Techniques of Master Famous Artists; Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

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Paintings Techniques of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Alma-Tadema produced over 400 paintings during his sixty productive years. His technical virtuosity increased year by year. His work underwent several dramatic changes of style and content. First, his move to the Egyptian themes of Pompeian and Roman settings after seeing the Elgin Marbles of London and the ancient Roman ruins of Italy and second, his move from dark gloomy interiors into dazzling brilliant light filled paintings.

The extraordinary luminosity of his paintings is even more remarkable when one notes he never used glazes or varnish. His technique depended on painting dark pigments on to a white canvas rather than the conventional technique of adding highlights to a dark background. His palette was like that of his contemporaries, the Impressionists, but in very few other aspects did he follow their techniques. He had many artist friends, also working and exhibiting in England, including Frank Millet, Edwin Austin Abbey and John Singer Sargent but he never conformed to their styles of painting.

Alma-Tadema was a consummate master of the chemistry of his paint, preparing his own paints. Lawrence practiced to perfection his techniques of conveying marble and roman ruins, recalling an early criticism from a teacher who remarked his marble "looked like cheese". He studied at every opportunity and had a vast collection of reference motifs. Tadema did not attempt to portray Greek legends, as other Pre-Raphaelites. He perceived his work to be frozen photographic moments in time.

Critics of the day complained of his extreme perfectionism, the loss of spontaneity and spiritual dimension in exchange for perfect details. Tadema was the first to admit, there was no social, moral or other deep meaning behind his works.

Alma-Tadema was widely read and held a substantial library of reference books, as well as, 167 massive albums of drawings, prints, and photographs, to which he would turn for precise visual information. He was so obsessed with details, he would calculate the number of spectators in a coliseum, the number hidden behind pillars and other objects, and then proceed to paint the exact number of people that could be shown.

In 1866, Tadema and his friend, a photographer J Dupont, with whom he had traded a painting, became involved in an innovation begun by photographing a painting in one of its later phases of execution. Alma-Tadema then relied on the photograph for the painting's tonal value, using it to make corrections in the oil. Dupont re-shot the picture in its second state. This process might be repeated several times before the completion of a painting. Alma-Tadema continued to use this method for the rest of his life.

Click "Tepidarium" detail to view

Alma also painted very small. Most people seeing his work for the first time are astonished at the small size and the intricate details he could achieve. He was proud of this fact, often handing a magnifying glass to patrons, so that the details of his work could be appreciated.

As with most perfectionists, he was never satisfied with his paintings and could tolerate no less than perfect. He repeatedly reworked his paintings, sometimes even after they were sold. Many of his early works, he hacked into smaller sections and made smaller paintings. One rejected painting even became a tablecloth.

Long after his death, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, the once criticized painter lacking emotional content, is now reveled as the epitome of the "High Victorian" painter.

Bibliography:
Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, Russell Ash, 1990
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Rosemary J. Barrow, 2003

Also see:
The Biography and Nude Paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

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