1789 -1854 · Northumberland, London and apocalyptic romanticism

Excessive cities, luminous chasms and tiny crowds make John Martin the great romantic director of the Apocalypse.

John Martin was born at Haydon Bridge, Northumberland, in 1789. Trained first with a coat of arms and carriage painter, he went to London and worked on glass and porcelain before presenting himself as a painter. His first paintings combine sublime landscape, literature and biblical episodes. Balthazar's Feast, exhibited in 1821, brought him spectacular success: Babylonian architecture, supernatural light and the multitude transformed the story into an almost theatrical experience. Martin constructs his spaces through deep perspectives, terraces, vaults and abysses where human figures appear tiny. The Seventh Scourge, The Last Judgment or The Fall of the Rebel Angels amplifies the catastrophe on a cosmic scale, while Christ Calms the Storm concentrates fear in the sea and sky. An inventive engraver, Martin widely disseminates his visions through the mezzotints of Paradise Lost. He is also interested in engineering projects, proposing systems for water, sewers and London transport. Died in 1854, he left a popular and controversial work whose influence runs through illustration, cinema and fantastic imaginations. The "John Martin" selection notably compares Balthazar's Feast and The Seventh Scourge. His reading favors the atmosphere.

Martin not only paints the catastrophe: he builds the gigantic space in which man suddenly discovers his own smallness.