“The Flower Market” (also known as “A Roman Flower Market in Pompeii”), 1868, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Oil on panel; 16.6 inches by 22.8 inches. Manchester Art Gallery. (Public Domain)
Like a bulldozer, industrialization plowed into Victorian England in the 19th century. Along with its positive impacts, such as rising incomes for some, new consumer goods for those who could afford them, and automated services for the rich, there were drawbacks.
The Industrial Revolution changed the way Victorian society lived and worked as people moved from pastoral settings to overcrowded cities. Charles Dickens and others wrote about the downside. To make a living and feed their families, people who farmed or ran their own shops were forced to work in factories. They were asked to accept great change. This was Victorian England’s version of the “new normal.”
“A Sculpture Gallery,”1874, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Oil on canvas; 86.5 inches by 67.5 inches. Hood Museum of Art–Dartmouth College. (Public Domain)
Many in Victorian society yearned for a return to a simpler way of life. A Dutch painter arrived in England around 1870 who imagined an ancient culture that gave just that. With a mastery of carefully researched details and scenes of what life might have been like millennia ago, Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) showed daily life during the Roman Empire that Victorian England could relate to.
Roman Life
The artist understood that people need to satisfy basic physical needs, but he was also aware that people needed more for a happy life. He painted people in communities who moved about freely, enjoying the pleasures of daily life. He painted scenes of people interacting socially and culturally. He made paintings of people working in the arts, such as painters, sculptors, and poets, as well as people who supported and appreciated them.
Instead of a worker maintaining a printing press, his piece “A Roman Scribe Writing Dispatches” shows the importance of the skill of writing. Writers were important to society, even those who could only transcribe or write what they were told to write. The scribe was the pipeline between thought and speech, between the one who hired the scribe and those who read what the scribe had written.
A factory worker in the Victorian era would labor for hours and then return to crowded quarters to sleep, only to begin the same grind the next day. “The Discourse,” on the other hand, depicts a scene showing how Romans may have used the hours in their day. In a comfortable domestic setting, two men discuss some important topic of the day. They sit forward, giving their full attention to each other, their minds actively involved in working out a problem. They appear healthy, rested, and well-dressed. Their time is their own. An exchange of ideas is happening and this is what makes the scene vibrant and alive.
“The Discourse” (also known as “A Chat”), 1865, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Oil on panel. Private Collection. (Public Domain)
Alma-Tadema’s painting “The Sculptor” shows a sculptor chiseling a monument. With his own hands, he is able to create a work of art that is greater than himself. Each day for a sculptor is different, unlike the days wherein a Victorian worker does the same work for hours on end. Each stroke of his tool puts his imprint on the sculpture. Factory workers do not experience the satisfaction of adding a piece to a day’s worth of many finished products, but the painting shows the sculptor and his assistants working together to make something that they and the public can see when finished.
The 19th century changed the position of women in society. Factory owners wanted to hire women for their perceived dexterity and willingness to work for less money. But Alma-Tadema presented scenes of women given respect and honor in society. “Boating” shows a man ready to assist his lady into a boat for a ride. He brings his boat to the edge, waiting for her to descend. Victorians could see a culture in this painting that honored and protected women rather than profited from them.
“Boating” (also known as “The Embarkation”), 1868, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Oil on canvas; 32.5 inches by 22.2 inches. The Mesdag Collection, Netherlands, The Hague. (Public Domain)
“The Flower Market” shows a shopkeeper open for business. This contrasts with a flower girl of the Victorian era, like a fictional Eliza Doolittle, pressing people to buy a clump of flowers from her basket. The shopkeeper beams as shop visitors admire his rich assortment of plants. The sun shines in the open area. The environment in this Roman community is clean, sunny, warm, and welcoming—a big difference from the dreary English city where the flower girl sells her small blooms.
‘Marbellous Artist’
In his paintings, Alma-Tadema presented Romans in light-filled structures of marble and stone. At an early age, he apprenticed to a former instructor at the Royal Academy of Antwerp (Belgium), Louis Jan de Taeye, who trained him in historical accuracy in painting on hard substances. The artist then worked with a highly regarded Belgian painter, Baron Jan August Hendrik Leys, who encouraged him to master the painting of marble and granite.
“Interior of Caius Martius House," 1901, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Watercolor with pencil and bodycolor on paper; 14.4 inches by 19.8 inches. Private Collection (Public Domain)
The publication Punch called Alma-Tadema a “marbellous artist” for his mastery of painting marble. The “Interior of Caius Martius House” gives a wonderful insight into the look of marble and how it was used in a Roman house. The hard surfaces used for dwellings were marked by exactness and a smooth finish.
Movie makers in the early 20th century also noticed. Directors and set designers looked to Alma-Tadema’s paintings for source material in constructing the sets for “Ben-Hur” (1925), Cleopatra” (1934), and most notably of all, Cecil B. DeMille’s epic remake of “The Ten Commandments” (1956). Two modern blockbusters show the influence of his architectural accuracy: “Gladiator” (2000) and 2005’s “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (in the set design of Cair Paravel castle).
The Roman society of Alma-Tadema’s paintings did not rely on the fortunes of factories, much less on computers or smartphones. His Romans enjoyed the good life. Their homes were great places to live. Worthington Galleries’ website states that Alma-Tadema “imagined a Rome of splendor, sunlight, and gentle sentiment.”
Victorians loved how Alma-Tadema brought them a time when people lived free of poverty and want. His paintings were hugely popular and made him a wealthy man.
”Self-Portrait of Lawrence Alma-Tadema, RA,” 1896, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy. (Public Domain)
With a gentle sweep of his brush, Lawrence Alma-Tadema scraped away the dirt and cleared the smog of the Industrial Revolution to show Victorians, and us, what life could have been like in the “old normal” of ancient Rome.
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