Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema (1836-1912) was born in the Netherlands and studied at the Royal Academy of Antwerp in Belgium. His mentor Jan de Taeye (1822-1890), who also taught history, encouraged Alma Tadema to study ancient civilizations. He began with paintings of Egypt. Tadema was married in Brussels in 1863, and the couple honeymooned in Florence, Rome, Naples, and Pompeii.
Preparation for the Festival (The Floral Wreath) (1866) (21”x27”) is typical of Alma Tadema’s crowded compositions, displaying numerous Roman objects and people. At the center of the piece, a young man is seated on a fine chair that is covered with a leopard skin. The setting is an outdoor garden. The marble floor is covered with rugs containing interesting geometric patterns. The marble sarcophagus in the background has been converted into a fountain. The lion’s head spouts water. The lid holds a basket, sheep skins, and three bronze cups. The artist’s name L.ALMA.TADEMA is inscribed in Roman text on the front.
The two women wear fashionable togas and jewelry. They are making garlands and wreaths for an upcoming festival. Behind them are a tree, a large pottery jar, a copper jar, and the sculpture of a rearing horse. An orange veil separates the courtyard from another space, where shadowed figures decorate the area.
Alma Tadema was known for his depiction of flowers. Flowers played an important role in Roman life and festivals. They were cultivated, sold in market places, and imported from Egypt and Greece. They served as offerings to the gods, they were displayed on military sculptures, and they were placed on graves. The roses, violets, and lilies in the painting were symbols of love, rebirth, and purity.
Alma Tadema’s wife became infected with smallpox and died in 1869. He became ill, and his doctors in Brussels advised him to go to England for another medical opinion. He traveled to London in 1870 with his sister and his two daughters: “I lost my first wife, a French lady with whom I married in 1863. Having always had a great predilection for London, the only place where, up till then my work had met with buyers, I decided to leave the continent and go to settle in England, where I have found a true home.” He became one of England’s most popular and wealthy painters. Queen Victoria made him and his new wife British denizens in 1873, conferring the legal rights of British subjects. They were the last people to receive this honor.
Sappho and Alcaeus (1881) (26”x48”) (Walters Museum, Baltimore) is an illustration of a segment of a poem by Hermesianax (c. 340 BC) about a concert in the 7th Century BC. Sappho, the lyric poetess of Lesbos, and her friends listen to a concert by poet Alcaeus of Mytilene. He plays the kithara. Sappho, leaning on a cushion containing a laurel wreath, listens intently. Alma Tadema sought to paint ancient objects precisely. Here he duplicated the marble seating in the Theatre of Dionysus (below the Acropolis in Athens). He replaced the names on the seats with names of Sappho’s friends. The scene takes place on a warm, sunny day. Behind the seating is a panorama of creatively contorted olive trees. To complete the scene, Alma Tadema included the bright blue green waters of the Aegean Sea. The white marble, sunny day, and Aegean Sea were favorites of the many patrons who commissioned his work. It was an artistic relief from the gray smoke of factories and trains in the newly industrialized Britain.
In the ancient world, Sappho was called the tenth muse. The remaining fragments of her poems were known for their emotional content. The English word sapphic, describing women who are attracted to women, and the word lesbian are derived from her name and home. The proper English Victorians preferred to regard her as domesticated and chaste. Alma Tadema’s painting portrays Sappho’s rapturous attention to the handsome male Alcaeus, in deference to Victorian sensibilities.
Alma Tadema responded to the British love of the Greek and Roman empires. They equated the culture of Greece and the power and dominance of Rome with that of the British empire. The Triumph of Titus, AD 71, The Flavians (1885) (18’’x12’’) (Walters Museum, Baltimore) depicts the return of the Emperor Titus (39-81 AD) to Rome from his conquest of Jerusalem. Dressed in white, Titus’s father, the Emperor Vespasian (9-79 AD), leads the stately procession down the marble stairs and through a Roman arch. Wearing armor and the Imperial crown, Titus follows. He holds his daughter Julia’s hand. She turns to talk with Titus’s younger brother Domitian (81-96 AD). They are the three successive emperors, a dynasty.
In the front of the procession are several Roman military staff bearers, called signiferi. They were elite soldiers who carried standards into battle that identified critical rallying points. They were symbols of honor, and those chosen as signiferi received double the salary. They wear laurel wreaths, symbols of victory.
The vertical grid of the marble stairway helps to create a sense of order and of a solemn procession. At the top of the stairs, a host of men dressed in white togas hold the Menorah from the Second Temple of Jerusalem, now destroyed. Also at the top of the stairs is the Temple of Jupiter Victor on the Palatine Hill.
The Women of Amphissa (1887) (52’’x70’’) is a depiction of an event from the 4th Century BCE recorded by Plutarch, the Greek historian. Amphissa and Delphi were at war, but during a night of dancing the maenads, followers of Bacchus wandered into the market place of Amphissa where they fell asleep. Rather than let the military take them, the women of Amphissa protected them, fed them, and led them safely to the border. The maenads, dressed in white, hair loose, are in various stages of waking up after their night time revelry. Some maenads have grape vines woven into their hair, some wear leopard skins, and some carry tambourines, as seen in the lower right corner. Several women of Amphissa reach down to offer gentle care, while others gather round to offer aid. The market place is paved with Alma Tadema’s favorite marble floor. In the middle left, three men stand upon the raised platform with the awning. They have been persuaded by the women to let the maenads go. Alma Tadema chose the theme to depict Roman charity. One of the women of Amphissa is a portrait of his wife Laura.
Alma Tadema used Greek and Roman subjects for his paintings. Beautiful women sitting on marble benches and looking wistfully out at the Aegean Sea were popular. The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888) (52”x84”) was commissioned by Sir John Aird for £4000. The painting from Augustan Histories (c. 4th Century) depicts the Roman emperor Heliogabalus (218-220), a teenaged cousin of Caracalla, who became Emperor. He was known for his depravity. Lying on a banqueting couch in a gold robe and tiara, Heliogabalus and his six friends watch with delight as the false ceiling opens up releasing enormous amounts of rose petals onto the unsuspecting guests below, some of whom would suffocate.
A maenad wearing a leopard skin plays the double pipes. Centered in the distance is a bronze statue of Dionysius based on the Dionysius with Panther and Satyr, a 2nd Century sculpture placed in the Via Veneto in 1885. Alma Tadema painted the scene during the winter of 1887-88. Since roses were out of season, to ensure accuracy of each petal, Alma Tadema had roses sent weekly from the French Riviera to his studio in London. The painting was exhibited with great success in the 1888 summer exhibition of the Royal Academy.
Alma Tadema was an extrovert who loved and painted beautiful women, and who enjoyed wine. He was also an excellent businessman whose reproduction rights for prints often earned more than the sale of the original. Among many honors, he received the medal of Honor at the Paris Exposition Universelle (1889), the Great Gold Medal at the International Exposition in Brussels (1897), was knighted in 1899, and his work was well liked at the St Louis World’s Fair (1904).
A Favorite Custom (1909) (“26×18”) includes many of Alma Tadema’s most requested and beloved characteristics. Using photographs for the setting, he painted the frigidarium of the Stabian Baths in Pompeii that were discovered in 1824. His skill in depicting marble earned him the nickname “marbellous painter.” The painting is focused first on two beautiful nude women splashing each other in the pool. Typical of the Romans, the happy face theatre mask at the left, is the source of the cold water that pours into the pool. An urn just above it and a marble pedestal table, supported by a lion column, hold towels, sponges, and a Roman glass vase of flowers. Alma Tadema’s collection of Greek and Roman objects was supplemented by objects he saw in the British Museum. Women in various stages of drying themselves, others coming into the frigidarium from other parts of the baths, and the general architecture of the baths complete the scene. The entire scene, although small in scale, reflects the British desire to view the comforts and luxury of ancient Rome. Alma Tadema’s historically accurate, romantic, and luxurious style pleased the British for 60 years. This painting was exhibited in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1909 and was immediately acquired by the Tate Museum. It remains there.
Alma Tadema’s wife Laura died in August 1909, and he lived only three years longer until 1912. Unfortunately, the modern style of Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism had become popular. His pupil John Collier wrote, “It is impossible to reconcile the art of Alma Tadema with that of Matisse, Gauguin, and Picasso.” Even the important art critic John Ruskin (1819-1900) declared him to be “the worst painter of the 19th Century.”
Taste and times change. Art historians today consider Alma Tadema to be the most significant classical subject matter painter of the 19th Century. Hollywood directors relied on Alma Tadema’s detailed research to design sets for D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), Ben Hur (1926), and Cleopatra (1934), and more recently Cecil B. DeMille‘s epic The Ten Commandments (1956), Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000), and the castle in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005).
Alma Tadema was a superb technician with an active interest in ancient history. He spoke little about his art, but when he did, he was profound: “As the Sun colors flowers, so art colors life.”