Signed and dated, lower right: "J. Martin. | 1834"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1978.43.11
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
rocks (landforms) | religious and mythological subject | sun | moon | comet | family | meteorology | geology | science | destruction | wife | people | lightning | heaven | violence | night | sea | Noah's arks | boats | storm | tidal waves | flood | death | waves (natural events)
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Travelling. J.M.W. Turner in Search of the Sublime and Picturesque (LWL - Museum für Kunst und Kultur, 2019-11-08 - 2020-01-26)The Critique of Reason : Romantic Art, 1760–1860 (Yale University Art Gallery, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26)British Vision - Observation and Imagination in British Art (Museum of Fine Arts Ghent, 2007-10-06 - 2008-01-13)Constable to Delacroix : British Art and the French Romantics 1820-1840 (Tate Britain, 2003-02-06 - 2003-05-11)Constable to Delacroix : British Art and the French Romantics 1820-1840 (Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2003-06-01 - 2003-08-27)Constable to Delacroix : British Art and the French Romantics 1820-1840 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003-09-29 - 2004-01-04)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998-05-01 - 1998-07-05)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Queensland Art Gallery, 1998-07-15 - 1998-09-06)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of South Australia, 1998-09-16 - 1998-11-15)John Martin: Visions of the Biblical Flood (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1997-05-10 - 1997-08-03)John Martin: Visions of the Biblical Flood (Yale Center for British Art, 1997-09-17 - 1997-11-30)
Publications:
"Salon de 1835", L'Artiste, IX, Paris, p. 64, 97, J10 +Ar8823 (LSF)Acquisitions : The First Decade 1977-1986 : Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1986, pp. 9, 16, no. 38, N590.2 .A7 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Thomas Balston, John Martin, 1799-1854, his life and works., G. Duckworth, London, 1947, pp. 18, 56, 88-, NJ18 M39 B35 (YCBA)Emma Barker, Art & visual culture, 1600-1850 : academy to avant-garde, , Tate Publishing, London, 2012, p. 213, pl. 5.32, N6756 .A78 2012 (YCBA)Julian Bell, Wonderland, TLS, the Times Literary Supplement, Issue no. 5463, December 14, 2007, pp. 11-12, Film S748 (SML) Also Available Online in TLS ArchiveBritish Institution: Exhibition of Ancient Masters, Athenaeum, July 1854, p. 819, Available online in British Periodicals II Also available: A88 At421 + (SML) Available online in British Periodicals IIThomas Buser, Religious art in the nineteenth century in Europe and America, v. 28a-28b, Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, N.Y., 2002, no. 12, N7875 B88X 2002 (DIVINTY)Norman Cohn, Noah's flood, the Genesis story in Western thought , Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1996, no. 34, BS658 C64X 1996 (Bass)Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 156-157, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)Holland Cotter, A Master of Biblical Floods and Final Days, New York Times, 14 September 1997, p. AR33, Yale Internet ResourceEtienne Delecluz, Les Beaux-arts dans les deux mondes en 1855. Architecture, sculpture, peinture, gravure., Charpentier, Paris, p.89, J447 Ex75X 856D (LSF)Deluge (mezzotint with etch, 1828), Magazine Antiques, vol. 120, November 1981, p. 1159?, NK1125 A3 (HAAS)S. M. Ellis, Current Literature, Fortnightly Review, vol. 116, July 1924, pp. 138-41, A88 F778 (SML) Available online in British Periodicals database.William Feaver, The Art of John Martin, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1975, NJ18 M39 F43 (YCBA)Fine Art Gossip, Athenaeum, no. 1088, September 1848, p. 885, Available online: British Periodicals II Also available: .A88 At421 + (SML)Evan R. Firestone, John Linnell: The Eve of the Deluge, Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 62, April 1975, pp. 131-9, J418 C65D (SML) Also available on line in JSTORMichael Freeman, Victorians and the prehistoric, tracks to a lost world , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2004, p. 171, no. 90, QE 705 G7 F74 2004 (YCBA)Joseph Grego, Art on the Queen's Accession, Magazine of Art, January 1887, p. 368, N1 M34 + (YCBA) Available online in the British Periodicals DatabaseGustave Dore, London Review of Politics, Society, Literature, Art and Science, vol. 11, September 1865, p. 668, Film S2228 (SML) Available online in British Periodicals database.Robert Hoozee, British vision : observation and imagination in British art, 1750-1950, , Mercatorfonds Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels , Ghent, 2007, pp. 313, 318, 319-23, 362, no. 256, color detail, p. 318fig. 256, N6767 B78 2007 + OVERSIZE (YCBA)John Martin - The Dante-Milton of Painters, Hood's Magazine, July 1846, p. 91, A88 H76 (LSF) Available online in British Periodicals Database.John Martin, 1789-1854, loan exhibition [of] oil paintings, watercolours, prints [held] 30th October-21st November 1975 [at] Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox. , Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, Ltd., London, 1975, pp. 46-7., no. 53, NJ18 M39 H39 (YCBA)John Martin, Editions Treville Co., Ltd. , Tokyo, 2009, p. 33, cat. 15, NJ18 M39 A12 2009 (YCBA)John Martin, visions of the biblical flood. , Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, 1997, pp. 2-4, NJ18 M39 S74 1997 (YCBA)Christopher Johnstone, John Martin, Academy Editions, London, 1974, p. 17-18, 72, 75, NJ18 M39 +J65 Oversize (YCBA)Lars Kokkonen, Apocalypse Now (Nachtliche Ergusse), John Martins Profanitat im England des 19. Jahrhunderts , Belvedere : Zeitschrift fur Bildende Kunst, 9 Jahr, Heft 1, 2003, pp. 33,34-35, Abb. 2, Not Available at YaleLes origines du monde : l'invention de la nature au XIXe siècle, Gallimard, Paris : FR, p. 121, fig. 84, N8239.S65 075 2020+ (YCBA)Julia Marciari-Alexander, This other Eden : Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1998, p. 150, no. 61, ND1314.3 Y36 1998 (YCBA)Giovanni Mariotti, John Martin: Visions of the Biblical Flood, FMR, October/November 1997, pp. 20-32, N1 F16 OVERSIZE (HAAS)Lynn Robert Matteson, Apocalyptic themes in British romantic landscape painting, 1984, Film B43 (YCBA)Lynn Robert Matteson, John Martin's Deluge: A Study in Romantic Catastrophe, Pantheon, vol. XXXIX/III, July-August-September 1981, pp. 220-228, N3 P3 OVERSIZE (HAAS)John McDonald, A Feast of Mellon, Sydney Morning Herald, May 9, 1998, p. 14, ProQuest News & Newspapers : Global NewsstreamBarbara C. Morden, John Martin : Apocalypse Now!, , Northumbria University Press, Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2010, pp. 52, 57-58, NJ18 M39 +M67 2010 Oversize (YCBA)Morton D. Paley's The Apocalyptic Sublime, Apollo, v. 125, no. 300, February 1987, pp. 150-51, N1 A54 + (YCBA)Martin Myrone, John Martin, apocalypse , Tate Publishing, London, 2011, pp. 54, 106, 163, 201, NJ18.M39 A12 2011 Oversize (YCBA)Patrick Noon, Crossing the Channel : British and French painting in the age of romanticism, Tate Publishing, London, p. 122-3, no. 56, ND467.5.R6 N66 2003 Oversize (YCBA)Morton D. Paley, The Apocalyptic Sublime, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1986, p. 139, no. 66, ND1432 G73 P34 1986Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 3, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Mary L. Pendered, John Martin, Painter : His Life and Times, , Hurst & Blackett, London, 1923, pp. 131-139, p. 132, NJ18 M39 P4 1923 (YCBA)Graham Reynolds, Turner, Thames & Hudson, London, 2020, fig. 164, NJ18.T85 R49 2020 (YCBA)Duncan Robinson, Acquisitions : The First Decade 1977 - 1986, , Burlington Magazine, vol. 128, October 1986, pp. 9, 16, no. 38, N1 .B87 128:3 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Anny Sadrin, John Martin - The Deluge, Interfaces, v. 7, 1995, pp. 11-26, cover, V 0597 (YCBA)The Exhibition of the Royal Academy, Monthly Magazine, v. 3:18, June 1840, p. 664, Yale Internet Resource Available online in British Periodicals DatabaseThe John Martin Exhibition, a Once-Famous Biblical Painter , Illustrated London News, vol. 223, no 5974, October 17, 1953, p. 601, Available online: Illus.London News Hist. ArchiveTurner : horror and delight, Sandstein Verlag, Dresden, pp. 232-233, no. 101, NJ18.T85 A12 2019b Oversize (YCBA)Richard Verdi, Poussin's Deluge: The Aftermath, Burlington Magazine, v. 123,no.940, July 1981, p. 398, N1 B87 + (YCBA)Gustav Friedrich Waagen, Works of Art and Artists in England. By G.F. Waagen, Director of the Royal Gallery at Berlin, British and Foreign Review, July 1839, pp. 31, 39 -41, Available Online: British Periodicals II Also available: WC 18931 (LSF - Mudd)J. Dustin Wees, Darkness Visible : The Prints of John Martin, , Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., 1986, p. 33, no. 23, NJ18 M39 W44 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
A larger version of a painting shown in 1826 at the British Institution, this work of 1834 won a gold medal at the Paris Salon of 1835 and was called his “favourite picture” by the artist. Using the Bible and Byron’s verse drama Heaven and Earth (1821) as sources, John Martin re-creates the biblical flood story amid extraordinary astronomical circumstances, depicting the sun, moon, and a comet in conjunction. In an effort to reconstruct geological conditions, the artist also noted that “relative to the scale of proportion, viz. the figures and trees, the highest mountain in the Picture will be found to be 15,000 Ft., the next in height 10,000 Ft., and the middle ground perpendicular rock 4,000 feet.” On one of the rock ledges in the background, Noah’s ark sits barely visible, illumined by the last rays of the sun, while in the center of the composition, a lightning bolt strikes a blasphemer whose wife attempts to cover his mouth with her hand to silence his sacrilegious curses. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016