Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema

The Victorian painters are enjoying a posthumous comeback and one of the more famous of these elegant painters was Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema. Exceedingly popular in his time, the modern, reductionist movements of the post-Freud 20th Century brushed his work under the rug - except for those collectors and lovers of the human figure who refused to allow the body to be cubed, flattened, distorted, and abstracted. Now with the return of the appreciation of the human form Alma Tadema's paintings are enjoying a resurgence of popularity. Russell Ash certainly gives us reason to see why in this lavishly illustrated, beautiful book filled to overflowing with complete paintings and fragments or details of perfect ladies languishing in flora and classical vistas. Paintings that once were labeled as 'corny' are now being appreciated as suggestions of what made the Victorian Era unique. Ash writes well and thoughtfully minimizes written word space for the flow of the pictorial value of the book. This is simply a lovely volume honoring a misunderstood and in the past under appreciated artist. Grady Harp, August 05

This book is filled with full page reproductions of Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema's paintings. It also has an interesting bio with pictures of his home, studio, and himself. I've been looking everywhere for a great book on Alma Tadema and I believe this is the one. Besides reading about a painter's life, I think it is very important that we see color reproductions of the painter's work, and this book does it very well. I hate books with 4x4 black and white images of an artist's paintings, its useless. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book for lovers of Victorian art and Alma Tadema. I recently went to the Getty Museum and saw Alma Tadema's "Spring" and it looks exactly how it appears in the book. The full page color plates are exact reproductions of his paintings, unlike the newer book on Alma Tadema published by Phaidon whose reproductions have been altered and all appear saturated with blue hues. Anyways....GET THIS BOOK IF YOU CAN ONLY GET ONE BOOK ON ALMA TADEMA BECAUSE IT IS THE BEST!

So that you willunderstand my perspective, I am a professor and a painter mostly of large scale, representational figures, so I buy anything to do with artists who specialize in the figure. In Russel Ash's book, the reproductions were large and fairly clearly reproduced. I enjoy the art of the late 19th and early twentieth century and the detailed realism of Tadema's female figures was, though academic in development, fun to see. Of that era I prefer Waterhouse and others, whose sense of color and less passive work is more powerful and deep, but if you like figure paintings especially of "Victorians in toga's" as one critic of his day describes Alma-Tadema's work, then you will love the large format reproductions. The book is lavishly adorned with semi-nude, sleepy-eyed, languid, supple, neo-classical women and a few men, all painted in the always safe, pastellish colors of the time. The women are engaged in mostly pastoral time passing non-events. "The Roses of Heliogabllus", with it's profusion of rose petals was easily the most colorfully of the reproductions, and a large composition of "Joseph Overseer..." as the most powerful of his offerings. The bio of Alma-Tadema was interesting enough to make me want to know more. If you are an art lover, a collector of large format books of painters, even the 19th cnetury academic styles, this is a good one for you

Alma Tadema is not nearly as well-regarded as others who painted in the same era, but there is something about his work that is compelling. This book is nicely done and a real value.

The color plates included are of Tadema's most popular pieces. The size and brilliance of the plates in this book are beautifully presented. At this time, there isn't a better value available of this incredible artist's work.