DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.69400#0053
HIS WORK
35
finished before he has put brush to canvas. It
is this gift which makes it unnecessary for him
to execute the usual amount of sketching, in-
deed, Tadema may be said not to sketch at all;
it is this that lends to his hand his rare security,
and this that helps towards his precision of
execution. Everything is clearly, sharply out-
lined in his art. His canvases show no quiet,
slumberous distances, no mysterious twilights of
life or nature. All is evident, all is distinct, all
sharply defined as in the meridional landscape
that he loves, and all this is rendered with that
accuracy, with those small touches of extreme
sharpness, which recall the precise methods of
his Dutch pictorial ancestors. These are merits,
but they are merits that also contain hidden
within their excellence the germs of what by
some may be considered as defects. There is
apt to be a lack of repose about a picture of
Alma Tadema’s, our eye is not necessarily led at
once to the central purpose of the work, each
action seems of equal importance, and is painted
in the same scheme of values.
As an example of Alma Tadema’s painstaking,
and of how he lets no trouble or expense stand
in the way of making his pictures just as perfect
as possible, it may be mentioned that during the
35
finished before he has put brush to canvas. It
is this gift which makes it unnecessary for him
to execute the usual amount of sketching, in-
deed, Tadema may be said not to sketch at all;
it is this that lends to his hand his rare security,
and this that helps towards his precision of
execution. Everything is clearly, sharply out-
lined in his art. His canvases show no quiet,
slumberous distances, no mysterious twilights of
life or nature. All is evident, all is distinct, all
sharply defined as in the meridional landscape
that he loves, and all this is rendered with that
accuracy, with those small touches of extreme
sharpness, which recall the precise methods of
his Dutch pictorial ancestors. These are merits,
but they are merits that also contain hidden
within their excellence the germs of what by
some may be considered as defects. There is
apt to be a lack of repose about a picture of
Alma Tadema’s, our eye is not necessarily led at
once to the central purpose of the work, each
action seems of equal importance, and is painted
in the same scheme of values.
As an example of Alma Tadema’s painstaking,
and of how he lets no trouble or expense stand
in the way of making his pictures just as perfect
as possible, it may be mentioned that during the