The Roses of Heliogabalus

A tide of pink and white petals pours down over a marble terrace, half-burying the people caught beneath it. Some are laughing, some seem to be struggling to breathe or simply sinking back into the drift, and it takes a moment to realize the flood is still falling — you can see petals swirling through the air above the columns, released from somewhere out of sight. Behind this cascade, an unbothered banquet continues: reclining guests in gold and pale robes eat fruit, drink, and listen to a woman playing a double flute on a raised platform, all lit by a soft Mediterranean sky.

Alma-Tadema built his reputation painting ancient marble and fabric with an almost photographic finish, and here that skill turns the petals themselves into the real subject — thousands of individually placed strokes of pink, rose and cream that pile up like snow. The story behind the image, drawn from a Roman legend, is that the emperor Heliogabalus once had his dinner guests smothered under a collapsing ceiling of flowers as a cruel prank disguised as entertainment. Alma-Tadema paints that cruelty as something gorgeous, which is exactly what makes it unsettling to look at for long: violence dressed in beauty and abundance.