It was of course inevitable that when he chose _Spring_ as his theme the composition should be rich in the delineation of such blossoms. In this picture all the perfumed profusion of a southern May is summed up within the space of one little canvas. A bevy of matrons, maidens and children precedes what was probably an ecclesiastical procession. They wend their way through the marble-paved streets of Imperial Rome to some temple shrine, therein to celebrate the rites of joy due to the newly awakened season. Flower-crowned are the fair human blossoms, flower-laden their garments, flower-filled the "offering-platters" they are about to lay on the altar of the god. The house-tops, those fair flat house-tops of Southern Italy, the spaces between the columns, the loggias and the porticoes, are crowded with eager spectators. These, too, are flower-wreathed and flower-laden. Joy-filled, spring-intoxicated, they rain down upon the gay procession beneath, posies and blossoms in glad and multi-coloured abundance. Marble and flowers, sunshine and blue skies, all life's gladness is here embodied by a painter's loving brush. And how easy it all looks. We feel as if the painter had just thrown all this lovely profusion with rapid hand upon the canvas. But those who have the privilege of knowing Alma Tadema intimately and have watched the genesis of his pictures, watched them as they grow from under his brush, know how long and patiently he worked at this very canvas which gives an effect of spontaneity as though created _d'un seul jet_. Again and again did he scrape down his work, erasing recklessly the most exquisite little figures, the most perfectly modelled heads, because they failed to satisfy the exigencies of the painter. Hence in this finished form the _Spring_ represents the work of two or three pictures. And this is constantly the case in Alma Tadema's paintings. From each canvas has been erased some gem, under each picture is hidden some exquisite detail, painted over regardlessly by the artist; no matter how lovely it may be in itself, if it fails to fit into the _ensemble_ it is always destroyed. Hence there is in his pictures no corner or space that is neglected or hastily blocked in. All is as perfect as he knows how to make it, and I have heard him say, not rarely, that a little glimpse of sky, some little peep into the open, has given him as much labour as the entire picture.