67 LAWRENCE ALMA Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema was one of the most popular and successful painters of his TADEMA time. Although his reputation has suffered as a result of the change in taste that favored Dutch/English, 1836­1912 Courbet and, later, the Impressionists (see nos. 53­55 and 57—60), his work still holds Spring, 1894 a fascination for us because of its extraordinarily meticulous technique. Oil on canvas The artist's style had its origins in seventeenth­century Dutch painting of everyday 178.4 x 80 cm (70½ x 3I½ in.) scenes, but the bulk of his work was dedicated to Greek or Roman subjects. Rather At bottom left, signed L. ALMA TADEMA OP CCCXXVI than the heroic or literary, however, the themes of his paintings are usually simple 72.PA.3 ones—to the modern eye even banal at times—chosen to represent daily existence in pre­Christian times. They also reflect Victorian sensibilities regarding social behavior. In the midst of the enormous economic upheaval and social discord the Industrial Revolution had brought to England, a segment of the upper class, to which Alma Tadema belonged, continued to look back to the classical past as a simpler, idealized time. His was probably the last generation to do so with such unequivocal admiration. The Museum's painting is one of Alma Tadema's largest. He is known to have spent four years working on it, finishing in 1894, in time for the winter 1895 exhibition at the Royal Academy. Depicted is the Roman festival of Cerealia, which was dedicated to Ceres, the corn goddess. Although the edifice represented is essentially a product of the artist's imagination, he has incorporated portions of extant Roman buildings, and the inscriptions and reliefs can be traced to antique sources, reflecting the artist's profound interest in classical civilization and architectural detail. The painting still bears its original frame, inscribed with a poem by Alma Tadema's friend Algernon Charles Swinburne; it reveals a particularly idyllic view of Rome: "In a land of clear colours and stories/In a region of shadowless hours/Where the earth has a garment of glories/ And a murmur of musical flowers." Spring was an enormous popular success, and its fame spread to a wide audience via many commercial prints and reproductions. BF OTHER SCHOOLS 125