RE: [ART] John Martin's Sublime Landscapes 🎨
Thank you for sharing this post, @steemswede - these paintings must be amazing to see in real life: I'm imagining them as being massive, which may be more to do with the resonance they emit than actuality, I don't know...but I can definitely feel waves of energy coming off them, even on the screen and in a small size like this! They do remind me of Blake, but somehow they are more disturbing. I mean that in a good way though - like the quote saying, "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." I will definitely read more about John Martin's work...
Finally, the quote you used, from Burke regarding "the sublime" - the romantic concept that represented the "strongest feeling which the mind is capable of feeling."; and your summary that, "the sublime can be discerned when beauty exceeds the dimensions and constraints of human perception." WOW! THIS! I experience this every day when I am out in nature, and this comes about as close to describing the indescribable as it gets! Thank you!!!
Jay x
Happy to hear they still manage to unsettle :)
Yes, they are quite sizeable indeed. "The Destruction of Pompei and Herculaneum" (the top image) measures 253 by 161.6 cm. Both that one and "The Great Day of His Wrath" (below) reside in Tate gallery if you happen to be in London. I highly recommend this book if you want to know more about Martin: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11206854-john-martin
Wow - they really must be something to stand in front of! The resonance is strong enough viewing them like this, never mind at that size in the flesh... I tend to avoid London like the plague (if you'll pardon the pun!) but if I'm ever there again, I would love to see them in the Tate. Thank you for the extra information, @steemswede <3
I hear you :) Not a fan of big and bustling cities either. I've unfortunately only seen one of his paintings live, the "Macbeth" painting in Nat Gallery in Edinburgh. I wish some museum in Europe would put together an exhibition with his whole oeuvre.
Wow, I just checked that one out and it's pretty damned epic! And your question makes me wonder how on earth they do transport such massive and delicate pieces when they move them for exhibitions... I fuss enough over my comparatively tiny canvases (e.g. 18 x 24"/40 x 60")... I can't imagine being the guy responsible for shipping something that huge and virtually priceless...
I'm actually not sure how they do it, but when I shipped my own paintings (about 120x180 cm) from Sweden to a Canadian buyer, I rolled them and put them in hard cardboard tubes. I highly doubt they roll old museum pieces like these though!