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John Martin: Apocalypse Now!
An internationally renowned painter in his time (1789�1854), John Martin created paintings of apocalyptic destruction and biblical disaster. He is credited with influencing a remarkable range of people, including the Brontës and the Pre-Raphaelites.
- GenresArtNonfiction
136 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 17, 2023
Mixed feelings about this one. I liked the extensive efforts to set Martin in his era but actively disliked the author's exhaustive attempts to make Martin's work relevant to today. A single paragraph would have sufficed but we get pages of comparisons to virtual reality, AVATAR, STAR WARS, etc. Also, it should be noted that this is not an art book. Many of the painting reproductions are absurdly small, given that the point of the artist's work was to impose grandeur on the human condition and put us all in our place, subservient to god and nature. A visit to Wiki Commons is pretty much essential to help the reader actually see the paintings.
I really enjoyed the chapter that discusses Martin's paintings as related to the other thrilling entertainments of the mid-19th Century: phantasmagorias, panoramas, dioramas, and similar performance spectacles, and viewing the dynamic paintings as sensations definitely helps one understand the role Martin's art played for his contemporaries. I also appreciated the time spent on explaining the romantic notion of the "sublime," a quality that I've seen explicated numerous times, but not often so well as it is here.
Recommended for its insight into popular Romanticism and as a somewhat cursory account of the artist's life and work.
I really enjoyed the chapter that discusses Martin's paintings as related to the other thrilling entertainments of the mid-19th Century: phantasmagorias, panoramas, dioramas, and similar performance spectacles, and viewing the dynamic paintings as sensations definitely helps one understand the role Martin's art played for his contemporaries. I also appreciated the time spent on explaining the romantic notion of the "sublime," a quality that I've seen explicated numerous times, but not often so well as it is here.
Recommended for its insight into popular Romanticism and as a somewhat cursory account of the artist's life and work.
December 10, 2012
John Martin is my favourite 19th century artist. Up until the past year it's been really hard to find anything about him. This book is a good reference of his works. It shows lots of great reproductions of his works, including some I'd not seen before. Morden puts Martin's work in historical context talking about the social and economic history of the time. However, because her work is primarily based on older biographies she seems to misinterpret a few things, at least there were quite a few of her conclusions that I found myself questioning. All told I think the Prometheans book was better about the history of the period, and indeed as a biography of Martin, but this was better talking about his painting style and had much better pictures. I think the two compliment each other quite well.
March 25, 2023
Amazing coverage of the art and life of possibly one of the most influential artists of all time and as this account would have you believe possibly the main influence that lead to modern day cinema (im too lazy to investigate this myself so i will take it)
Pictures were printed really well aswell, pretty mental that people had this kind of creativity and imagination in their art such a long time ago when they would have had little to go off for inspiration other than other paintings and their imagination, love John Martins work
Pictures were printed really well aswell, pretty mental that people had this kind of creativity and imagination in their art such a long time ago when they would have had little to go off for inspiration other than other paintings and their imagination, love John Martins work
June 1, 2016
Fantastic book, I'm a big fan of John Martin anyway but this is a great book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
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