What is true and what is fiction in the most famous painting by Alma-Tadema "The Flood in Biesbosch in 1421"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Almost every famous piece of art has a mystery, a unique story that we want to uncover. Even the masterpieces that everyone knows about have their secrets. Alma-Tadema's painting has its own legend. Is it true that this strange and slightly frightening work of the master is just an illustration of a legend?

About the artist

Lawrence Alma-Tadema is one of the most famous artists of the late 19th century in Great Britain. He was born in the Netherlands into the family of a city notary. Tadema is an old Frisian surname meaning "Son of Adam." The names Lawrence and Alma were given by his godfathers. When he first began his journey into the art world, he decided to change the spelling of his name to the more English "Lawrence" and included the middle name "Alma" in part of his last name (to be the first (A) in the list of exhibition catalogs).

Parents wanted to see Alma-Tadema as a lawyer, and at the same time he took drawing lessons from a local artist in Leeuwarden. At the age of 15 he was diagnosed with consumption, which was fatal at that time. And, since the doctors gave him little time, Alma-Tadema could do any business solely for the soul and joy. And art has become such a thing. Expecting death, he studied painting even more intensively, his mother even had to agree with his desire to become an artist. Surprisingly, Lawrence managed to recover his health, and in 1852 he entered the Royal Academy of Antwerp, where he studied for four years. His main mentor was Egidius Wappers, one of the founders of the Belgian school of painting. His first iconic work, Faust and Margaret, was exhibited in 1858. She literally gave the artist fame and became sensational in the art world. By 1862, he had founded his own studio to pursue his artistic career.

Alma-Tadema spent his entire mature life traveling around Europe, enjoying the inexhaustible success of his paintings. A perfectionist and obsessed hard worker, he created a new numbering technique that prevented counterfeiters from using other people's canvases and passing them off as their own. In subsequent years, he continued to achieve success, eventually becoming one of the richest artists of the 19th century. In 1899, Alma-Tadema was knighted in England. He died in Germany at the age of 76.

Flood of 1421

On November 17, 1421, a North Sea storm hits the European coastline. Over the next few days, flooding in what is now the Netherlands killed about 10,000 people. At that time, the lowlands of the Netherlands near the North Sea were densely populated. Residents of nearby towns built dams throughout the area to keep water in the bay. However, no amount of measures within the human capabilities of that time helped to withstand the deadly floods in 1287, 1338, 1374, 1394 and 1396.

Even the flood of St. Elizabeth in November 1421 (named after the feast of St. Elizabeth on November 19 in Hungary) did not force people to leave these territories. The city of Dort was devastated, 20 villages were razed to the ground. Much of Zeeland and Holland - the area that now makes up the Netherlands - was flooded in the decades after the storm. The city of Dordrecht was forever separated from the mainland by a flood.

Legend

It was to this event that the artist of the historical genre Lawrence Alma-Tadema dedicated his canvas. There is a curious flood legend. After the disaster happened, people went to the shore to check the damage and find survivors. One of the crowd managed to make out in the distance a crib floating on the water. When the crib approached the shore, people were literally shocked by what they saw! There was a cat on the bed, which jumped from one corner of the bed to another in a frightened way. Only by grabbing the bed with the cat did people see that there … the baby was sleeping sweetly. As it turned out, the cat was trying to maintain balance in the crib, otherwise it would have toppled over. But the mind of the animal saved the child. Legend has it that even the sheets inside the crib were dry. Is it an invention?

The plot of the picture

What do we see in the picture? The main accents of the artist are the frightened eyes of the cat and the face of the baby framed by soft light. Let's start with the cat. As the legend tells us, the cat really seems to roll from corner to corner of the bed. The artist caught the very moment when, in frightening fear, the cat is at the very edge of the bed, clinging to it with its claws. It is a gray-black adult cat with large dark eyes. The cat's eyes are masterfully rendered! Of course, huge with grotesque, sparkling with fear and darkness. The open mouth of the animal seems to exude a frightening cry. She calls people for help! She screams for help to save the baby.

And what about the kid? He seems to be out of this catastrophe. The child sleeps sweetly to a lullaby. If only he knew what was going on around … This is a chubby child with curly golden hair. In all likelihood, a boy of about three years old, who comfortably fit in his favorite carved bed. Caring parents covered the baby with a silk blanket, it is pink with blue stripes.

What background accompanies this scene? Absolute darkness with rare glimpses of the sunset sky. And the same gloomy and frightening sea is trying to grab into its bowels a crib with a child (I wonder how the sea-painter Aivazovsky, a contemporary of Alma-Tadema, would have estimated the sea? I think the skill of execution would suit him). In any case, the cat will save the baby - so the legend tells us. And this news certainly calms us viewers.