John Martin

John Martin, (1789 - 1854)

I visited the John Martin exhibition at Tate Britain during the October half term. Up until I saw adverts for this exhibition I had never heard of him.

He was a popular artist of the Victorian era, painting large, detailed biblical catastrophes, as well as developing mezzotint images. (Mezzotint is a printmaking process, in which half tones are produced with out hatching or cross hatching. The tonal quality is achieved by 'roughening' up the plate with thousands of little dots, and during printing the the pits hold the ink and the plate is wiped clean.)

The deluge
1831
Mezzotint with etching

The exhibition filled six rooms and were titled as follows

• The young artist
• The blockbuster paintings
• The mezzonites
• Decline, crisis and recovery
• The Last Judgement triptych
• The later paintings and watercolours
  
  

His images are extremely detailed, (the images attached to this blog do not do justice to his work), the landscapes are immense, whilst people and buildings tend to be much smaller, creating the impression of entering into his apocalyptic visions.

Interestingly, when his his works went on tour throughout England he produced sketches/plans detailing aspects of the painting, e.g. listing, buildings and people.. A facsimile was produced for the exhibition, detaing' The Fall of Babylon, Belshazzar's Feast and the The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum

The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum
1822-26
oil on canvas
Tabley House collection
University of  Manachester

Section of painting, Martins accompanying plan indicated that from left to right we were viewing.

 (13) The Greek temple,

(14) The Greek theatre and soldiers

(15) The lesser temple

Martin has proved to be an inspiration to film makers, authors of science and fantasy fiction, science fiction illustrators as musicians, with his pictures used on a number of album covers.

The epic scenes in such films as Independence day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 owe a debt to Martin. Attached are two images, one showing a still from the film 2012 and the second a section from The Great day of His Wrath. The similarities between the two can be seen quite clearly, the large vista and small detail, the image of total destruction.

Room 5 contained The Last Judgement triptych; The Last Judgement, The Great Day of His Wrath and The Plains of Heaven. There was an audio accompaniment, as there was originally when these paintings went on tour in the 1800's.

 

One painting in room 6 caught my eye, Romantic Highland Scene (I have been unable to find an image). The gallery notes stated that 'until now this watercolour has been known as Joshua Spying out of the land of Cannan. However close observation reveals that the main figure wears a tartan and a plumed hat and that the figure next to him is a woman with long black hair. This suggests a Scottish source, rather than a biblical one, possibly Walter Scott's, The Lady of the Lake.'

Having just read Desperate Romantics (see blog) Scott's work was used as source material for the Pre-Raphaelites, and whilst Martin's work is vastly different from the Pre-Raphaelites the influence of the literary world touched many artists, acting as an inspirational source for many.