Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema - The women of Amphissa


Alma-Tadema's principal entry at the 1887 Summer Exhibition

5 comments:

Hels said...

Women of Amphissa is lush and complex, even by Alma-Tadema's normal standards: marble veranda, filled with languid women, cascading flowers etc etc. It reminds me most of The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888).

Two questions. Do you know when Women of Amphissa was painted? And it looks like the women had had a hard night on the town (too much booze or men). Who would have commissioned or bought such a theme?

Hels
Art and Architecture, mainly

Hels said...

"The festival known to modern scholars as the Oreibasia" ... "and exhausted by their frenzy, fell asleep in the marketplace.." I wonder what the good visitors to the Sterling and Francine Clark Museum in Williamstown made of their frenzy.

Thanks for your response Phillip. You have to love Alma-Tadema's draftsmanship and colours! I just wish we had festivals like that in my city :)

Hermes said...

Being a veggie I might skip the tearing a wild animal apart though!!

Anonymous said...

we just saw the painting at the Clark yesterday and thoght it was beautiful. I just had to look up the meaning behind it- fascinating, It must have been quite a party - I would have loved to have been invited. Linda

Hermes said...

Its a beautiful painting and I envy you seeing the original. The actual ceremony was a mid-winter event, but perhaps it is warmer in Greece or the artist was emloying a bit of artistic license.