The Deluge

The Deluge

1834
John Martin
British, 1789–1854
Oil on canvas
66 1/4 x 101 3/4 inches (168.3 x 258.4 cm)

John Martin’s art deals with themes of the sublime power of nature over man. Martin believed that, at some point in the past, the sun, the moon, and a comet collided, causing a massive flood that extinguished many forms of life on earth. He shared this belief with the French naturalist Baron Georges Cuvier, who is known to have seen The Deluge in Martin’s studio. In addition to referencing this collision and the resulting cataclysmic flood, The Deluge—with its drowning and ravaged figures scattered across the canvas—also takes inspiration from the story of the flood in the first book of the Bible, in which God punished man’s wickedness by destroying nearly every living thing on earth. In the painting, Martin mingled religion with science as well as Romantic literature, drawing inspiration from Lord Byron’s drama Heaven and Earth (1821). When The Deluge was shown at the Paris Salon in 1835, Martin’s painting was awarded a gold medal by King Louis-Philippe.

B1978.43.11
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection