit that he almost certainly painted this view. He was there during July and August, when he would have seen the fields full of ripe corn which are depicted on either side of the path.

The brushwork is fluid, the paint thin, and in many places the weave of the canvas shows through. Corot would have started this view in the open air, perhaps adding such details as the figure and the cow back in the studio. The figure of the woman also appears in a wash ink drawing Corot made in a sketchbook, which he could have referred to when placing her in the painting itself. Corot had a number of friends in Switzerland, including Charles Turrettini and his sister, Suzanne Turrettini-Necker, who was a pupil of Barthélemy Menn (1815--1893) and Alexandre Calame. Corot had a habit of lending his sketches to her, including this one, of which she made her own copy.

Style: Barbizon
Elena Carafa was Degas’s first cousin, although some 20 years younger than him. Her mother, Stefanina, the Duchessa Montejasi-Cicerale, was the youngest sister of Degas’s father,  Augustin De Gas. Augustin had been born in Naples, and many members of the Degas family were still living in the city.

Degas had previously painted Elena with her younger sister, Camilla, around 1865--8. In that portrait, Elena also looks out directly at us. Degas returned to Naples in the winter of 1873--4, when he accompanied his dying father there. He was in Naples again in 1875 for the funeral of his uncle, Achille. This portrait of Elena was either painted during one of these visits or when she was visiting Paris. She would have been about 20 at the time.

Instead of sitting upright, as in a more formal portrait, Elena leans back into an armchair, its curved outline echoing the shape of her shoulders.  Her torso falls diagonally across the picture and her head, set at a slight tilt, is a little off-centre. Her hands rest on a book or magazine, and she holds open the page she is reading with one finger. Despite the relaxed pose, her expression is more inquisitive than openly welcoming, as she looks up having been interrupted while reading. However, any sense of wariness, or even challenge, towards us is offset by the pose and by the painting’s warm colours, especially the deep pinks of the upholstery and the vermilion reds behind her dark hair. Wrapped in a pale emerald shawl that covers her black dress -- she may be in mourning for Achille -- Elena has no jewellery or other accessories. This further enhances the informality, even intimacy, of our encounter with her.

The pose we see here was not the one originally planned by Degas. Technical examination of the canvas shows that Elena was initially facing towards the right, with a more pensive and distant look. In the finished painting, Degas turned her face towards the centre so that she now looks at us directly. He also increased the volume of Elena’s hair, which is held up by a hairpin indicated by a tiny dab of white paint, and moved her left shoulder to position her upper body more towards us. Although altering the position and expression of the face significantly modified the portrait, the changes were relatively simple to make. If you look closely, you can see some of these alterations -- for example, the original line of Elena's left shoulder is visible underneath the shawl. As is often the case with Degas, he uses varying degrees of finish in the painting. Greatest attention is given to the face and hands but, as our gaze moves away from these, there is a reduction of focus and detail. The background in the upper right area especially is only sketched in very broadly.

Degas was to paint Elena at least one more time when, around 1876, he painted both sisters again, this time with their mother.

Style: Impressionist, Realist
This is the first in a series The Four Times of Day that  Corot painted for his friend, fellow artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps. Two tall trees with full foliage on the left of the panel are offset by two on the right, which are much smaller and more fragile. Perhaps just saplings, their foliage is sparse.

Corot used a similar arrangement in Noon, but reversed the composition with a group of trees in full foliage on the right and a single, almost bare tree on the left. A compositional device used by classical landscape painters such as Claude, the trees either side create a vista framing the view beyond. Also on the left, immediately behind the trees, is a large rocky outcrop with yet more trees beyond it. On the right, a solitary person holding a stick (made by Corot scratching directly into the wet paint) and wearing a red bonnet or hat is gathering wood. The gesture of the arm reaching up to the tree trunk is one that Corot used for female figures in other paintings. The presence of two goats (only just visible to the left of the figure) suggests that she, or he, may be a goatherd.

Starting from a thin and sketchily applied brown underpaint, which can be seen throughout the picture, Corot built up the composition with thicker, more opaque paint, particularly for the rocks and denser foliage. Yet much of the picture remains an almost monochrome brownish-green. The most intense colour is the band of cadmium yellow-orange on the horizon. Mixed with a just hint of pale rose pink, it indicates the imminent emergence of the sun as dawn breaks. Thickly painted with impasto, these streaks of yellow are almost the only area of bright colour in the panel, except for a few small patches of vivid colour, such as the red bonnet.

The suggestion here is that colour is a function of light, initiating a development that unfolds across the next two panels. In effect, The Four Times of Day presents a narrative of the world revealing itself as the day advances. As the light increases, so colour intensifies, achieving its richest tonalities in Evening, before we return to near monochrome in Night.

Style: Barbizon
Akseli Gallen-Kallela completed this painting in 1905. It is one of four related pictures he produced around that time of Lake Keitele, in a remote part of central Finland. The picture reflects the mood of Finnish nationalism that was growing in the late nineteenth century. At this time, Finland was an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire; it did not become an independent state until 1917, following the Bolshevik Revolution. Landscape, especially when associated with mythology, was an important expression of the desire for Finnish autonomy. Writers, artists and musicians drew upon the ancient Finnish folk poems and myths contained in the epic saga  Kalevala, first published in 1835. Gallen-Kallela himself used it from the mid-1880s as a source for paintings, and it is referred to in this picture.

Unlike Gallen-Kallela's earlier paintings inspired by Kalevala, Lake Keitele does not include any figures. The only trace of human presence is the distinctive zigzag pattern on the lake’s surface. Although a natural occurrence caused by the interaction of the wind with the lake’s currents, Gallen-Kellela referred to this pattern as 'Väinämöinen’s wake' -- the trace made by Väinämöinen, the bard and principal character of Kalevala, as he rows across the lake. The artist wrote to a friend that the 'silvery stripes at the surface of the serene water are the wavelets announcing the passion to come'. This implied reference to Väinämöinen, with whom Gallen-Kallela may have personally identified, reveals his nationalist loyalties.

The painting's composition is particularly striking. An almost flat design, made up of broad, blue-grey diagonal bands that cross the lake’s surface, is paired with a more realistic depiction of shimmering waves and ripples in the foreground. Areas of bare canvas add texture and tone. Gallen-Kallela uses a deliberately archaic style, influenced by the decorative abstraction and primitivism of Paul Gauguin and by Finnish folk art, that also has echoes of stained glass and textiles (media he also worked with). The principal colours are kept within a nearly monochrome range of cool silver-greys and blues. Despite the relatively small size of the canvas, an effect of expansive space is produced by the fact that we are looking directly over the water rather than standing securely on the lakeshore. This effect is enhanced by the position of the small wooded island, horizon and thin band of blue sky and bright white clouds at the very top of the picture. The different sizes, directions and textures of the brushstrokes further enhance a sense of space opening out.

In Lake Keitele Gallen-Kallela combines meditative stillness with the forces of nature, and ancient narratives with contemporary political debate, to create a vision of an uncorrupted wilderness imbued with symbolic and emotional meaning.

Style: Modernist
The subject of this painting is taken from the Old Testament Book of Ruth. The youthful widowed Moabite Ruth is gleaning (gathering up grain left after the harvest) to support her widowed mother-in-law, Naomi. The landowner Boaz has come to show his admiration for her support for her family. He has heard of her situation and instructed his workers to leave lots of grain for her to gather. He encourages her to work in his fields throughout the harvest.

Behind Ruth a woman cuts grain with a scythe and watches the conversation. Other workers tie the sheaves while another group of figures – one of them drinking from a flagon -- rest in the shade of some trees in the distance. On the far left are the walls of Bethlehem. Ruth holds out a handful of grain to Boaz, whose palm is open in a rhetorical gesture to show that he is speaking to her. The colours are pure and clear and the painting is very precise and highly finished, giving it a polished, porcelain-like quality.

Naomi told Ruth that Boaz was a close relative, who under Jewish law had the right to marry her now that she was widowed. They eventually married, and King David, Mary, Joseph and Jesus were among their descendants. Ruth's meeting with Boaz has been regarded as a prefiguration of the Annunciation.

Based on drawings made a few years earlier in Italy, the picture was actually painted in Munich, where from 1828 Schnorr von Carolsfeld was a painter at the court of King Ludwig of Bavaria. Schnorr had spent ten years in Italy, and was a leading figure in a group of German and Austrian artists called the Nazarenes, who sought to invest modern painting with the purity of form and spiritual values that they saw in Renaissance and Northern European art. Their inspiration was the art of Perugino, Pintoricchio, Francia and the young Raphael. The group was named after an early Christian sect made up of Christ’s first followers who came from Nazareth – Jesus’s home town. It was founded by Johann Friedrich Overbeck (1789--1869) and Franz Pforr (1788--1812) and later joined by Peter von Cornelius (1784--1867). The artists were originally called the Brotherhood of Saint Luke (after the patron saint of artists) but came to be known as the Nazarenes because of their religious devotion. In England the Nazarenes were part of the inspiration for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, formed in 1848, which widely admired Schnorr's prints.

The picture was engraved as Plate 85 of Schnorr's best-known work, the collection of prints known as the Bilderbibel or 'Bible in Pictures'.

Style: Neoclassical
In the spring of 1888 Seurat, accompanied by his friend and fellow artist Charles Angrand, returned to the site shown in his monumental painting of 1884, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (The Art Institute of Chicago). Both the island itself and the views from it across the river Seine were a rich source of pictorial subjects for Seurat, and he  produced over 100 small oil sketches of the area. He was clearly drawn to the location, in part because of the forms and structures it offered. The horizontals of the river, its banks and the skyline combined with the verticals of trees, sails and occasional standing figures provided a ready-made grid for his compositions, within which he could arrange particular motifs.

This study, which was first owned by Angrand, formed the basis for a larger painting of 1888 The Seine from La Grande Jatte (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels). It was very likely painted outdoors. We see in it the characteristic key components that appear in many of Seurat’s sketches, notably the horizontal formed by the distant river edge and embankment that runs across the full width of the picture, which is countered by the vertical tree trunk to the far right. Seurat has offset these by including the diagonal of the near riverbank, the green triangle of which cuts into what would otherwise be an almost unbroken band of blue water. He has also included a second tree trunk, the curved shape of which echoes the slight leftward lean of the sailboat.

Seurat initially placed a large white-sailed yacht to the left of the picture, but then changed his mind and painted over it. The ghostly trace of the original is still visible. He also painted over the base of the tree. In the final painting, however, Seurat reinstated the yacht in the middle distance and introduced a single rower on a skiff. He also made the lower tree trunk much more solid and extended the area of land in the foreground.

Most of Seurat’s small oil studies were painted on bare wooden panels, with the natural colour of the wood often visible beneath the brushstrokes. This panel, however, was first covered by a dense white primer, which gives the picture a distinct luminosity and enhances the brilliance of the colours. While Seurat’s earlier sketches were more Impressionist in technique -- for example, The Morning Walk -- here he has used a loose version of pointillism in which, with the exception of the sails, the paint is laid down in almost identically sized dabs of unmixed colour. A line of dots of blue and orange -- themselves complementary colours -- can just be seen along the upper edge of the picture. Although they do not continue around all four edges, these are the beginning of the coloured border that appears in the final painting. As with the changed position of the yacht, they are evidence of Seurat trying out ideas as he painted.

Style: Pointillist
The subject of this painting is taken from Book IX of Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey. Turner shows Ulysses sailing away from the island where Polyphemus -- a man-eating cyclops (one-eyed giant) -- had held him and his men captive.

Ulysses escaped by blinding Polyphemus as he slept. Wearing a helmet and a scarlet cloak, Ulysses stands beneath a red banner on his ship the morning after his escape, shouting his name to taunt the giant. As he looks back at the island, he raises his arms in victory and lifts the flaming torch with which he blinded the giant, whose enormous shadowy form lies sprawled across the clifftop that towers above. His left knee raised above the skyline, Polyphemus supports his head with a hand outlined in dark red as he prepares to hurl a boulder down upon the ship.

As Ulysses and his men make their escape, dawn arrives, represented by the brilliant disk of the sun pulled upwards by the horses of the sun god Apollo. Hard to see today, these horses were modelled in part upon those on the Parthenon frieze, which were on display at the British Museum from 1817. Although not mentioned in the poem, Turner includes a group of nereids -- sea nymphs with stars on their foreheads -- who, accompanied by flying fish, gather before the ship’s prow.

Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - Homer's Odyssey was based on oil sketches Turner had made in Italy between August 1828 and February 1829. In Rome -- where he may have seen Annibale Carraci's Polyphemus frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese -- he had exhibited several bold works, including Regulus (Tate, London) which included a dazzling yellow sun. The delay in shipping these canvases back to London from Rome forced Turner to produce new paintings, including this one, for the Royal Academy exhibition of 1829. The painting was a response to the sunrises of Claude, such as Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula, which Turner greatly admired.

The rich variety of colours -- which range from deep cobalt blues and fiery reds to delicate pinks, greens and yellows -- signals the increasing role of colour and light over what Turner described as ‘historic tone’ in his historical landscapes. This shift of emphasis was encouraged by his awareness of recent investigations into optics, including Goethe's Theory of Colours (1810), which he probably discussed with his friend and fellow artist Charles Eastlake, who later translated Goethe's book.

The painting had a mixed reception, with one hostile review referring to its ‘colouring gone mad … with all the vehement contrasts of a kaleidoscope or Persian carpet'. However, writing soon after Turner's death, the English art critic John Ruskin declared it to be ‘the central picture of Turner’s career'. This work marks the increasingly expressive direction Turner's painting was to follow and anticipates the visionary qualities of his late work.

Style: Romantic, Georgian