This Painting Has a Disturbing Plot Twist

Have you ever seen a painting and immediately wanted to jump right into the scene? Because everyone's dressed so elegantly and drinking and eating the most delicious looking food and having a great time. Because the colors are so vibrant and warm and the weather looks perfect and you think it would feel like heaven to be transported to this place, if only for a moment. Well this is not one of those paintings. This piece is called The Roses of Heliogabalus by British-Dutch artist Sir Lawrence Almatadama. The title makes sense, there are definitely a lot of rose petals, maybe too many when you think about it. This painting depicts a banquet put on by Roman Emperor Heliogabalus, also known as Elagabalus. Although Almatadama created this piece in 1888, the scene took place in the early 200s AD and since the story of this banquet persisted over 6 centuries, you know it must have been an absolute banger. To me, this painting screams leisure and extravagance. Some of the guests are seated at the table in the background, some are lounging in the foreground. Roses and rose petals are being released from a faux ceiling above and it's obvious that some are surprised by this, while others are not. Our eyes are drawn to the golden figure just left of center. This is Heliogabalus, who became emperor in the year 218 AD thanks to a coup orchestrated by his mother, seated to the right of him, and his grandmother that overturned the previous emperor. He was known for being excessive, especially when hosting, and this was one of his most memorable parties. But if you look closely at the faces of the guests in the foreground, things begin to take a turn. Everyone's kind of freaking out. And for good reason, Heliogabalus isn't showering them in riches, he's suffocating them. Some of them are already succumbing to the effects of asphyxiation, while others are just discovering their fate. There's a woman with a pomegranate in her hand looking squarely at us, with a helpless, confused look on her face, as if she's still processing what's going on. The scene goes from light and airy to heavy and ominous very quickly. Well, the emperor must be losing his mind. This must be a terrible mistake. He probably just meant to surprise them with a beautiful rose shower and accidentally added too many, right? Wrong. He seems pretty pleased about it. Is he a psychopath? Is everyone here a psychopath? Well, maybe. When I really looked at this painting, I found myself naturally following the line of sight of the guests at the table to see exactly what they were looking at. Some of them seemed to be staring straight into the eyes of those who were moments away from their death, begging for their lives. Perhaps the most chilling is Heliogabalus himself. He has a smug and satisfied look on his face. He's lying down, like someone would do if they were reading a book, not committing cold-blooded murder. This relaxed posture makes him appear all the more psychotic. In the background, we see a woman playing the double pipes and a statue of Dionysus, the god of wine, pleasure, festivity, and madness. How fitting. To me, this painting feels like we're momentarily being given the eyes of a mentally disturbed individual. People are dying, but everything is just bright and cheery, like we don't have a care in the world, even though there's a massacre going on. So who is Heliogabalus? And why is he so...hot? No, no, I'm just kidding. But apparently people did think that about him, which is honestly really creepy given he became emperor when he was only 14. Ew. It's hard to know what's fiction and what's fact when it comes to this person, who is the subject of many over-the-top stories. He was accused of child sacrifice and apparently only selected children that had two living parents for maximum anguish. Some said that he attempted a revolution in the structure of the Roman state by replacing the god Jupiter with Elagabal, the god that was his namesake. It just gets more interesting from here. It was rumored that he selected his advisors based on their genital size. Interesting. He apparently established an all-female senate, which was utter absurdity at that time. He was also said to have gone against binary gender norms and was possibly the first trans emperor. Although I've referred to Heliogabalus as he, historians disagree on whether the emperor would have preferred he, she, or they. It's rumored that Heliogabalus asked to be addressed as a woman in one instance and requested a surgical transition. Shockingly, Heliogabalus allegedly never wore the same pair of shoes twice. I mean, how is that even possible? And if you're wondering how a teenager even has the capacity to do all of these things, don't worry. His juvenile humor was definitely on display as well. Heliogabalus apparently did things like serve food all in one color to party guests, like all orange food or all green food, or inviting all the same type of guests, like all one-eyed guests or all men that he considered to be fat so they could barely all fit at the table together. He would let tame lions into the dining room once all of his guests had gotten so drunk that they were practically comatose. Once they came to, many of them reportedly died of shock. There were stories of him inviting lots of guests to one of his banquets and serving real food only to the elites and fake food made of wood or wax to everyone else. So it looked like real food to them until they bit into it. He was also said to have been the first in recorded history to have used the whoopee cushion on his guests at dinner parties. During the time of year Almatadima painted this piece in the late 1800s, roses were out of season. He was said to have imported two boxes of roses from France to London on a weekly basis until the painting was complete. The artist was determined to make the piece look realistic and in true Helio Gabalus style, it was extremely expensive. Writer Otono Oktu said, The entire life of Helio Gabalus is anarchy in action, fire, gesture, blood, cry, fanatical, a real king, a rebel, a crazed individualist. Helio Gabalus only ruled for four short years, but during this time he somehow managed to have four wives, one of whom was a vestal virgin. A very big no-no. After his quick reign, his grandmother had seen enough and arranged to have him assassinated and replaced by his young cousin Severus Alexander, who was only 13 at the time. I guess they didn't learn the last go-round. He was actually killed in a latrine, which is basically ye old toilet. History has largely painted Helio Gabalus as a cruel psychopath, but some believe all of these exaggerated stories were just a part of a big smear campaign by his cousin to justify the coup that led to him taking power. What do you think? I guess the moral of the story, if there is one, is that granny can bring you up, but she can just as easily take you out. So I know Alma Tadema and Van Gogh are not the same artist. They look totally different. Their painting style was definitely not the same, but they were both Dutch and existed on planet Earth at the same time, so I created a coloring book called the Van Gogh Coloring Book, and it's for sale right now on Amazon. I'll include my affiliate link in a pinned comment down below if you want to pick one up for yourself or someone you love. Thank you so much for watching, I'll see you in the next one.