Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, October 31, 2022: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, a Dutch painter (#1687)

Monday, October 31, 2022

Artist of the Day, October 31, 2022: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, a Dutch painter (#1687)

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, (1836 – 1912) was a Dutch painter who later settled in the United Kingdom and became a denizen there. Born in the Netherlands, and trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium, he settled in London, England in 1870 and spent the rest of his life there. A classical-subject painter, he became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, with languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea and sky. Alma-Tadema was considered one of the most popular Victorian painters. Though admired during his lifetime for his draftsmanship and depictions of Classical antiquity, his work fell into disrepute after his death, and only since the 1960s has it been re-evaluated for its importance within nineteenth-century British art.

Dutch by birth, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema initially specialized in Merovingian and Egyptian scenes, but after visiting Pompeii in 1863 he turned to archaeologically exact genre paintings of classical Greece and Rome. The British publication Punch called him a "marbellous artist" because of his skill at painting marble. Alma-Tadema moved to London in 1870 after his wife's death, and soon became a British citizen. His paintings are marked by clarity of color, exactness, and smooth finish; he imagined a Rome of splendor, sunlight, and gentle sentiment. Alma-Tadema inspired many followers and imitators, including Hollywood, which has consistently reproduced his vision of the ancient world on film.

Alma-Tadema's paintings offer no moral lessons, and his critics called them lewd and spiritually vacuous, but the public loved them, enabling him to enjoy a sumptuous lifestyle in a house modeled on a Pompeian villa. His second wife, painter Laura Epps, appeared in many paintings. Alma-Tadema became a Royal Academy member in 1879 and received the Order of Merit in 1905. Queen Victoria knighted him in 1899. Like Sir John Everett Millais, Alma-Tadema is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

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