For centuries, artistic training involved studying the work of earlier artists. Painters learnt by analysing or copying art from previous generations. Some such as Rembrandt and Vigée Le Brun, shown here, presented themselves as heirs to the great painters they admired by directly emulating their work.
Many artists only knew important paintings through prints made after the original. However, some collected paintings: Van Dyck (1599–1641), Reynolds (1723–1792), and Degas (1834–1917) all owned works by their artistic heroes. Others advised patrons on creating painting collections.
The National Gallery was established in part as a resource for creativity. It remains an inspiration to contemporary artists and creatives, both through the Gallery's Associate Artist Scheme, and personal visits by professionals and amateurs alive.
Room 15
Artists Inspiring Artists
Paintings in this room
This is one of dozens of self portraits by Rembrandt. We see the artist in confident pose – self-assured, dressed in expensive-looking fur and velvet, his hat laced with jewels. But, though he is a Dutchman living in the 1640s, Rembrandt is wearing the clothes of a gentleman of the 1520s and his...
This is almost certainly a portrait of Susanna Lunden (1599–1643), daughter of the Antwerp merchant Daniel Fourment, an old friend and client of Rubens. The portrait was probably made soon after her marriage to Arnold Lunden.It’s a highly distinctive painting – the sitter’s dark, oversized eyes a...
In this, one of Titian’s earliest portraits, the sitter turns to look at us over his shoulder and momentarily meets our gaze. Our attention is focused on the raised brow above his right eye, which is positioned midway across the picture. The man’s elbow rests on a parapet and his voluminous quilt...
Self Portrait in a Straw Hat is a signed copy by the artist of a very popular self portrait that she painted in 1782 and which is now in the collection of the baronne Edmond de Rothschild. The pose is deliberately modelled on Rubens’s Portrait of Susanna Lunden (?) (also in the National Gallery’s...