{"id":2555,"date":"2017-12-01T00:00:42","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T05:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/?p=2555"},"modified":"2018-09-13T14:34:09","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T18:34:09","slug":"healy-alma-tadema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/2017\/12\/01\/healy-alma-tadema\/","title":{"rendered":"Alma-Tadema: At Home in Antiquity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tadema\u2019s paintings on display in one room of the Leighton House Museum, which was once the studio-house of the Victorian painter Frederic, Lord Leighton. Alma-Tadema exhibition 2017. Image courtesy of Leighton House Museum and Kevin Moran Photography.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Leighton House Museum, Kensington, London<\/strong>
\nJuly 7 – October 29, 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

At\u00a0Home in Antiquity<\/span><\/i> presents works by one of Victorian Britain\u2019s most acclaimed classicizing painters, the Dutch-born Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912), in the home and studio of another\u2014his friend and colleague Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896). As a painter of antiquity, Tadema distinguished himself by depictions of the quiet, quotidian aspects of ancient life. His subjects feast, pine, and loll in meticulously researched domestic interiors or atop breathtaking Mediterranean promontories. The Leighton House is well suited to the show\u2019s domestic emphasis, which argues that \u201chome\u201d was just as integral to Tadema\u2019s working methods as it was to his painted subjects. Tadema, like Leighton, painted from purpose-built London studio-houses, which brought the lives of his whole family into intimate and fertile contact with his work. The exhibition rehabilitates his \u201cVictorians in togas,\u201d revealing them as the compelling personages of his wife Laura, also a painter, and his daughters, whose own artistic endeavors were nurtured by a lively familial enterprise of art-making.[1]<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>Displaying many of Tadema\u2019s greatest works, the show also provides views of his homes, pieces of his furniture, and paintings made by his family and friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The exhibition proceeds chronologically. In the first room, which once served as Leighton\u2019s drawing room, early paintings of Merovingian scenes demonstrate the breadth of Tadema\u2019s historical imagination and his eye for period details. Paintings in the next room mark a dramatic change of antique subject, inspired by Tadema\u2019s Italian honeymoon of 1863. These works witness his early proficiency in rendering the costumes, architecture, and golden light of a distinctly Mediterranean antiquity, to which he would turn his crystalline vision most exuberantly for the remainder of his career. Pompeii, which Tadema toured on this trip, was a special revelation for the painter. More than any other archaeological site, Pompeii proffered an unparalleled glimpse into the homes and daily lives of the Romans and for this reason exerted a major influence over his work.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"<\/a>
Tadema\u2019s early paintings of Greek and Roman antiquity. Alma-Tadema exhibition 2017.
Image courtesy of Leighton House Museum and Kevin Moran Photography.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tadema saw in Pompeian archaeology the trappings of a more authentic antiquity. This he evoked in an abundance of archaeological detail, deployed towards exquisite reconstructions of Pompeian interiors and, from the 1870s, arrayed before Mediterranean vistas suffused with light. He preferred anonymous women to historical figures, and a sensuous, feminine lassitude characterizes his oeuvre. <\/span>The Roses of Heliogabalus<\/span><\/i> (1888) manifests this most dramatically and is given pride of place in the Leighton House\u2019s exhibition gallery, which displays Tadema\u2019s later works\u2014his largest and most ambitious\u2014against the plain walls of a modern gallery space. The painting depicts an event recorded in the <\/span>Historia Augusta<\/span><\/i> (4<\/span>th<\/span> century AD), which pertains to the rule of Heliogabalus, Rome\u2019s emperor from 218-222 AD. Whereas the textual source describes the appalling death-by-smothering of the emperor\u2019s dinner guests due to an overabundance of flowers, Tadema has painted an enticing and surprisingly stately orgy, decorously concealed beneath a riot of pink and white petals.[2]<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Tadema\u2019s<\/a>
Tadema\u2019s early paintings of Greek and Roman antiquity. Alma-Tadema exhibition 2017.
Image courtesy of Leighton House Museum and Kevin Moran Photography.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The floridity of Tadema\u2019s paintings accounts in part for his posthumous reception as a painter of Victorian sentiment and classicizing kitsch. <\/span>At Home in Antiquity<\/span><\/i> prompts a sort of reappraisal. For one, its display demonstrates to visitors how profoundly his masterfully constructed settings have influenced cinematic portrayals of the antique, from the silent films of the early twentieth century to Ridley Scott\u2019s <\/span>Gladiator<\/span><\/i> (2000). A whole room of the gallery is devoted to his influence on cinema, displaying his paintings side-by-side with stills from the films that they inspired. To a certain extent, Tadema also anticipated important trends in the fields of Classics and archaeology: Pompeian garden archaeology, an interest in Roman Britain, and a curiosity about ancient life beyond the \u201cgreat men\u201d of Victorian histories. His paintings still captivate for their splendid portrayals of antique life and for the glimpses they afford of a wealthy Victorian milieu who, fascinatingly, felt very much at home in antiquity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Daniel Healey<\/span><\/h3>\n

Download Article<\/a><\/p>\n

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[1]<\/span><\/a> \u201cVictorians in Togas\u201d was the title of a major exhibition of Tadema\u2019s paintings held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1973. Christopher Forbes, <\/span>Victorians in Togas; paintings by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema from the collection of Allen Funt<\/span><\/i> (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1973).<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/span><\/a> Life<\/span> of Elagabalus<\/span><\/i> 21.4-6.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leighton House Museum, Kensington, London July 7 – October 29, 2017 At\u00a0Home in Antiquity presents works by one of Victorian Britain\u2019s most acclaimed classicizing painters, the Dutch-born Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912), in the home and studio of another\u2014his friend and colleague Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896). As a painter of antiquity, Tadema distinguished himself by depictions of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12490,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12490"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2555"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3106,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555\/revisions\/3106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}