Lawrence Alma Tadema

Sir Lawrence Alma Taddemar Omra was a Frisian painter of special British denizenship, born in Dronerijp, the Netherlands and trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium. He settled in 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, though admired during his lifetime for his draughtsmanship 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 19th-century English art. Biography Early life Lawrence Alma Taddemar was born on 8 January 1836 in the village of Dronerijp in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. The surname Taddemar is an old Frisian patronymic, meaning son of Tadde, while the names Lawrence and Alma came from his godfather. He was the sixth child of Pieter Gilties Taddemas, the village notary, and the third child of Henker Dirk Sprouwer. His father had three sons from a previous marriage. His parents' first child died young, and the second was Atje, Lawrence's sister, for whom he had great affection. The Taddemar family moved in 1838 to the nearby city of Leeuwarden, where Pieter's position as a notary would be more lucrative. His father died when Lawrence was four, leaving his mother with five children—Lawrence, his sister, and three boys from his father's first marriage. His mother had artistic leanings and decided that drawing lessons should be incorporated into the children's education. He received his first art training with a local drawing master hired to teach his older half-brothers. It was intended that the boy would become a lawyer, but in 1851 at the age of 15 he suffered a physical and mental breakdown. Diagnosed as consumptive and given only a short time to live, he was allowed to spend his remaining days at his leisure drawing and painting. Left to his own devices he regained his health and decided to pursue a career as an artist. Moved to Belgium in 1852, he entered the Royal Academy of Antwerp in Belgium where he studied early Dutch and Flemish art under Gustaf Wappers. During Alma Taddemar's four years as a registered student at the academy, he won several respectable awards. Before leaving school towards the end of 1855, he became assistant to the painter and professor Louis-Jan de Tiersi, whose courses in history and historical costume he had greatly enjoyed at the academy. Although de Tiersi was not an outstanding painter, Alma Taddemar respected him and became his studio assistant, working with him for three years. De Tiersi introduced him to books that influenced his desire to portray Merovingian subjects early in his career. He was encouraged to depict historical accuracy in his paintings, a trait for which the artist became known. Alma Taddemar left Tiersi's studio in November 1858, returning to Leeuwarden before settling in Antwerp, where he began working with the painter Baron Jan August Hendrik Lees, whose studio was one of the most highly regarded in Belgium. Under his guidance Alma Taddemar painted his first major work, The Education of the Children of Clovis. This painting created a sensation among critics and artists when it was exhibited that year at the Artistic Congress in Antwerp. It is said to have laid the foundation of his fame and reputation. Alma Taddemar related that although Lees thought the completed painting better than he had expected, he was critical of the treatment of marble, which he compared to cheese. Alma Taddemar took this criticism very seriously, and it led him to improve his technique and to become the world's foremost painter of marble and variegated granite. Despite any reproaches from his master, The Education of the Children of Clovis was honorably received by critics and artists alike and was eventually purchased and subsequently given to King Leopold of Belgium. Early works Merovingian themes were the painter's favorite subject up to the mid-1860s. It is perhaps in this series that we find the artist moved by the deepest feeling and the strongest spirit of romance. However, Merovingian subjects did not have a wide international appeal, so he switched to themes of life in ancient Egypt that were more popular. On these scenes of Frankish and Egyptian life Alma Taddemar spent great energy and much research. In 1862 Alma Taddemar left Lees's studio and started his own career, establishing himself as a significant classical subject European artist. 1863 was to alter the course of Alma Taddemar's personal and professional life. On 3 January his invalid mother died, and on 24 September he was married, in Antwerp City Hall, to Marie-Pauline Gresson de Moulon, the daughter of Eugène Gresson de Moulon, a French journalist living near Brussels. Nothing is known of their meeting and little of Pauline herself, as Alma Taddemar never spoke about her after her death in 1869. Her image appears in a number of oils, though he painted her portrait only three times, the most notable appearing in my studio. The couple had three children. Their eldest and only son lived only a few months, dying of smallpox. Their two daughters, Laurence and Anna, both had artistic leanings, the former in literature, the latter in art. Neither would marry. Alma Taddemar and his wife spent their honeymoon in Florence, Rome, Naples and Pompeii. This, his first visit to Italy, developed his interest in depicting the life of ancient Greece and Rome, especially the latter since he found new inspiration in the ruins of Pompeii, which fascinated him and would inspire much of his work in the coming decades. During the summer of 1864, Taddemar met Ernest Gambart, the most influential print publisher and art dealer of the period. Gambart was highly impressed with the work of Taddemar, who was then painting Egyptian chess players. The dealer, recognizing at once the unusual gifts of the young painter, gave him an order for 24 pictures and arranged for three of Taddemar's paintings to be shown in London. In 1865, Taddemar relocated to Brussels where he was named Knight of the Order of Leopold. On 28 May 1869, after years of ill health, Pauline died at Sheerbeek, in Belgium, at the age of 32, of smallpox. Her death left Taddemar disconsolate and depressed. He ceased painting for nearly four months. His sister Artia, who lived with the family, helped with the two daughters then aged five and two. Artia took over the role of housekeeper and remained with the family until 1873 when she married. During the summer Taddemar himself began to suffer from a medical problem which doctors in Brussels were frustratingly unable to diagnose. Gambart eventually advised him to go to England for another medical opinion. Soon after his arrival in London in December 1869, Alma Taddemar was invited to the home of the painter Ford Maddox Brown. There he met Laura Theresa Epps, who was 17 years old, and fell in love with her at first sight. Moved to England, the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in July 1870 compelled Alma Taddemar to leave the continent and move to London. His infatuation with Laura Epps played a great part in his relocation to England and Gambart felt that the move would be advantageous to the artist's career. In stating his reasons for the move, Taddemar simply said, I lost my first wife, a French lady with whom I married in 1863. In 1869, 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 with his small daughters and sister A.T.J.E. Alma Taddemar arrived in London at the beginning of September 1870. The painter wasted no time in contacting Laura and it was arranged that he would give her painting lessons. During one of these, he proposed marriage. As he was then 34 and Laura was now only 18, her father was initially opposed to the idea. Dr. Epps finally agreed on the condition that they should wait until they knew each other better. They married in July 1871. Laura, under her married name, also won a high reputation as an artist, and appears in numerous of Alma Taddemar's canvases after their marriage being a notable example. This second marriage was enduring and happy, though childless, and Laura became stepmother to Anna and Lawrence. Anna became a painter and Lawrence became a novelist. He would initially adopt the name Lawrence Alma Taddemar instead of Laurence Alma Taddemar and later adopt the more English Lawrence for his forename, and incorporate Alma into his surname so that he appeared at the beginning of exhibition catalogues, under A. rather than under T. He did not actually hyphenate his last name, but it was done by others and this has since become the convention. Victorian painter after his arrival in England, where he was to spend the rest of his life, Alma Taddemar's career was one of continued success. He became one of the most famous and highly paid artists of his time, acknowledged and rewarded. By 1871 he had met and befriended most of the major Pre-Raphaelite painters and it was in part due to their influence that the artist brightened his palette, varied his hues, and lightened his brushwork. In 1872 Alma Taddemar organized his paintings into an identification system by including an opus number under his signature and assigning his earlier pictures numbers as well. Portrait of my sister, Archia, painted in 1851, is numbered Opus I, while two months before his death he completed preparations in the Coliseum, Opus CCCCVIII. Such a system would make it difficult for fakes to be passed off as originals. In 1873 Queen Victoria in council by letters patent made Alma Taddemar and his wife Watanelle the last British denizens, with some limited special rights otherwise only accorded to and enjoyed by British subjects. The previous year he and his wife made a journey on the continent that lasted five and a half months and took them through Brussels, Germany, and Italy. In Italy they were able to take in the ancient ruins again. This time he purchased several photographs, mostly of the ruins, which began his immense collection of folios with archival material sufficient for the documentation used in the completion of future paintings. In January 1876 he rented a studio in Rome. The family returned to London in April visiting the Parisian Salon on their way back. In London he regularly met with fellow artist Emile Fuchs. Among the most important of his pictures during this period was an audience at Agrippa's. When an admirer of the painting offered to pay a substantial sum for a painting with a similar theme, Alma Taddemar simply turned the emperor around to show him leaving enough to the audience. On 19 June 1879 Alma Taddemar was made a full academician, his most personally important award. Three years later a major retrospective of his entire oeuvre was organised at the Grosvenor Gallery in London, including 185 of his pictures. In 1883 he returned to Rome in, most notably, Pompeii, where further excavations had taken place since his last visit. He spent a significant amount of time studying the site, going there daily. These excursions gave him an ample source of subject matter as he began to further his knowledge of daily Roman life. At times, however, he integrated so many objects into his paintings that some said they resembled museum catalogues. One of his most famous paintings is the Roses of Heliogabalus, based on an episode from the life of the debauched Roman emperor Elagabalus. The painting depicts the psychopathic emperor suffocating his guests at an orgy under a cascade of rose petals. The blossoms depicted were sent weekly to the Artists' London studio from the Riviera for four months during the winter of 1887–1888. Among Alma Tadema's works of this period are, An Earthly Paradise, Unconscious Rivals Spring, The Colosseum and The Baths of Caracalla. Although Alma Tadema's fame rests on his paintings set in antiquity, he also painted portraits, landscapes and watercolours, and made some etchings himself. Personality for all the quiet charm and erudition of his paintings, Alma Tadema himself preserved a youthful sense of mischief. He was childlike in his practical jokes and in his sudden bursts of bad temper, which could as suddenly subside into an engaging smile. In his personal life, Alma Tadema was an extrovert and had a remarkably warm personality. He had most of the characteristics of a child, coupled with the admirable traits of a consummate professional. A perfectionist, he remained in all respects a diligent, if somewhat obsessive and pedantic worker. He was an excellent businessman, and one of the wealthiest artists of the 19th century. Alma Tadema was as firm in money matters as he was with the quality of his work. As a man, Lawrence Alma Tadema was a robust, fun-loving and rather portly gentleman. There was not a hint of the delicate artist about him. He was a cheerful lover of wine, women and parties. Later years Alma Tadema's output decreased with time, partly on account of health, but also because of his obsession with decorating his new home, to which he moved in 1883. Nevertheless, he continued to exhibit throughout the 1880s and into the next decade, receiving a plentiful amount of accolades along the way, including the Medal of Honor at the Paris Exposition Universal of 1889, election to an honorary member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society in 1890, the Great Gold Medal at the International Exposition in Brussels of 1897. In 1899 he was knighted in England, only the eighth artist from the continent to receive the honor. Not only did he assist with the organization of the British section at the 1900 Exposition Universal in Paris, he also exhibited two works that earned him the Grand Prix Diploma. He also assisted with the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904 where he was well represented and received. During this time, Alma Tadema was very active with theater design and production, designing many costumes. He also spread his artistic boundaries and began to design furniture, often modeled after Pompeion or Egyptian motifs, illustrations, textiles, and frame making. His diverse interests highlight his talents. Each of these exploits were used in his paintings, as he often incorporated some of his designed furniture into the composition, and must have used many of his own designs for the clothing of his female subjects. Through his last period of creativity Alma Tadema continued to produce paintings, which repeat the successful formula of women in marble terraces overlooking the sea such as in silver favorites. Between 1906 and his death six years later, Alma Tadema painted less but still produced ambitious paintings like The Finding of Moses. On 15 August 1909 Alma Tadema's wife, Laura, died at the age of 57. The grief-stricken widower outlived his second wife by less than three years. His last major composition was Preparation in the Colosseum. In the summer of 1912, Alma Tadema was accompanied by his daughter Anita Kaiserhoff-Spar, Wiesbaden, Germany where he was to undergo treatment for ulceration of the stomach. He died there on 28 June 1912 at the age of 76. He was buried in a crypt in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Style Alma Tadema's works are remarkable for the way in which flowers, textures and hard-reflecting substances like metals, pottery, and especially marble, are painted. Indeed, his realistic depiction of marble led him to be called the Marbellus Painter. His work shows much of the fine execution and brilliant color of the old Dutch masters. By the human interest with which he imbues all his scenes from ancient life he brings them within the scope of modern feeling, and charms us with gentle sentiment and playfulness. From early in his career, Alma Tadema was particularly concerned with architectural accuracy, often including objects that he would see at museums, such as the British Museum in London. In his works, he also read many books and took many images from them. He amassed an enormous number of photographs from ancient sites in Italy, which he used for the most precise accuracy in the details of his compositions. Alma Tadema was a perfectionist. He worked assiduously to make the most of his paintings, often repeatedly reworking parts of paintings before he found them satisfactory to his own high standards. One humorous story relates that one of his paintings was rejected and instead of keeping it, he gave the canvas to a maid who used it as her table cover. He was sensitive to every detail and architectural line of his paintings, as well as the settings he was depicting. For many of the objects in his paintings, he would depict what was in front of him, using fresh flowers imported from across the continent and even from Africa, rushing to finish the paintings before the flowers died. It was this commitment to veracity that earned him recognition but also caused many of his adversaries to take up arms against his almost encyclopedic works. Alma Tadema's work has been linked with that of European symbolist painters. As an artist of international reputation, he can be cited as an influence on European figures such as Gustav Klimt and Ferdinand Canopf. Both painters incorporate classical motifs into their works and use Alma Tadema's unconventional compositional devices such as abrupt cut-off at the edge of the canvas. They, like Alma Tadema, also employ coded imagery to convey meaning to their paintings.