Art Institute of Chicago

Belshazzar's Feast, from Illustrations of the Bible

John Martin

Date

1835

Medium

Mezzotint with etching in black on ivory wove paper

Culture

England

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

The visionary Romantic painter John Martin’s Illustrations of the Bible (1831–35) boasts some of the most dramatic mezzotints of the 19th century. This series enthusiastically embraced J. M. W. Turner’s “historical” category from the Liber Studiorum (1807–1819). Yet “Mad” Martin eschewed Turner’s sepia tonality for a deep, velvet black periodically ripped asunder by lightning bolts. He engraved over 100 mezzotints, with special attention paid to the light and dark contrasts of Old Testament miracles and disasters. Although the series remained unfinished, his taste for elaborate destruction was sometimes well remunerated: when his gigantic oil painting Belshazzar’s Feast (1821; private collection) was put on view soon after being made, it attracted 50,000 paying viewers.

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