Andrew on Nostr: npub1g0tuf…3tvm4 I didn't actually know that, but you're right. That's interesting ...
npub1g0tuf634rz4suczwj7kgnecr6cyt0eu9xmp3sp0fku68mqehq4msp3tvm4 (npub1g0t…tvm4)
I didn't actually know that, but you're right. That's interesting
"That Martin also worked as a theatre set designer is hardly surprising; in its large scale, its dynamic composition and its dramatic use of light and dark the painting is nothing if not spectacular. But then that was the idea.
A Victorian audience would have paid to see this painting together with its two companion pieces, The Plains of Heaven (1851-3) and The Last Judgement (1853).
John Martin, The Plains of Heaven, 1851-3, oil on canvas, 198.8 x 306.7 cm. (Tate Britain)
Seated in rows of chairs, just like in a theatre, they would have waited in darkness for the performance to begin. Then the lights would go up, and using the latest technical gadgetry, forms in each of the paintings would be spotlighted: the lightning flash, the rolling mountain top with the ancient temple falling, the Whore of Babylon (a figure of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation) lurching toward Hell's Mouth. Accompanying this visual spectacle were
John Martin, The Last Judgement, 1853, oil on canvas, 196.8 x 325.8 cm (Tate Britain)
sound effects and a blood-and-thunder script that would be read out by voices offstage.
It is hard to imagine when looking at the painting in the context of a modern picture gallery or on the Internet, but originally it would have been experienced more like a piece of theatre than a work of art. Such immersive spectacles were common in England at the time. In the early 1820's, Gericault's exhibited The Raft of the Medusa in London where it was similarly sold to the public as a visual spectacle rather than a revolutionary work of art."
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/romanticism/england-constable-turner/a/martin-the-great-day-of-his-wrath
I didn't actually know that, but you're right. That's interesting
"That Martin also worked as a theatre set designer is hardly surprising; in its large scale, its dynamic composition and its dramatic use of light and dark the painting is nothing if not spectacular. But then that was the idea.
A Victorian audience would have paid to see this painting together with its two companion pieces, The Plains of Heaven (1851-3) and The Last Judgement (1853).
John Martin, The Plains of Heaven, 1851-3, oil on canvas, 198.8 x 306.7 cm. (Tate Britain)
Seated in rows of chairs, just like in a theatre, they would have waited in darkness for the performance to begin. Then the lights would go up, and using the latest technical gadgetry, forms in each of the paintings would be spotlighted: the lightning flash, the rolling mountain top with the ancient temple falling, the Whore of Babylon (a figure of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation) lurching toward Hell's Mouth. Accompanying this visual spectacle were
John Martin, The Last Judgement, 1853, oil on canvas, 196.8 x 325.8 cm (Tate Britain)
sound effects and a blood-and-thunder script that would be read out by voices offstage.
It is hard to imagine when looking at the painting in the context of a modern picture gallery or on the Internet, but originally it would have been experienced more like a piece of theatre than a work of art. Such immersive spectacles were common in England at the time. In the early 1820's, Gericault's exhibited The Raft of the Medusa in London where it was similarly sold to the public as a visual spectacle rather than a revolutionary work of art."
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/romanticism/england-constable-turner/a/martin-the-great-day-of-his-wrath