A Baroque tour

Several rooms of the National Gallery’s new hang are devoted to paintings of the 17th century in a style that became collectively known as Baroque.

Artists including Rembrandt, Rubens, Caravaggio and Velázquez created dramatic, exuberant, emotional and intense works that turned the rules of painting upside down.

This tour looks at ways in which these new ideas found favour with patrons, from the Protestant merchants of Amsterdam to royalty, rulers and cardinals all over Europe.

After a successful legal career, Emma Matthews set up an art tours business in 2007, while doing a degree in the History of Art. Her passion for the National Gallery Collection shines through in her tours. Matthews constantly seeks to develop new ways of looking at art and understanding its meaning.