Who Designed the Costume of “Gladiator”, the Movie?

 

Hello, lovelies. Yes, you’re absolutely right. Docendo discimus (by teaching others, I learn). So… The artist by the name of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, apart from being a master painter, an expert at fashion, customs and general history of the ancient world, is someone the majority of art lovers or even scholars only mildly curious about fine art, adore or, at the very least, are familiar with.

For art historians, Sir Alma-Tadema has always been an ancient world advocate, giving his contemporaries and future viewers a reminder that the world of Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt was once vibrant and beautiful and filled with indulgences, art and tradition. The artist honored historical accuracy: he kept up to date with archaeological discoveries, read books on the subject, collected photographs of classical sites, made frequent visits to British Museum, and traveled to Italy. 

The combination of his unique talent and profound knowledge of the subject had brought Alma-Tadema myriads of awards and honors. He was knighted by the royal houses of the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom; praised by Sir Edward Poynter, the president of the London’s Royal Academy of Arts for the passion and mastery in “recreating the beauty of a past age… as though he had lived in it”.

As he began exhibiting his pieces (at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London and the Exposition Universelle of 1855 in Paris, that were a real encouragement for him), he had won a medal for his painting “Past-time in Ancient Egypt Three Thousand Years Ago” at 1864’s Paris Salon. He continued to exhibit, receiving awards such as the medal of Honour at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889 and the Great Gold Medal at the International Exposition in Brussels of 1897.

He was a friend of the Prince and Princess of Wales (the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra) and, in 1893, painted the canvas “God Speed” as a wedding gift for their son George (the future George V), later becoming a prominent figure in Victorian London.

With the rise of modernism (after the artist’s death in 1912)however, Alma-Tadema’s art, suddenly, fell out of fashion, seen as obsolete by the new century art world. The “falling out” lasted until the late 20th century, when it made its return among… film-makers. (like Cecil B. DeMille and Ridley Scott)

The glimpse into the life of ancient societies, recreated in movies like Quo Vadis (1913), Ben-Hur (1959) and Gladiator (2000), was made possible thanks to Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, among others. His detailed depiction of the scenes of antiquity “proved a real gift to film-makers.” The exquisite flow between foreground and background in his paintings leads the eye of the viewer from one segment of the artwork to the next — “just as a camera operator does in tracking shots.”

It felt as if, all of a sudden, everyone made up their minds to take up the artist’s declaratory invitation: “if you want to know what [the] Greeks and Romans looked like… come to me”, sharing the artist’s vision and creative approach through their own art of moving pictures.

“We wanted to make our subject as exciting as we possibly could,’ Arthur Max, the production designer on Gladiator, has said. ‘Ridley Scott [the director] and I decided we wouldn’t do the classic scholastic Rome… We were more impressed by the romantic vision of Rome by painters such as Alma-Tadema… We tried to emulate the accessories, pageantry, opulence and scale in his paintings.”