Product Description

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912), was one of the finest and most distinctive of the Victorian painters. 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. In this original 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 elite. But above all she subjects the paintings to a fresh scrutiny, and reveals that Alma-Tadema, a knowledgeable student of antiquity, repeatedly used literary and archaeological allusions in his paintings to play a game of interpretation with his viewers. Time and again the seeming innocence of the scenes he depicts is subverted by a mischievously placed inscription or statue, suggesting to the initiated a darker and usually risque meaning. Neglected after his death, Alma-Tadema's paintings are once again admired for their beauty and their remarkable mastery of light, colour and texture. With its intriguing insights into his personality and intentions, this book should provide a challenging reassessment of a major artist.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75730 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780714843582
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Dr Rosemary Barrow is a Lecturer in Classics and Faculty of Arts Research Fellow at the University of Bristol. She completed her PhD thesis on Victorian classical-subject painting at King's College, London. She has lectured and published on Alma-Tadema and on Victorian classicism and is currently working on nineteenth-century constructions of decadence in the visual arts.

Customer Reviews

Perfect!
This is an excellent book - well-printed, with beautiful reproductions of Alma-Tadema's work, and well-written. Too often, art books lump Alma-Tadema generically with the pre-Raphaelites or shun him entirely (because his paintings catered to Victorian tastes). This book is almost, but not quite, too much of a good thing, with an in-depth view of Alma-Tadema's career, especially the mentors and travel experiences that shaped his style. Very early paintings and watercolor studies which I had never before seen are included, and I paticularly like the side-by-side presentation of watercolor studies with finished oils of the same scene. Alma-Tadema was a skilled artist whose lush, decorative style and atmospheric historical scenes prefigured the art of Maxfield Parrish. It's about time that a collection of this quality has become available.

A Flowing and Finely Tuned View of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Rosemary J. Barrow seems to be having a terrific time writing about the controversial painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Perhaps not as scholarly a tome as the one by Russell Ash, this beautiful volume is graced with the publisher's decision of pairing apposing images of both watercolor and oil painting forms of many of Alma-Tadema's works. The book is a successful pictorial essay.

But it is the well-groomed good humor that Barrow uses to relate the pictorial puns and innuendoes Alma-Tadema subtly adorned his mythology-influenced subjects that makes this volume sing. She has done her research so well that her writing is conversational, a fact that makes perusing this lovely volume even more of a joy. Though Alma-Tadema's works are usually reviewed with a degree of scorn by art historians, here the truly lovely paintings are displayed and discussed with utmost respect - and with the élan of descriptive terms that are as light and wispy as the flowing garments of the Romanesque players on the canvases of the fantasy-inspired painter. The color reproductions and the layout of the book are up to the usual high standards set by publisher Phaidon. This book is both a visual delight and a journey through Victoriana. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, October 05

Illustrations not good enough
I'd seen, downloaded, and printed many of Alma-Tadema's works full page in color from the artrenewal web site. I though they were beautiful. The colors and quality were good and the resolution high, but I really wanted a bound copy containing some of his works and this was the one I chose.

I was fairly disappointed. There are some good, clear, reproductions in the book to be sure but a number of them are so poor that it's not worth looking at them. What strikes me as odd is that these same works look good in my printouts and on the web. I can only conclude that some of the illustrations in the book were scanned from old print or negatives rather than being original for this book. That would be understandable if it weren't for the fact that better images are available on the web.