There are paintings that impress you with their technical brilliance, paintings that move you with their stories, and then there are the rare works that do both so beautifully that you find yourself thinking about them long after you've looked away. The Women of Amphissa, painted in 1887 by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, is one of those paintings for me. We studied it in Art History in college and back then I really didn't full appreciate it. I was thinking of it today in regards to the current "why she chose the bear" culture question, where women were asked if they would rather be alone with a bear or a strange man in the woods and overwhelming they chose the bear. I couldn't help but go back and look at the painting again after it stirred in my mind.
At first glance, it is an extraordinary example of nineteenth-century realism. The marble architecture, the delicate fabrics, the scattered flowers, the baskets of food, the beautiful morning light. Everything is rendered with such astonishing precision that you almost feel as though you could step into the scene. It really is the kind of painting we all wish to achive. Alma-Tadema was a master of making the ancient world feel tangible. His ability to capture the coolness of stone against the softness of skin, the weight of draped fabric, and the subtle differences between sunlight and shadow is nothing short of remarkable.
But the longer you look, the more you realize that the real beauty of this painting has very little to do with marble or fabric.
It is about women protecting women.
I did a little googling this morning and the painting depicts a story recorded by the ancient Greek writer Plutarch. During a period of conflict in Greece, a group of women devoted to Dionysus, the god of wine and celebration, had spent the night participating in religious festivities. Exhausted and disoriented, they wandered into the marketplace of Amphissa, unaware that they had entered a city where soldiers might pose a danger to them.
They fell asleep right there in the public square, vulnerable and defenseless.
When the local women discovered them, they understood the danger immediately. Rather than waking the strangers, questioning their presence, or turning them over to the authorities, they quietly gathered around the sleeping women and formed a protective circle. They stood watch, shielding them from the soldiers who might harm them.
When the women finally woke, their protectors brought them food, tended to their needs, and eventually escorted them safely out of the city.
It is such a simple act of humanity, and yet such an extraordinary one.
Alma-Tadema chooses to paint the morning after, when the exhausted women are beginning to stir. In the foreground, several figures are still sprawled across the stone pavement, their bodies heavy with sleep. Their hair is loose, their clothing rumpled, and their limbs arranged with the wonderful natural awkwardness of people who have fallen asleep wherever they happened to land. Tambourines, animal skins, and remnants of the previous night's celebration are scattered among them.
Surrounding these sleeping figures are the women of Amphissa. Some stand watch, while others have begun offering food and assistance. There is a beautiful contrast between the relaxed, vulnerable bodies on the ground and the upright, composed women who have come to care for them.
Notice how Alma-Tadema uses the architecture to reinforce this feeling of protection. The sturdy columns and stone walls seem to embrace the gathering, while the standing women create another kind of architecture altogether, one made of human kindness.
And then there are the details. The delicate folds of fabric, the texture of the woven baskets, the carefully observed flowers, the polished surfaces of the vessels, and the astonishing treatment of skin against stone. Every object has weight and presence. The painting is filled with the sort of technical decisions that painters can spend a lifetime trying to understand.
Yet none of this detail overwhelms the story. Instead, it draws us closer. We begin by admiring the painter's skill and end by admiring the people he has painted.
What I find especially compelling is that Alma-Tadema chose to paint this particular moment in the first place.
In 1887, grand historical paintings often celebrated battles, conquests, powerful rulers, and heroic men. Here, Alma-Tadema gives us something entirely different. The heroes are ordinary women. There are no weapons raised, no victorious generals, no dramatic displays of force. The central act of bravery is simply refusing to let someone vulnerable be harmed.
And the women being protected are not necessarily women whom their protectors would have approved of or even understood. They are strangers, exhausted after a night of wild religious celebration, lying in the middle of a public square. It would have been easy to judge them, to dismiss them, or to look the other way.
Instead, the women of Amphissa chose compassion.
I think there is something wonderfully forward-thinking about an artist in Victorian England choosing to elevate that particular kind of courage. Alma-Tadema was not inventing the story, of course, but he was choosing which story deserved an enormous, meticulously crafted painting. He was choosing to make female solidarity the subject of a masterpiece.
And that brings me to why I think this painting feels so relevant today.
I like to imagine what would happen if a group of women today came upon several other women asleep in a courtyard, clearly vulnerable, with the possibility of danger approaching.
I believe many women would do exactly what the women of Amphissa did more than two thousand years ago.
They would form a circle.
Someone would bring water. Someone would find food. Someone would offer a sweater or a blanket. Someone would stand between the sleeping women and anyone who might wish them harm. Someone would make sure they got home safely.
There would be no need for a lengthy discussion about who these women were, where they came from, what they had been doing the night before, or whether they had made good decisions.
The important thing would be that they were safe.
I think there is a deeply recognizable form of solidarity here, one that continues to appear in the world around us. Women looking out for strangers in parking lots, walking one another home, intervening when someone feels threatened, or quietly stepping in when another woman needs help.
Sometimes protection is a dramatic act of bravery. Sometimes it is simply standing nearby and making sure someone isn't alone.
Perhaps my favorite thing about The Women of Amphissa is that the painting doesn't make a spectacle of this kindness. There is no grand celebration, no triumphant gesture. The women are simply doing what they believe needs to be done. Their compassion is practical, immediate, and unceremonious.
And Alma-Tadema gives that ordinary goodness the same artistic attention that another painter might have devoted to an emperor or a battlefield.
The painting, now in the collection of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, remains a breathtaking achievement of realism. But I think its greatest accomplishment is that it reminds us how timeless certain human instincts can be.
The world has changed enormously since ancient Greece, and even since Alma-Tadema painted this scene in 1887. Yet the idea at the heart of the painting remains beautifully familiar.
When someone is vulnerable, you can choose to judge them, ignore them, or protect them.
The women of Amphissa chose to protect them.
And more than a century after Alma-Tadema immortalized their kindness, I would like to believe that if the same scene unfolded in a courtyard today, another circle of women would quietly form.
Someone would bring water.
Someone would bring food.
And someone would stand guard until everyone was safe.
That, to me, is a beautiful thing to make a painting about.
