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The Roses of Heliogabalus
Lawrence Alma-Tadema • Painting, 1888, 132×213 cm
Description of the artwork «The Roses of Heliogabalus»
The Roses of Heliogabalus is a 1888 painting of the English artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Keeping to the standard of the compositional golden section (the aspect ratio of the canvas is 132x213 cm), this canvas is filled, according to some, with the spirit of human suffering, and according to others, it is a historical and literary fake.
The plot of the murder
The work in pastel colours with predominant pink is about death, and, to put it more clearly, about multi death, gang murder. As a basis, Alma-Tadema took the subject that is dubious from a historical point of view, Historia Augusta. It described Roman emperor Heliogabalus during a feast, who ordered the murder of his enemy guests, strewing them with roses from the ceiling. The scent of roses (yes, that’s just such a train of thought) would suffocate the guests.
Ignorance of the story does not interfere with getting an aesthetic pleasure from the canvas, but in order to understand the main subject’s train of thought, you still need to know the story a little.
Enfant terrible
Continuing the way of Nero and Caligula, the 23rd Roman emperor Heliogabalus was spoiled from childhood. His name has become synonymous with perversity, cruelty and blind pursuit of lust. Strictly speaking, he was spoiled before he was born, because he was conceived, brought up and grew up in a social paradigm, which made the contemporaries feel creepy.
The cultural background of the history of ancient Rome describes the periods of the Empire’s prosperity and decline. Digressing a little from the topic, it should be said that culturologists have especially got the hang of illustrating the periods of prosperity and decline anywhere and ever precisely with examples from the history of Ancient Rome, since nothing shows what decline is as clear as they... Decline is equal to perversity, permissiveness, the supremacy of lust, promiscuity as an end in itself. Decline is also characterized by an extreme disregard for human life, including one’s own; certainly, someone else’s first. During the period of decline, pleasure based on violence prevailed. High-ranking Roman “bosses” of decline left in history orgies with a pungent cadaveric smell, necrophilia and bestiality, rivers of blood in a seemingly peaceful time.
Heliogabalus was a worthy son of his era, he was taught from childhood that he could do anything. He wore women’s robes, got nude in public, was demonstratively bisexual, fell into bed with male slaves. He proudly declared that even prostitutes never had as many lovers as he did. At the same time, by his 19th birthday (203—222 AD), he was already married five times. He openly considered honest people to be lost, and treated deceit and promiscuity as virtues. It was considered the highest chic of that time to get to bed with a slave and then kill him. He also had a peculiar code of conduct; it is significant that it was quite orderly. For example, Heliogabalus gave something to his friends on a daily basis, allegedly for some evil deed; he left the good without any gifts. He ran odd lotteries where you could win ten camels and ten pounds of gold or ten flies and ten pounds of lead. At his dinner, the “golden boy” ate camel heels, peacock and nightingale tongues and crests cut from live roosters, brains of flamingos and blackbirds, eggs of partridges, liver and hearts of jumping mullets.
Death in the latrine
Heliogabalus was so much caught up with his pleasures that his mother Julia Soaemias and grandmother Julia Maesa were engaged in state affairs for him. The “prince” did not care about it, he allowed them to be present in the Senate and vote, which was unacceptable at that time. Quite bizarrely, a kind of “democracy” was introduced into the postulates and behavioral norms of Heliogabalus — he gave senate posts, regardless of the age or social origin of the applicants. In general, if you look from today, the guy was more than strange. Contemporaries were not satisfied much with Heliogabalus, to put it mildly. The cup of patience of the rather tolerant Roman society was overflowed after the prince ordered to kill his own cousin Alexander. The soldiers mutinied and killed Heliogabalus in the latrine where he tried to hide. He was drowned in the sewers. His death is considered one of the most humiliating in history and the most shameful in the history of Rome specifically. His mother and lovers were also killed, their bodies mutilated and dragged demonstratively through the entire city, and then thrown into the gutter (I wonder if those who dealt with Gaddafi read Roman history).
And the gods laughed...
The violent death of Heliogabalus was predicted by the Syrian oracles and the boy-emperor believed them. Therefore, he decided to insure himself against the death he eventually received, and prepared silk ropes for strangulation, poisons in precious stones and golden swords — everything that would become necessary for any kind of suicide in case of suspicion of a violent death. However, as we can see, it appeared not useful.
As for the The Roses of Heliogabalus painting, the main subject can be seen in the background wearing a golden diadem, reclining in a golden robe (or dressing gown) on pillows next to his mother Julia. A statue of Dionysus is visible even further — Tadema painted it from the original that was kept in the Vatican Museum. Some critics perceive the sculpture as a symbol of ridicule, evil irony over the depicted subject — the Greek god looked at all this chaos and laughed happily (however, this was only the personal opinion of critics). The Emperor watches the creation of his own hands with undisguised curiosity — the slow and painful death of the guests caused by the roses that fell from the tent suspended from the ceiling and then released by the executioner into a free and fatal fall. The boy is the only “male” in the company of intriguing ladies. According to the legend, his goal was to poison the guests with the scent of roses, and it is the pink mass that catches the eye first and occupies the prevailing area of the canvas. At first, the guests were surprised by the sudden pink waterfall, then they were delighted, but the roses continued and continued to fall, and this cruel joke gradually began to bore and then frighten. And then they all died. At the same time, the organizers of the mass murder, lay on a kind of “captain’s bridge”, and observed, full of gloating. They seem to be watching a fascinating performance, which they have directed themselves; they are full of pride.
The roses were so nice, so fresh
According to historians, the artist painted the picture in winter, and for four months, every week he ordered fresh roses in the French Riviera, controlling the vitality of each petal. However, one of the tasks of the master was to bring the spirit of putrefaction and decay of both the roses and the people to the canvas.
On the right side of the picture we see a woman’s face, that is similar to the face of the artist’s second wife, Laura, and it is very likely that she was the one who posed for him. During Tadema’s life, critics could not understand why the artist decided to use the face of his wife for such a gloomy work.
What else is confusing analysts? First, the recognized fact of Tadema’s accuracy and precision in presenting the historical subtleties of any picture raises many questions in this individual case. He painted a story from Historia Augusta, with has a rather dubious historical value from the specialists’ point of view. The second question that arose from critics was moral: the subject of the picture is truly terrible, why was it necessary to take on it at all?
Decorating the bedrooms of prostitutes
However, despite the raised eyebrows of theologians and historians, the viewer gladly took the picture; in the opinion of, for example, Somerset Maugham, it was largely because the ideal proportions of the Roman women’s faces in the picture seemed to hint that Tadema actually depicted Englishwomen — he was in the habit of introducing images of his contemporaries into his canvases. The Victorians were pleased that they were identified with the great and noble images of antiquity (even if in the context of decline, debauchery and cruelty).
A completely different attitude to the picture arose later — however, it was not quite common. Aldous Huxley, for example, wrote that “...paintings that the Victorians considered works of art, just a few decades later turned into pornography and decorated the bedrooms of prostitutes”.
Nevertheless, it is a historical fact: the artist received his knighthood precisely after he painted The Roses of Heliogabalus — however, no one has ever confirmed that the picture was the cause.
Author: Nata Potiomkina.
The plot of the murder
The work in pastel colours with predominant pink is about death, and, to put it more clearly, about multi death, gang murder. As a basis, Alma-Tadema took the subject that is dubious from a historical point of view, Historia Augusta. It described Roman emperor Heliogabalus during a feast, who ordered the murder of his enemy guests, strewing them with roses from the ceiling. The scent of roses (yes, that’s just such a train of thought) would suffocate the guests.
Ignorance of the story does not interfere with getting an aesthetic pleasure from the canvas, but in order to understand the main subject’s train of thought, you still need to know the story a little.
Enfant terrible
Continuing the way of Nero and Caligula, the 23rd Roman emperor Heliogabalus was spoiled from childhood. His name has become synonymous with perversity, cruelty and blind pursuit of lust. Strictly speaking, he was spoiled before he was born, because he was conceived, brought up and grew up in a social paradigm, which made the contemporaries feel creepy.
The cultural background of the history of ancient Rome describes the periods of the Empire’s prosperity and decline. Digressing a little from the topic, it should be said that culturologists have especially got the hang of illustrating the periods of prosperity and decline anywhere and ever precisely with examples from the history of Ancient Rome, since nothing shows what decline is as clear as they... Decline is equal to perversity, permissiveness, the supremacy of lust, promiscuity as an end in itself. Decline is also characterized by an extreme disregard for human life, including one’s own; certainly, someone else’s first. During the period of decline, pleasure based on violence prevailed. High-ranking Roman “bosses” of decline left in history orgies with a pungent cadaveric smell, necrophilia and bestiality, rivers of blood in a seemingly peaceful time.
Heliogabalus was a worthy son of his era, he was taught from childhood that he could do anything. He wore women’s robes, got nude in public, was demonstratively bisexual, fell into bed with male slaves. He proudly declared that even prostitutes never had as many lovers as he did. At the same time, by his 19th birthday (203—222 AD), he was already married five times. He openly considered honest people to be lost, and treated deceit and promiscuity as virtues. It was considered the highest chic of that time to get to bed with a slave and then kill him. He also had a peculiar code of conduct; it is significant that it was quite orderly. For example, Heliogabalus gave something to his friends on a daily basis, allegedly for some evil deed; he left the good without any gifts. He ran odd lotteries where you could win ten camels and ten pounds of gold or ten flies and ten pounds of lead. At his dinner, the “golden boy” ate camel heels, peacock and nightingale tongues and crests cut from live roosters, brains of flamingos and blackbirds, eggs of partridges, liver and hearts of jumping mullets.
Death in the latrine
Heliogabalus was so much caught up with his pleasures that his mother Julia Soaemias and grandmother Julia Maesa were engaged in state affairs for him. The “prince” did not care about it, he allowed them to be present in the Senate and vote, which was unacceptable at that time. Quite bizarrely, a kind of “democracy” was introduced into the postulates and behavioral norms of Heliogabalus — he gave senate posts, regardless of the age or social origin of the applicants. In general, if you look from today, the guy was more than strange. Contemporaries were not satisfied much with Heliogabalus, to put it mildly. The cup of patience of the rather tolerant Roman society was overflowed after the prince ordered to kill his own cousin Alexander. The soldiers mutinied and killed Heliogabalus in the latrine where he tried to hide. He was drowned in the sewers. His death is considered one of the most humiliating in history and the most shameful in the history of Rome specifically. His mother and lovers were also killed, their bodies mutilated and dragged demonstratively through the entire city, and then thrown into the gutter (I wonder if those who dealt with Gaddafi read Roman history).
And the gods laughed...
The violent death of Heliogabalus was predicted by the Syrian oracles and the boy-emperor believed them. Therefore, he decided to insure himself against the death he eventually received, and prepared silk ropes for strangulation, poisons in precious stones and golden swords — everything that would become necessary for any kind of suicide in case of suspicion of a violent death. However, as we can see, it appeared not useful.
As for the The Roses of Heliogabalus painting, the main subject can be seen in the background wearing a golden diadem, reclining in a golden robe (or dressing gown) on pillows next to his mother Julia. A statue of Dionysus is visible even further — Tadema painted it from the original that was kept in the Vatican Museum. Some critics perceive the sculpture as a symbol of ridicule, evil irony over the depicted subject — the Greek god looked at all this chaos and laughed happily (however, this was only the personal opinion of critics). The Emperor watches the creation of his own hands with undisguised curiosity — the slow and painful death of the guests caused by the roses that fell from the tent suspended from the ceiling and then released by the executioner into a free and fatal fall. The boy is the only “male” in the company of intriguing ladies. According to the legend, his goal was to poison the guests with the scent of roses, and it is the pink mass that catches the eye first and occupies the prevailing area of the canvas. At first, the guests were surprised by the sudden pink waterfall, then they were delighted, but the roses continued and continued to fall, and this cruel joke gradually began to bore and then frighten. And then they all died. At the same time, the organizers of the mass murder, lay on a kind of “captain’s bridge”, and observed, full of gloating. They seem to be watching a fascinating performance, which they have directed themselves; they are full of pride.
The roses were so nice, so fresh
According to historians, the artist painted the picture in winter, and for four months, every week he ordered fresh roses in the French Riviera, controlling the vitality of each petal. However, one of the tasks of the master was to bring the spirit of putrefaction and decay of both the roses and the people to the canvas.
On the right side of the picture we see a woman’s face, that is similar to the face of the artist’s second wife, Laura, and it is very likely that she was the one who posed for him. During Tadema’s life, critics could not understand why the artist decided to use the face of his wife for such a gloomy work.
What else is confusing analysts? First, the recognized fact of Tadema’s accuracy and precision in presenting the historical subtleties of any picture raises many questions in this individual case. He painted a story from Historia Augusta, with has a rather dubious historical value from the specialists’ point of view. The second question that arose from critics was moral: the subject of the picture is truly terrible, why was it necessary to take on it at all?
Decorating the bedrooms of prostitutes
However, despite the raised eyebrows of theologians and historians, the viewer gladly took the picture; in the opinion of, for example, Somerset Maugham, it was largely because the ideal proportions of the Roman women’s faces in the picture seemed to hint that Tadema actually depicted Englishwomen — he was in the habit of introducing images of his contemporaries into his canvases. The Victorians were pleased that they were identified with the great and noble images of antiquity (even if in the context of decline, debauchery and cruelty).
A completely different attitude to the picture arose later — however, it was not quite common. Aldous Huxley, for example, wrote that “...paintings that the Victorians considered works of art, just a few decades later turned into pornography and decorated the bedrooms of prostitutes”.
Nevertheless, it is a historical fact: the artist received his knighthood precisely after he painted The Roses of Heliogabalus — however, no one has ever confirmed that the picture was the cause.
Author: Nata Potiomkina.
