Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema

by Helen Zimmern

From the very first his favourite plaything was a pencil and paper; he drew as by instinct. A family tradition survives to the effect that before he was five years old, Laurens had corrected an error in a drawing-master's design. Nature herself, therefore, seems to have pointed out his future career. But so the mother and guardians did not think. Art was regarded in those days as a profession which savoured of a discreditable character, and certainly not as one that could be rendered lucrative. It was therefore resolved that Laurens should follow in his father's footsteps.

This choice he found irksome to the last degree, and irksome, too, were the preliminary steps. For the dead languages he had no taste, for all dry-bone studies he had little use. His spare hours, and often his lesson hours too, were spent in drawing, and many a time he would have himself awakened before daybreak in order that he might devote the hours before school time to working at his favourite pastime. He had no masters and little encouragement, nevertheless he plodded on, and with such good results that already, in 1851, he was able to exhibit in a Dutch gallery a portrait he had painted of his sister, a work that even in its immaturity betrays some of the qualities that distinguish his later and greater efforts in this department.

But the dual effort imposed on this young soul by the fight between duty and inclination was too heavy a physical burden for the juvenile shoulders to bear. A collapse of health occurred just as Laurens was growing up, and so serious did it seem that the doctors told the mother and guardians how, seeing the young man was not long for this world, it seemed needless to mar his few remaining months of existence by forcing him to continue his hated legal studies. For this short period at least he might be allowed to be happy following his bent. But what was the surprise of doctors and guardians when Laurens, as soon as the heavy strain was removed, recovered as though by magic, and rapidly became the sturdy, robust man he has remained all his life.

It was now at last evident to those in authority that Tadema was a genius whose advance must not be thwarted or coerced; art, therefore, was reluctantly acknowledged to be his proper profession, and to prepare himself for this he sought admission to an art academy.

Strange, nay almost incredible though it sounds, he could gain no admission to those of his native land. Antwerp, at that time a noted artistic centre, proved more discerning and less inhospitable. It chanced that Tadema entered at a moment when the rival claims of French pseudo-classicism and Belgian naturalism were dividing the Academy into factions.

The one, the Pseudo-classic, was headed by Louis David, who at that time was living in Antwerp in exile. The other, called the Belgian-Flemish School, aimed at reviving the ancient local art of the Low Countries. Alma Tadema was not made of the stuff to become a pseudo-classic or a pseudo anything. It was, therefore, quite natural that the young student ranged himself at once with those who sought to revive the best traditions of the Dutch and Flemish schools. This native section was led by Wappers, and Tadema soon became one of his most enthusiastic partisans.

A friend who knew him in those days has said, "Tadema did not work at Antwerp, he slaved in his efforts to make up for all the precious time that had been lost." Of his early efforts, however, none have survived. Tadema has no severer critic than Tadema himself, and to this day he will not allow a picture to leave his studio until he has made it as perfect as he knows how, so that he mercilessly destroyed all his tentative canvases that could not yet reproduce the perfected ideals of the master. Even in those early days the subjects belonged either to history proper or that ancient history which is half enveloped in myth.

It was about this time that Tadema added the prefix Alma to the paternal surname. Alma was the name of his godfather, and such a proceeding was, it seems, not unusual in Holland. Tadema's reason for taking this step was that in this wise his name in artistic catalogues was ranged among the A's instead of further down among the T's. Undoubtedly such apparent trifles do prove of consequence in helping or hindering a career.

From the Academy of Antwerp Alma Tadema passed into the studio of Hendrick van Leys, the great Belgian archæologist and historical painter; his teaching, coming at the moment it did, proved of great value to Alma Tadema. Van Leys was just then busy decorating the Grand Town Hall of Antwerp with frescoes. In this work Alma Tadema was allowed to assist the master, and while so doing the young artist gained knowledge that proved of immense importance to his own after career. To van Leys' influence he owes his own historical accuracy and his attention to detail even the most minute. It also helped him to see objects truthfully and, what is equally important, to see them in mass. It is true that for a time van Leys' example was somewhat pernicious, since some of Alma Tadema's works of the period are visibly influenced by his master's dryness and harshness of execution. But the young man's own native bias toward rich and full colour was too strong for any influence long to repress the remarkable and idiosyncratic capacity that throbbed within him and was yearning to find full expression.

The subjects treated by van Leys in the Antwerp Guildhall were all taken from the history of the Low Countries. It was thus that Alma Tadema became acquainted with their early annals by which his own first pictures were inspired.