Second and final part to commemorate his death a century ago, with several of his finest paintings.
Leighton
Exploring different verbal and visual accounts of the story of the murder of Astyanax during the fall of Troy.
There’s a lot more to this painting than first meets the eye: a bit of Brueghel, some Leighton, and even some Signorelli.
A woman artist painting nudes? Better than her husband? Keeping her maiden name too? She changed a lot of attitudes in her career as a painter.
Beautiful paintings, devoid of narrative, symbols, or meaning. They represent the height of the Aesthetic movement: ‘pure’ art.
After a brush with almost Impressionist landscapes, did he settle down and paint Rome and Greece purely for the sake of art?
After his reputation was shredded by Roger Fry, Alma-Tadema was almost forgotten. Why should his work now be revived?
His classical narratives are as sophisticated as Leighton’s, his spectacles as good as Gérôme at his best, and he made some of the best paintings of the Aesthetic movement.
Reviled through the twentieth century, in his day he was one of the most eminent British artists. Is he due a revival?
His later paintings became weaker in narrative to the point where some seemed almost trite. What was he up to?
