'Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd:
I strove against the stream and all in vain:
Let the great river take me to the main:
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield.'
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Princess.
This picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1906, when the artist was at the zenith of his career. Born at Dronrijp, Friesland, the son of a notary, he studied at the Antwerp Academy in the 1850s. During this formative period he also met two antiquarians, Georg Ebers and Louis de Taye, who encouraged his interest in the archaeologically authentic rendering of historical themes. This direction was confirmed when he joined the studio of the historical painter Hendrik Leys in 1859.
'Ask me no more', which takes its title from a poem by the Poet Laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is a quintessential Alma-Tadema subject. In fact he treated it so often that it is probably the one with which he is most closely associated: a pair of lovers seated on a marble bench overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The sun always shines in these pictures, although it never seems oppressively hot; and the lovers are invariably shown in a state of emotional anticipation rather than succumbing to passion itself. As Vern Swanson, the leading authority on Alma-Tadema, states in his catalogue raisonné of the artist's paintings, love-making is shown not 'at the point of climax, but rather earlier, when the tension is mounting. The question 'Will she or won't she' is paramount' (V. G. Swanson, 1990, op. cit, p. 268). In the present painting, this mounting tension is centered on the woman's hand. The only point of contact between the two lovers, her hand was the subject of careful attention by Alma-Tadema as the artist's preparatory drawing reveals (fig. 2).
Like all Alma-Tadema's pictures, 'Ask me no more' has an opus number, just like a piece of music. He must have been well aware of the parallel since music played an enormous part in his life. Famous singers and instrumentalists often performed at his Tuesday evening receptions, and he painted a number of portraits of musicians, either in gratitude for their services or on commission. Richter, Joachim, Henschel, Paderewski and others were among his sitters. He also made several ventures into piano design. No fewer than three pianos were executed for his own house, either to his designs or under his supervision. But his most ambitious experiment dated from 1884, when he designed a spectacular grand piano as part of a suite of furniture commissioned by the American financier Henry G. Marquand for his New York mansion. Incorporating a painting by Alma-Tadema's fellow classicist E. J. Poynter, this astonishing piece was sold by Christie's in London on 7 November 1997, lot 86.
Another trademark feature of the painting is the marble bench. Alma-Tadema had made a specialty of painting marble since the late 1850s, and it had become one of his most celebrated accomplishments, endlessly commented on in reviews and even joked about in Punch. Dutch artists had always excelled at still-life, and Alma-Tadema's marble-painting is in this tradition. The same skill emerges in the way he handles flowers, as 'Ask me no more' also demonstrates. But the exquisitely rendered bunch of anemones does more than testify to the painter's virtuoso technique. Evidently a tribute from the youth to his sweetheart, it adds a touch of poignancy to the narrative. It is also a vital compositional element, placing an accent precisely where it is needed, and it provides a focal point for the colour scheme, a subtle interplay of blues, mauves and creams balanced against the pale aquamarine of the girl's dress.
This chromatic harmony is enhanced by the pearly light that pervades the scene, coming from behind the figures to create a contre-jour effect and cast delicate shadows onto the marble pavement. In 1884 Alma-Tadema had taken over 17 Grove End Road, St John's Wood, a house previously occupied by the French artist James Tissot who had fled back to Paris on the death of his muse and mistress, Kathleen Newton. He proceeded to remodel it extensively, furnishing it in a variety of exotic styles and generally turning it into one of the sights of London. Among its many notable features was the apsidal end of the artist's studio, which he had lined with aluminum to create the diffused and silvery light so typical of his later works. 'Ask me no more' is a classic example.
The picture is almost the last in which Alma-Tadema painted his ever-popular theme of a young couple suffering the palpitations of romance, although a watercolour version, entitled Youth, followed in 1908. 'Ask me no more' was the only picture he showed at the R.A. in 1906. He had seldom contributed more than three examples, and one became more or less the norm during his final years.
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