This choice he found irksome to the last degree, and irksome, too, were the preliminary steps. For the dead languages he had no taste, for all dry-bone studies he had little use. His spare hours, and often his lesson hours too, were spent in drawing, and many a time he would have himself awakened before daybreak in order that he might devote the hours before school time to working at his favourite pastime. He had no masters and little encouragement, nevertheless he plodded on, and with such good results that already, in 1851, he was able to exhibit in a Dutch gallery a portrait he had painted of his sister, a work that even in its immaturity betrays some of the qualities that distinguish his later and greater efforts in this department. But the dual effort imposed on this young soul by the fight between duty and inclination was too heavy a physical burden for the juvenile shoulders to bear. A collapse of health occurred just as Laurens was growing up, and so serious did it seem that the doctors told the mother and guardians how, seeing the young man was not long for this world, it seemed needless to mar his few remaining months of existence by forcing him to continue his hated legal studies. For this short period at least he might be allowed to be happy following his bent. But what was the surprise of doctors and guardians when Laurens, as soon as the heavy strain was removed, recovered as though by magic, and rapidly became the sturdy, robust man he has remained all his life. It was now at last evident to those in authority that Tadema was a genius whose advance must not be thwarted or coerced; art, therefore, was reluctantly acknowledged to be his proper profession, and to prepare himself for this he sought admission to an art academy. Strange, nay almost incredible though it sounds, he could gain no admission to those of his native land. Antwerp, at that time a noted artistic centre, proved more discerning and less inhospitable. It chanced that Tadema entered at a moment when the rival claims of French pseudo-classicism and Belgian naturalism were dividing the Academy into factions. The one, the Pseudo-classic, was headed by Louis David, who at that time was living in Antwerp in exile. The other, called the Belgian-Flemish School, aimed at reviving the ancient local art of the Low Countries. Alma Tadema was not made of the stuff to become a pseudo-classic or a pseudo anything. It was, therefore, quite natural that the young student ranged himself at once with those who sought to revive the best traditions of the Dutch and Flemish schools. This native section was led by Wappers, and Tadema soon became one of his most enthusiastic partisans.