1789年に生まれ19世紀に活躍した黙示録的絵画の先駆者、ジョン・マーティンの紹介（画像と英文）

The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Want to know what the apocalypse will be like? Look no further than the terrifying art of John Martin, a long forgotten 19th century painter you've probably never heard of... pic.twitter.com/6RVfFtGted

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

John Martin was born in northern England in 1789, and started drawing at a young age. His dream was to be an engineer or architect, but it was painting he studied as a teenager and to painting that he turned for a career. He made a living by teaching people how to draw. pic.twitter.com/TyQBO46PwB

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Martin's early work was heavily influenced by the dominant art form of the day. He painted landscapes, because it was for landscapes that English artists were most highly regarded. Picturesque, evocative, but far from apocalyptic. pic.twitter.com/JYk3pp4sMJ

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Everything changed during a train journey across England, when Martin saw the factories and mills that were filling the countryside. The natural landscape was being devastated by glowing forges, looming chimneystacks, polluted rivers, and heavy smog.

The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Martin was shocked. And, imbued with a new sense of horror and purpose, his art soon changed. Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion, painted in 1812 and purchased by a Member of Parliament, was his first foray into this new style. Epic, darkly theatrical, grand, mysterious. pic.twitter.com/SPMq2k06Vy

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

His first major success came with Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still, from 1816. The essence of Martin's style was in place: a vast landscape populated with small human figures, cast against a backdrop of huge cities and great conflagrations of cloud and light. pic.twitter.com/EqDNjUPx18

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Like the other Romantic artists of the age, Martin reacted against the Enlightenment - Reason, Science, Technology - by embracing the alternatives. He drew on Biblical themes in particular, and with Belzhazzar's Feast in 1820, Martin's reputation skyrocketed. pic.twitter.com/DHNJEqhDTt

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Notice how it is nature which takes centre-stage in Martin's art; these tiny and helpless humans are secondary. And there is nothing they can do, no matter how rational or powerful they think they are, to resist the might and fury of the natural world, or of divine wrath. pic.twitter.com/3sJuZaoqnv

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

And this is the heart of Romanticism as an artistic movement. Nature is all-powerful, inscrutable, beautiful, and inconquerable; there is mystery, magnitude, and cosmic drama; it evokes our emotions of awe and terror. Romanticism was about rediscovering the Sublime. pic.twitter.com/sysm4mgJzD

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Whole cities uprooted and destroyed in moments, all captured in Martin's uniquely grand sense of destruction and catastrophe. He had seen his native England ruined by mankind, and in something like The Destruction of Tyre he wants to show us the consequences of our ambition. pic.twitter.com/kAgR2oO9YY

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

The public adored his vast paintings (literally vast; they were made on huge canvasses) and so he kept producing them. Nor did he only paint scenes from the Bible. He also turned to the Classics and to history, as when he painted the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. pic.twitter.com/WsRJ0FLVmu

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

And even when he paints something ostensibly peaceful, as in The Bard (1817), Martin cannot help but imbue it with fantastical scale and an overwhelming sense of mystery and drama. Plunging ravines, swirling clouds, jagged mountains; all typical features of Martin's art. pic.twitter.com/3ScF3egHzg

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Or, say, when he painted Macbeth in 1820. We might be familiar with Shakespeare's play, but we have never seen it portrayed on this scale before. A chasm of spiralling storm clouds, streaks of lightning, and a vast mountainscape frame the drama. Martin at his very best. pic.twitter.com/DZdgjQC4zu

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

No wonder he decided to illustrate John Milton's Paradise Lost, then. An epic poem interpreted by the master of epic art. pic.twitter.com/b49zo7p0Pi

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

And he was also a master of detail: Martin's lifelong interest in architecture is revealed by his close attention to cities. Notice how they always recede into the distance, and always with supreme precision. A technique which, again, increases the sense of scale. pic.twitter.com/6C0H5k1Vak

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

The public loved Martin, but the critics weren't convinced. They thought his art was too shallow. He portrayed scenes of magnitude and drama, but beneath this eye-catching surface there was, they believed, little real purpose or meaning. pic.twitter.com/DsHKFRmIz0

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