Identifier: sirlawrencealmat00stan (find matches)
Title: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A.
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Standing, Percy Cross, 1870-1931
Subjects: Alma-Tadema, Lawrence, 1836-1912
Publisher: London, Paris, New York, Melbourne, Cassell and Company, limited
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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s in twilight. ... I dont know if yousaw the collection of them last year at theGrosvenor, but with that universal twilightthere was also universal crouching or lollingposture, either in fear or laziness. And themost gloomy, the most crouching, the mostdastardly of all these representations of classiclife was the little picture called the ( PyrrhicDance/ of which the general effect was exactlylike a microscopic view of a small detachmentof blackbeetles in search of a dead rat. . . .Since the day of the opening of the greatManchester Exhibition in 1851, every English-man desiring to express interest in the artsconsiders it his duty to assert with Keats thata thing of beauty is a joy for ever. I do notknow in what sense the saying was understoodby the Manchester school. A beautiful thingmay exist but for a moment as a reality ; itexists for ever as a testimony. Side by side with Ruskins harsh judgmentwe will place a German estimate. According tothe author of Modern Painting, Alma-Tadema
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THE CRITICS. 85 stands to this grave academic group(Leighton, Poynter, Val Prinsep) as Gerometo Couture. As Bulwer Lytton in the field ofliterature created a picture of ancient civilisationso successful that it has not been surpassedby his followers, Alma-Tadema has solved theproblem of the picture of antique manners inthe most authentic fashion in the province ofpainting. He has peopled the past, rebuilt itstowns, and refurnished its houses, rekindled theflame upon its sacrificial altars, and awakenedthe echo of the dithyrambs to new life. Poyntertells old fables, while Alma-Tadema takes usin his company, and, like the best informedcicerone, leads us through the streets of oldAthens, reconstructing the temples, altars, anddwellings, the shops of the butchers, bakers,and fishmongers, just as they once were. . . .By his works a remarkable problem is solved ;an intense feeling for modern reality has calledthe ancient world into being in a crediblefashion, whilst it has remained barricad

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