What would make an artist paint the apocalypse
again, and again, and again? What’s so appealing about these hellish
landscapes? These images of cataclysmic catastrophes? We’re going to be looking into these images,
but I want to do it a bit differently in this video. I want us to take our time to look
at them. I’ll talk more specifically about two of them, his first and his last apocalypse
painting, but the rest, I’ll let you experience it. Before we do that, I just want to thank all
my new patrons. Since my video last week, 14 of you signed up which is absolutely incredible
and I’ve never had such a spike in support. It’s extremely appreciated.
If you
also want to support, for a dollar or more per month you appear in the credits at the
end of each video. That’s 25 cents per video or 12$ a year. It doesn’t sound like much,
but it actually makes a difference. Thank you so much! Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion
made in 1812 is John Martin’s first of many apocalyptical paintings. It’s a scene from
the eighth tale of James Ridley’s “The Tales of The Genii” which would be adapted
two years later into a play. The story depicts a journey, filled with trials, where, spoilers,
Sadak beats all odds, complete the trials, saves his wife from the evil sultan, and becomes
the sultan himself. This is the depiction of the final trial,
when Sadak finally reaches the waters of oblivion. Our hero seems tired, he’s holding on despite
being exhausted from the climb. He’s about to look up and see the waters, he’s about
to realize that this trial is over. But he’s also about to face a terrifying
landscape. Red cliffs vividly lit up by magma, lightning, and a glimpse of light at the very
top of the composition. This light is opposed to the darkness from which Sadak emerges.
It can both give hope that there’s a way out of this terrifying landscape, but it also
demands more climbing from a man who’s already exhausted. This first example of John Martin’s apocalyptic
paintings already shows the appeal of this subject matter. And the best way to conceptualize
this appeal is through the sublime. I already made a video about the sublime in
Caspar David Frierich’s paintings. In a nutshell, the sublime faces us with what is
terrifyingly larger than ourselves, which often confronts us with how we are terrifyingly
small and insignificant. In Friedrich’s paintings, he would use small human figures
to contrast them with the immensity of nature. Take The Monk by the Sea for example or, more
famously, The Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog, which doesn’t show how small we are physically,
but shows someone contemplating an infinite and timeless landscape and, perhaps, contemplating
his own finite and time-bound existence. There’s often a fear associated with the
sublime, an idea of powerlessness in front of an all powerful force, either it be in
the divine, in nature or in a timescale. Martin really pushed the idea of the sublime
to its extreme. Again, you see Sadak, tiny at the very bottom of the composition. In
front of him stands a violent landscape, sharp cliffs, turbulent waters, crackling lightning,
all elements of nature which are timeless and powerful. Sadak is exhausted from trying
to surmount these elements, he’s out of breath, out of energy, but the elements persist,
they’ll continue forever, he won’t. The sublime in this painting resides in the terrifying
scale of the landscape, its intimidating depiction and its contrast to the individual. He’s
not only small and insignificant, but he’s also alone. This painting would bring Martin’s first
patron, member of the board of governors of the Bank of England William Manning, who apparently
bought it because his “dying son had been moved by its depiction of the slight solitary
figure clinging perilously to a ledge” This video isn’t about Sadak in Search of
the Waters of Oblivion, it’s about Martin’s apocalyptical paintings which Sadak is the
first of. However, I won’t describe every single one of these paintings, both because
we don’t have the time, but also because they speak for themselves. The sublime is
something that is hard to describe, but easy to feel. We’ll talk about Martin’s last triptych,
but first, contemplate Martin’s cataclysmic artworks. A couple of months before dying, Martin made
his last triptych called the Last Judgement. In it, you have the center painting also titled
the Last Judgement where you see Jesus and the separation between the faithful and the
sinners. To the left, the faithful blend into The Plains
of Heaven, the leftmost painting of the triptych. However, to the right, the sinners are seen
in the incredibly evocative The Great Day of His Wrath. “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth
seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake. And the Heaven departed as a scroll when it
is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places;
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and every bondsman,
and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains.
And said to the mountains of rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that
sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” The Great Day of His Wrath is perhaps the
most recognized works of John Martin today and it’s not difficult to understand why. The landscape crashing in on itself like a
giant tsunami, the lightning shattering mountains, boulders the size of cities getting swallowed
by a dark abyss from which you see fiery red magma consuming an upside down city, the redness
of which is only mirrored in the fading red sun. It’s an incredible painting which, just
like the sublime, is better experienced than described. Alright, so why did John Martin paint the
end of the world so many times? We don’t really know why he did it, but
we can definitely speculate. He grew up religious and this might have been the last religious
theme that could still capture the public’s imagination at the time. There’s, of course,
the fascination for the sublime which was in vogue at the time. Some have said that
it’s because of the industrial revolution which Martin witnessed with the development
of new ways of producing that were increasingly dehumanized and dehumanizing. The cynical
will say that it’s because he gained commercial success through these paintings, which he
did. I obviously don’t know why John Martin painted
these paintings, but I have an idea of why they became so popular. The answer is easy,
it’s because they’re spectacular. I’m not using the word spectacular as a
synonym for beautiful and breathtaking. I genuinely mean that they are a spectacle. The Great Day of His Wrath was toured in England,
but it was toured as a spectacle. People would pay six pence to go look at the triptych,
but they wouldn’t just look at the painting. Sections of the work would be lit by gaslight,
would be narrated over and would be accompanied by sound effects. These paintings fell out of vogue in the 20th
century because they were regarded as religious works, but that’s not how I see them and
they’ve regained popularity despite their religious undertones. These works aren’t
about the wrath of God, they aren’t even about the actual end of the world, they’re
spectacles, they’re shows, they’re dramatic. These paintings are, in a way, works of dreams,
or nightmares. They put us both in awe and terrify us. They confront us with how small
and insignificant we are, how limited we are, but they also demonstrate how freeing, how
expansive, how creative our imagination can be. As always let me know what you think in the
comments, check out my instagram page, I started posting some of your funny comments on there,
either to laugh with you or at you, depending on who you are. Thank you so much for watching! Thank you
Aksel, Mike Wex, Roman Brendan, Russell Chinchilla and all my other patrons for supporting the
channel. If you also want help out, leave a like, subscribe and check out Patreon.com/thecanvas.
Thank you!
