British 1789-1854 John Martin Gallery His first exhibited subject picture, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion (now in the St. Louis Art Museum), was hung in the Ante-room of the Royal Academy in 1812, and sold for fifty guineas. It was followed by the Expulsion (1813), Paradise (1813), Clytie (1814), and Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon (1816). In 1821 appeared his Belshazzar's Feast, which excited much favorable and hostile comment, and was awarded a prize of £200 at the British Institution, where the Joshua had previously carried off a premium of £100. Then came the Destruction of Herculaneum (1822), the Creation (1824), the Eve of the Deluge (1841), and a series of other Biblical and imaginative subjects. The Plains of Heaven is thought to reflect his memories of the Allendale of his youth. Martin's large paintings were inspired by "contemporary dioramas or panoramas, popular entertainments in which large painted cloths were displayed, and animated by the skilful use of artificial light. Martin has often been claimed as a forerunner of the epic cinema, and there is no doubt that the pioneer director D. W. Griffith was aware of his work." In turn, the diorama makers borrowed Martin's work, to the point of plagiarism. A 2000-square-foot version of Belshazzar's Feast was mounted at a facility called the British Diorama in 1833; Martin tried, but failed, to shut down the display with a court order. Another diorama of the same picture was staged in New York City in 1835. These dioramas were tremendous successes with their audiences, but wounded Martin's reputation in the serious art world.  Related Paintings of John Martin :. | The Last Judgement | Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion | The Last Man | The Great Day of His Wrath | The Eve of the Deluge (mk25) |
Related Artists:
Libri, Girolamo dai
Italian Painter, ca.1474-1555 Illuminator and painter, son of Francesco dai Libri. He was evidently trained by his father, but he received commissions for altarpieces as well as manuscripts. Documents indicate that he lived in Verona all his life, but an early miniature of the Nativity, the only work by him in a series of choir-books almost certainly painted in Ferrara, suggests that he may have spent some time there. Vasari's record that he worked as an illuminator in the monastery of S Salvatore in Candiana (Padua) may be true, as some of Girolamo's surviving miniatures were executed for the abbey. The only record of Girolamo's views on his art occurs in a register of 1544: 'a good and worthy painter must know how to imitate nature well and to feign that which nature makes, and he must be universal in depicting landscapes
DUVIVIER, Jan Bernard
b. 1762, Bruges, d. 1837, Paris
Carl Ludwig Brandt
(22 September 1831 Holstein, Germany - 1905) was a German-born artist who worked mostly in the United States. Brandt was born near Hamburg, in Holstein, Germany. His father and grandfather were physicians in Hamburg. His father taught him drawing at the age of seven, and he subsequently studied in the principal galleries of Europe. He served in the First War of Schleswig (1848-1850), between Germany and Denmark. He came to the United States in 1852. He painted several portraits previous to 1864, and in that year built his studio in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, but lived in Europe from 1865 until 1869. He was chosen a national academician in 1872, and in 1883 was elected first director of the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Savannah, Georgia, where he resided in winter. At Telfair he offered art instruction and oversaw art acquisitions, including plaster casts, thus transforming a family mansion into a cultural institution.