Sir lawrence alma-tadema biography of albert einstein

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 Heliogabalus , the painting depicts the emperor suffocating his guests at an orgy under a cascade of rose petals.

The blossoms depicted were sent weekly to the artist's London studio from the French Riviera for four months during the winter of — Although Alma-Tadema's fame rests on his paintings set in antiquity, he also painted portraits, landscapes and watercolours, and made some etchings himself. Many more were made of his paintings by others. 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 warm personality. 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.

He has been said to have had most of the characteristics of a child, coupled with the 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 nineteenth century. Alma-Tadema was as firm in money matters as he was with the quality of his work.

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 Nevertheless, he continued to exhibit throughout the s and s, receiving accolades including the medal of Honour at the Paris Exposition Universelle of , election to an honorary membership of the Oxford University Dramatic Society in , and the Great Gold Medal at the International Exposition in Brussels of In he was knighted in England, only the eighth artist from the Continent to receive this honour.

He assisted with organizing the British section at the Exposition Universelle in Paris , as well as exhibiting two works that earned him the Grand Prix Diploma. He also assisted with the St. Louis World's Fair of , where he was well received. During this time, Alma-Tadema was very active with theatre design and production, designing many costumes.

He also began to design furniture, often modelled after Pompeian or Egyptian motifs, as well as illustrations, textiles, and picture frames. In late he visited Egypt. Through his last period of creativity Alma-Tadema continued to produce paintings which repeated the successful formula of women on marble terraces overlooking the sea such as in Silver Favourites On 15 August Alma-Tadema's wife, Laura, died at the age of fifty-seven.

The grief-stricken widower outlived his second wife by less than three years. His last major composition was Preparation in the Coliseum He was buried in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral in London. In , a blue plaque was unveiled in his honour. Alma-Tadema's works are remarkable for their depiction of flowers, textures and hard reflecting substances like metals, pottery, and especially marble leading to the nickname 'marbellous painter'.

His work shows much of the fine execution and brilliant colour of the old Dutch masters. From early in his career, Alma-Tadema was particularly concerned with architectural accuracy, [ 35 ] often painting objects from museums, such as the British Museum in London. He also took many images from books and amassed an enormous number of photographs from ancient sites in Italy, which he used to achieve the most precise detail in his painting.

Alma-Tadema was a perfectionist, repeatedly reworking parts of paintings until he found them satisfactory. One story relates that after one of his paintings was rejected, he gave the canvas to a maid for a table cover. He was sensitive to every detail and architectural line in his settings. He would often paint from life, using fresh flowers from across Europe and even Africa , rushing to paint the flowers before they withered.

His commitment to veracity earned him recognition, but also led some critics to accuse him of pedantry. Alma-Tadema's work has been linked with that of European Symbolist painters. Like Alma-Tadema, they also employ coded imagery to suggest hidden meanings. Alma-Tadema was one of the most popular painters of the Victorian era, [ 39 ] and among the most financially successful, though never matching Edwin Henry Landseer.

For over sixty years, he gave his audience exactly what they wanted: distinctive, elaborate paintings of beautiful people in classical settings. His detailed reconstructions of ancient Rome, with languid men and women posed against white marble in dazzling sunlight, provided his audience with a glimpse of an exotic world of titillating luxury and intimate drama.

As with other painters, the reproduction rights for prints were often worth more than the canvas. As the taste of the public and the artistic elite turned to twentieth-century modernism , it became fashionable to denouce his style. John Ruskin declared him "the worst painter of the 19th century", and one critic considered his paintings "about worthy enough to adorn bourbon boxes".

After this brief period of condemnation, he was consigned to obscurity for the next half century. Only since the s has Alma-Tadema's work been rediscovered for its historical importance in the evolution of English art. He is now regarded by art historians as one of the principal classical-subject painters of the nineteenth century, whose works demonstrate the care and exactitude of an era mesmerised by trying to visualise the past, some of which was being recovered through archaeological research.

Alma-Tadema's influence extended beyond painting, impacting the visual aesthetics of early 20th-century cinema. Log in. Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema Dutch-British, — was born in Dronrijp, Netherlands, and died in Wiesbaden, Germany, renowned for his detailed depictions of classical antiquity. Whilst in Italy Lourens Tadema visited a number of times, and was fascinated by the newly excavated ruins of Pompeii, and kept a photographic record of these visits.

On returning from Italy the young couple moved to Paris, where Tadema met the celebrated art dealer Gambert, who quickly realised the potential of his young Dutch friend. At around this time the painter produced a number of pictures featuring his charming young French wife as a model. Lourens and Pauline had three children, a son who died in infancy, and two daughters, Lourens, and Anna, who was herself to become a highly talented, and sadly undervalued watercolourist.

In the unfortunate Pauline died. This was followed by a move to London in , probably motivated by the political instability on the Continent as well as progressing his career. In London Lourens took pupils whist he established himself, and in he married his seventeen year old pupil Laura Epps, daughter of a prosperous doctor who was also an international merchant.

This second marriage was enduring and happy, though childless, and Laura became stepmother to Anna and Laurens, fairly successfully as far as I am able to establish. Laura was herself an artist of talent, she was an intelligent woman, and her work was not derivative of that of her husband. Around this time Lourens Tadema became Lawrence Alma-Tadema, a change which shrewdly moved his name forward in catalogues and exhibitions.

He also became a naturalised British Subject. The artist started to become both commercially and critically successful, with John Ruskin one of the few dissenters. The Tademas also became well known on the social circuit, shrewdly associating with the wealthy upper middle class society from which his major clients were drawn. The Tademas loved music, which was a part of these evenings, and among the guests were Paderwski and Tchaikovsky.

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 thirty-four and Laura was now only eighteen, 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 Laura, under her married name, also won a high reputation as an artist, and appears in numerous of Alma-Tadema's canvases after their marriage The Women of Amphissa being a notable example. This second marriage was enduring and happy, though childless, and Laura became stepmother to Anna and Laurence. After his arrival in England, where he was to spend the rest of his life, Alma-Tadema'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 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.

Sir lawrence alma-tadema biography of albert einstein

In Alma-Tadema organized his paintings into an identification system by including an opus number under his signature and assigning his earlier pictures numbers as well. Such a system would make it difficult for fakes to be passed off as originals. In Alma-Tadema became the last denizen, with limited rights short of citizenship. 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 , he rented a studio in Rome. The family returned to London in April, visiting the Parisian Salon on their way back.

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-Tadema simply turned the emperor around to show him leaving in After the Audience. On June 19, , Alma-Tadema was made a full Academician, his most personally important award.

Three years later a major retrospective of his entire oeuvre was organized at the Grosvenor Gallery in London, including of his pictures. Alma-Tadema's female figures have a slightly bored pleasure seeking attitude, as if they were pampered courtesans.. There is little action in Alma-Tadema's paintings, here the two women are just probably waiting for a lover.

The composition is balanced by the flowers in bloom. In he returned to Rome and, 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.