Alma Tadama had a flair for drama and composition, but he was also very concerned with historicity and verisimilitude. We're seeing above a very, very specific scene--not one recorded (afaik), but one that probably happened, and that we could date to within a month. (4/)
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Alma Tadama had, as I recall, a huge library of photographs of archeological stuff he drew from for his paintings. Note also that the Parthenon frieze is painted, which was a new, and controversial, piece of information at the time. (5/)
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Given his intentions, then--to create a dramatic but realistic scene depicting classical moments as they might have actually appeared--if he had somehow accidentally painted a modern cello into a painting, it would be a terrible error and weakness. (6/)
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The Moore looks superficially similar, but is just not concerned with any of this. If Alma Tadema paints a toga, he's saying something about a time, style of dress, and social class of the wearer; if Moore paints a toga, he is trying his best to take us to no-time, no-place (7/)pic.twitter.com/7XiSvEOXw4
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He was an aesthetic painter, for one, and his work is in a sense abstract--concerned with color, pattern, and rhythm rather than narrative or historicity. (8/)
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But more, and what I like so much about this painting, is that it's an ekphrastic piece. His spacing of figures & still life elements, and their repetition--the instruments, and the fact one musician appears to be cloned--is intended to itself suggest the elements of music. (9/)
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(Actually, looking again, there are two pairs of clonal musicians. That's not because he was short on individual models, I promise you) (10/)
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Anyway, my thesis: The anachronistic stringed instruments are legitimately funny/ridiculous, if we think of this as a literal scene, but if we're actually evaluating the piece, it should be done as: A ) decorative painting, and B ) an attempt to emulate music in painting (11/11)
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Replying to @MorlockP
You're welcome! Still doing my keytar painting though.
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