Lawrence Alma-Tadema by Rosemary J. Barrow

Alma-Tadema’s Catullus at Lesbia’s (1865) is a bourgeois gathering, not an intimate encounter. It was not the job of a popular artist to step beyond the classroom bowdlerisation of Catullian poetry. Alma-Tadema would depict a broken marble statue as complete and glowing bronze if it suited his plan. But artists don’t always let historical accuracy get in the way of creation. He amassed books, images and antiquities, for scholarly background and visual reference. After that he made a career out of Classical Roman scenes. While still in his twenties (1863), he visited Italy for the first time, on honeymoon. The painting is by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912), a major influence on this type of art. With its fresh and intriguing new insights into his personality and intentions as well as his works, this book now provides a challenging reassessment of a major artist and fascinating person.Favourite Poet (1888), which depicts a languorous scene not linked to a specific poet, appears on the cover of John Godwin’s Reading Catullus (Liverpool University Press, 2008). Neglected after his death, Alma-Tadema's paintings are once again admired for their exquisite beauty and their remarkable mastery of light, colour and texture. Most uniquely, she subjects the paintings to a fresh scrutiny, to reveal that Alma-Tadema, a knowledgeable student of antiquity, repeatedly used literary and archaeological allusions in his paintings to subvert their apparently innocent meaning.

In this original and penetrating study, Rosemary Barrow presents an absorbing and often amusing portrait of an exuberant personality who carved out a brilliant career for himself at the heart of London's artistic and cultural élite. Dutch-born, he moved to London in 1870, and became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean sea and sky. Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) was one of the finest and most distinctive of the Victorian painters.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema by Rosemary J. Barrow