DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.69400#0052
34
ALMA TADEMA
distinctive, but which each in their kind was a
perfect gem of technique of radiant tints. And
after all, why need a picture have a name, d tout
prix! Whistler was not so wrong when he labelled
some of his works as “ Symphonies ” and “ Har-
monies ” of colour. Such titles would best de-
scribe many of Alma Tadema’s smaller colour
creations.
And now, his own line fully found, Tadema
worked on steadily, without haste or pause. In
a milieu far distant indeed from the scene of
their creation, a London atmosphere, a Lon-
don sky, he caused to live again for a while in
effigy the men and maidens of Magna Graecia, of
Rome, of Parthenope, and above all of Sicily, for
Tadema’s out-door scenes are too southern in
feeling and in tone even for the furthest shores
of the Peninsula, and belong by rights to the
Syren isle. Here alone are found the unclouded
sapphire skies, the seas sun-bathed and inno-
cent of angry waves, the luxuriant vegetation,
the mad wealth of roses that seem to spring by
magic from Tadema’s brush, and are the outcome
of his fervid imagination that can behold these
things with his mental vision while fog and grim
winter are raging outside. It is one of Tadema’s
rare and precious gifts that he can see his picture
ALMA TADEMA
distinctive, but which each in their kind was a
perfect gem of technique of radiant tints. And
after all, why need a picture have a name, d tout
prix! Whistler was not so wrong when he labelled
some of his works as “ Symphonies ” and “ Har-
monies ” of colour. Such titles would best de-
scribe many of Alma Tadema’s smaller colour
creations.
And now, his own line fully found, Tadema
worked on steadily, without haste or pause. In
a milieu far distant indeed from the scene of
their creation, a London atmosphere, a Lon-
don sky, he caused to live again for a while in
effigy the men and maidens of Magna Graecia, of
Rome, of Parthenope, and above all of Sicily, for
Tadema’s out-door scenes are too southern in
feeling and in tone even for the furthest shores
of the Peninsula, and belong by rights to the
Syren isle. Here alone are found the unclouded
sapphire skies, the seas sun-bathed and inno-
cent of angry waves, the luxuriant vegetation,
the mad wealth of roses that seem to spring by
magic from Tadema’s brush, and are the outcome
of his fervid imagination that can behold these
things with his mental vision while fog and grim
winter are raging outside. It is one of Tadema’s
rare and precious gifts that he can see his picture