Sweet Decadence

When the Dutch artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) moved to England and specialized in sweet paintings about the leisure life in ancient Rome and Greece he became one of the most successful Victorian painters. In endless variations he painted nice girls in classical costumes in smooth colors decorating the whole with some flowers and lots of shiny marble.

Sappho and Alcaeus (1881)

A Coign of Vantage (1895)

More Martyrs

Als an extremely successful artist Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) exploits the same subject as Siemiradzki.

The Christian Martyrs Last Prayer (1883)

Sure this painting pretended to show martyrdom. But at least its an well aranged spectacle (even the sky fits) where the viewer could feel a kind of pleasant horror.