Abstract
John Martin’s paintings of biblical catastrophe met with a sensational response from the viewing public. Early in his career he was employed as a glass painter and this article examines the potential connection between this and Martin’s dramatically luminescent handling of light and dark and vivid reds. Others reworked several of his compositions as glass paintings and one example, of <i>Belshazzar’s Feast</i>, survives. These glass paintings have been aligned to the spectacular use of transparent media in popular entertainment and not credited with any art historical significance. Through direct comparison with the original oil painting, the glass painting of <i>Belshazzar’s Feast</i> is re-evaluated as a serious aesthetic experiment which, with the assistance of a magnifying glass as a viewing tool, used real light to amplify Martin’s use of light as his primary means of storytelling. Making a clear distinction between a Georgian glass painting and a Victorian stained glass window, attention is drawn to the technical virtuosity of the glass painting through reference to the working practice of the Edinburgh glass painter William Cooper, who reworked Martin’s <i>Fall of Babylon</i> on glass. Cooper’s writings are used to confirm a direct connection between the glass paintings and Martin’s reworking of his compositions in mezzotint and to investigate the complex nature of the materials and technical processes involved in their execution.
Highlights
In 2011–12 Tate Britain mounted a major exhibition dedicated to the painter and printmaker John Martin (1789–1854)
He was never apprenticed to the trade, Martin worked for Collins as a glass painter from 1809 to 1812.18 When Hoadley went into partnership with Oldfield is unclear but presumably he remained in Collins’s employment for a time after Martin left and persevered with his former colleague’s experiments
Because it is perceived as a trade and associated with the industrial-scale production of stained glass windows later in the nineteenth century, Georgian glass painting is vulnerable to art historical prejudice (Allen, p. 11)
Summary
In 2011–12 Tate Britain mounted a major exhibition dedicated to the painter and printmaker John Martin (1789–1854). By Collins in rented rooms at 287 Strand.[14] Collins traded in ornamental vessel glass and glass lanterns at 227 Strand but expanded his catalogue to include glass paintings and address the growing demand for religious windows.[15] The Spectator suggests that the glass painting was exhibited in ‘Mr COLLINS’s gallery’ together with the original oil painting before it was quickly purchased by the Duke of Northumberland and set up in the Tapestry Gallery at Northumberland House as a ‘magnificent’ contribution to an evening of cultural entertainment held on 7 May and attended by George IV.[16] A feature on stained glass in the first issue of the Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal (1837–38) attributes its execution to Hoadley and Oldfield, of 6 St James’s Place, Hampstead Road, who made a second version which they exhibited on their own behalf in April 1832, along with one after Martin’s Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon, at 357 Strand and sold to an American.[17] Both Martin and Hoadley had worked with Charles Muss (1779–1824), an enamel painter on copper, ceramic, and glass, before he went bankrupt and all three were recruited by Collins. It is no accident that the version of Belshazzar’s Feast purchased by the Duke of Northumberland, described as a ‘ne plus ultra of art’, was eventually displayed in one of the windows of the Oak Corridor at Syon House, Brentford, Middlesex which served as a gallery for royal portraits and small-scale works by Dutch and Flemish painters.[24]
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