從當代觀點再探阿爾瑪．塔德瑪繪畫作品之價值

Abstract

Victorian art is the popular aesthetic interest in 19th-century Britain. Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912), a Dutch painter of special British denizenship, is one of the most prestigious and representative painters of the Victorian era. He can be said to be the first painter to fully reproduce the classical antiquity by attempting to reshape the ancient ruins and presenting the romantic viewpoints in his works. However, as the Victorian art style was despised, Tadma's work also became outdated and gradually forgotten. Until the late twentieth century, western classical aesthetics revived again due to a certain degree of aesthetic fatigue caused by the diversification and fragmentation of modernism art. In particular, the works of traditional artists in the late 19th century were widely concerned by the market and academia. Tadema's work, which has been silent for a long time, finally appeared in front of the public again. Nevertheless, the critics' evaluation of Tadma's creation is still generally inseparable from luxury and exquisiteness. Some critics ignored his work’s creativeness by thinking that his creation themes escaped from the reality and had no forward-looking performance. In view of the past cognition and criticism, this thesis hopes to understand the artistic trends of Tadma's time. According to Tadema's creation of reshaping history, we explore his archaeological preparations before creation, as well as the rich imagination and reasoning interpretations shown in his paintings. Furthermore, Tadema combined his understanding of optics with his nineteenth-century photography skills in his paintings, which inspired later Hollywood epic films. This thesis will re-examine the sarcasm and value in Tadema's works from a contemporary perspective, try to understand the artist's ingenious arrangement and his avant-garde views that exclude public opinions, and face Alma-Tadema’s rightful place in art history.

Date of Award	2021
Original language	Chinese (Traditional)
Supervisor	Ya-Lun Wang (Supervisor)