Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema was a 19th century painter in the Academic style. He was born in the Netherlands and moved to England, where he was eventually knighted. He painted luxuriously beautiful scenes of romanticized classical civilizations and medieval France.
Often disparaged as a painter of “mere eye-candy”, and completely disrespected by the modern art establishment, he is finally regaining some of the attention he once commanded. If, like me, you remove the “mere” from that phrase, you can appreciate his work as eye candy indeed. His excellent draughtsmanship, attention to detail, lush color and masterful handling of the textures of clothing, skin, tapestries, stone and above all, marble, make his work a tasty visual treat.
The link here is to the Alma-Tadema galleries on the amazing Art Renewal Center site, which I wrote about back in August. The ARC also includes an extensive biography. The best thing, though, is that they provide wonderful high-resolution images of his paintings, so you can get a nice big handful of that yummy eye-candy. There are also some excellent books of his work.
