id: 160064 accession number: 1997.39 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1997.39 updated: 2024-03-26 02:00:34.109000 A Man Playing a Harp with other Figures beside a Lake, 1820. John Martin (British, 1789–1854). Brown wash with graphite; sheet: 19.7 x 26.8 cm (7 3/4 x 10 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1997.39 title: A Man Playing a Harp with other Figures beside a Lake title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1820 creation date earliest: 1820 creation date latest: 1820 current location: creditline: John L. Severance Fund copyright: --- culture: England, 19th century technique: brown wash with graphite department: Drawings collection: DR - British type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * John Martin (British, 1789–1854) - artist Born in Northumberland, John Martin began his career as a coach and ceramics painter before exhibiting oil paintings at the Royal Academy, London. His first critical success, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion (1812, Saint Louis Art Museum), introduced his penchant for dramatic compositions with diminutive figures in vast and often threatening landscapes. Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gideon (1816, United Grand Lodge of England) and Belshazzar's Feast (1821, private collection) combined meticulous biblical and archaeological research with imaginative pictorial narrative and sensational architectural perspective to create a unique genre of the apocalyptic sublime. Martin was an inveterate self-promoter, and in an effort to broaden his commercial support in the 1820s he designed and engraved nearly a hundred mezzotint illustrations to the Bible and to Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), thus becoming one of the principal exponents and arguably the most accomplished practitioner of that printmaking technique in the nineteenth century. A number of unrealized engineering schemes that were as grandiose as the subjects of many of his most imposing pictures preoccupied Martin in the 1830s and 1840s, diverting much of his energy from his art. These plans included a water system and sewage disposal plan for the city of London. In his final years he returned to the cataclysmic inspiration of his middle period and painted a magnificent trilogy of Last Judgment pictures now in the Tate Gallery, London. --- measurements: Sheet: 19.7 x 26.8 cm (7 3/4 x 10 9/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Nature Sublime: Landscapes from the 19th Century opening date: 2004-08-15T00:00:00 Nature Sublime: Landscapes from the 19th Century. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 15-November 14, 2004). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * {'description': 'Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; 8/15/04-11/14/04. "Nature Sublime: Landscapes from the 19th Century". No exhibition catalogue.', 'opening_date': '2004-08-15T00:00:00'} --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1997.39/1997.39_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1997.39/1997.39_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1997.39/1997.39_full.tif