Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema

by Helen Zimmern

In this picture of the last, worst plague of Egypt, we find pathos, despair, and that silent grief which "whispers to the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break."

We enter a great Egyptian temple where darkness and gloom, oppressive in their intensity, are only relieved by the gleam of moonlight seen through a distant doorway, and by a single lamp which makes the surrounding shadows more deep. In the foreground is a pillar with hieroglyphics inscribed upon it, its capital lost in the darkness gives a strange sense of awe, but the pervading influence, the power of the scene, is the apprehension of death which seems to rest over the mighty columns, which fills the great temple, which bows to the earth Pharaoh himself, for it is his first-born who lies dead before him. Priests and musicians are gathered round lamps standing on the floor. The priests are chanting their prayers, and the musicians are touching strange-looking instruments. The entire effect is gloomy and awe-inspiring in the extreme. The colouring is sombre with its inimitable use of greens and browns. The surroundings fitly prepare us for the central group of four persons who cluster round the figure of the desolate king. It is one of the extraordinary effects of this picture that the accessories strike the observer first, and in their mournful disposition prepare him for the chief interest, although both spiritually and actually, Pharaoh and his attendants hold the centre of the canvas. The king sits upon a low stool, and across his knees lies the slender body of his first-born. The dead face of the almost nude youth is indescribably sweet, and around his neck hangs limply a strangely-fashioned golden chain, probably bearing some amulet to shield the king's son from harm. The king, upon whose figure the light falls, wears his crown, the brilliant jewels of which seem to mock his helpless grief. He sits rigid, immovable, the strong, proud man will make no sign, but there is one feature which even his powerful will cannot control, his mouth trembles ever so slightly, so faintly that at first it is not distinguishable. But what grief it expresses, this faint indistinctness of outline! This figure might be taken as the embodiment of grief, grief fixed and immutable, and like all true emotion, truly expressed, with not a hint of morbidness. The mother sits near, bowed to the earth in her sorrow. She, too, has striven to be strong, and even in this outburst of despair, shows self-restraint. At the other side of Pharaoh sits the physician whose powers have been useless in this combat. Outside the temple door two figures approach. They are Moses and Aaron coming to behold their work.

This is a truly marvellous picture, and it is not strange that Alma Tadema retains it in his own hands. It is so true, so complex, so alive, that at every view, with every changing light it reveals new features, new aspects of sorrow, and yet with its profundity of sorrow it is not too tragic to live with. It is so true, so human, so beautiful, and so deep, that it does not repel. About Alma Tadema's art there is nothing false or strained; he is always healthy, there is in his nature no strain of morbidness, and hence whatever he paints appeals direct to the truest feelings, whether he paints the glad, sensuous world of the ancients, or the tragedies which befell them, there is never in his work the sickly introspection, the hyper-analysis of modern days. Just as in his Tarquinius and Emperor, Alma Tadema proved that he could express tragedy, so here he has shown conclusively that he can express pathos and that he is possessed of a deep imagination, which, unfortunately, he puts forth all too rarely. Had Alma Tadema created but this one superb work he would be among the greatest artists of our time.

This Death of the First-born is a true representation of Egyptian life, and, as if to prove how accurate are the artist's instincts, it is noteworthy that he placed at the feet of the dead a wreath of flowers which strikingly resembles a like garland, found ten years after the picture was painted, in the royal tombs of Deir el Bahari.

Meantime however, as we have said, he had begun to paint genre pictures of Greek and Roman life, and so numerous are these, so rapidly did he produce them, that it is impossible in our limited space to enumerate even the most important. We have chosen a few at random, taking care however to select from among the most noteworthy. One of his finest early Roman pictures is, beyond question, the Tarquinius Superbus, in which Tadema has shown what tragic power he could wield when he wished. But his general inclination leads him to let us see his men and women merely as they present their outward faces. He cares not to look beyond, to apprehend the informing intention, the psychic force of his creations.

This idiosyncrasy is based on the artist's character which is singularly direct, and to which introspection and analytic research is distasteful. Of quite a different character is the Pyrrhic Dance, a wonderful tour de force. We are made to feel that these Dorian fighters, executing a war-dance, are heavily armed, and that it is only their skill and agility which makes their choregraphic evolutions appear light under such heavily handicapped conditions. Indeed, as we know from history, but few could execute with grace and skill this "mimic warrior armour game" as Plato calls it, it might so easily become ridiculous and it is not the least of Tadema's merits in this canvas that he has treated it without the least touch of exaggeration, and with a gravity and dignity that are truly admirable.

The Vintage, painted just before Tadema's removal to England, is in some respects one of his most important and most characteristic works. It has been objected that Alma Tadema is essentially a painter of repose. To this picture as well as to the Pyrrhic Dance this criticism cannot be applied. The first thing that strikes us as we look at the work is the sense of motion and music which it imparts. Another of the objections sometimes made to Alma Tadema's work is that his men and women, but more especially his women, are not in accordance with usually recognized classical standards. His favourite types are rather of the heavy build that would be connected more readily with Holland than with Rome, though in some of the portrait busts of empresses preserved in the Vatican, and other sculpture galleries, we see frequent precedents for this preference, a preference that became more and more emphasized after the artist's removal to England. In learning, in technical excellence, in the remarkable finish of all the multitudinous details, the work is admirable. Here, too, he has not permitted the details to distract our attention from the main intention of the picture; we think first and last of the procession and put the accessories, correct and wonderfully painted though they are, into their proper artistic place. Alma Tadema's pictures may at times seem to proclaim too loudly the equality of all visible things, and this equal attention to each object sometimes prevents the concentration of our attention upon the central point of interest. It is this peculiarity which led Ruskin to make his savage and most unfair onslaught upon the painter in his Academy Notes of 1875.

The Sculpture Gallery, a newer and more skilful version of a previous picture on the same theme, painted in 1864, furnished the tag upon which Ruskin hung his attack. This later Sculpture Gallery was the companion to the Picture Gallery exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874, which was again a sort of extension of an earlier work called the Roman Amateur. In the atrium of a Roman house, a fat swarthy Roman, a man of little distinction, no doubt a nouveau riche of his period, exhibits to his visitors a silver statue. There is an impressive pomposity about his manner, as though he were dilating upon the statue's intrinsic metallic worth rather than upon its artistic merits, and his guests seem to be on the level of his own artistic tastes.

In the two versions of the Sculpture Gallery this idea is extended. In the first version the famous Lateran statue of Sophocles was introduced, and indeed forms the central point of interest. Around it are grouped three Romans, one woman and two men, evidently eagerly discussing its artistic merits. All Tadema's fine draughtsmanship, all his unique skill in the painting of lucent surfaces is here to the fore.

The second Sculpture Gallery was yet more elaborate in design and purpose. The work of art exhibited in this instance is placed within a back shop of the epoch, the front towards the streets being reserved for smaller and less important objects. A company of rich amateurs has evidently sauntered in to behold the latest acquisitions of the dealer. A colossal vase, poised upon a revolving pedestal, is especially claiming their attention. A slave slowly turns it round that they may view it in every light. We know him to be a slave by the crescent-shaped token he wears suspended from his neck. The effect of in-door and out-door illumination, and of reflected light from the shimmering surfaces of the objects in the shop is rendered with scientific accuracy and rare technical ability. Full of ingenious and most difficult light effects, too, is the Picture Gallery, in which we see a crowd of noble Roman dames and knights admiring the triptychs of the period wherewith the walls are hung and the easels loaded.