apocalypse | | atractivoquenobello

It may be the last painting of the exhibition and it isn’t even one of John Martin’s, but Glenn Brown’s “Tragic conversion of Dali” is a great futuristic vision of the Apocalypse. One of the many artists inspired by Martin’s popular phenomenons. Vast sumptuous & deadly sceneries that became (both paintings & engravings) instant best-sellers and that contemporary film makers, comic and video artists have extensively used as a basis for their own works.

Glenn Brown, The Tragic Conversion of Salvador Dali (after John Martin)

As classic & localish as any other of London’s Tate Britain exhibition may be, John Martin’s “Apocalypse” is a great look into the future by rescuing the 19th century bombastic & controversial fixation with biblical disasters and fantasy landscaping. The first major retrospective in 30 years, despite having had John Martin’s lithographs doing the world tour constantly.

John Martin - The Great Day of His Wrath

There’s still a couple of months for you to visit, but there’s a good list of talks & screenings taking place during the coming weeks, and as good sci-fi lovers you all are this is the perfect mix of classy retro-futurism…. with a horror touch. A must.

« The end of the world is approaching…. ». A sentence we’ve been hearing throughout our whole existence, and now that 2012 is nearby it won’t stop hurting my ears, even if most of the times is a pathetic joke. Because there is a beginning & an end according to the manicheist mind.

Go & have a quick look at this page about all the previously announced but failed predictions regarding the end of the world, you’ll find a wild wide range of scenarios, some more original than others, some scary, and most of them with a high degree of sophistication, I mean…. ridiculousness.

Whether you open the Bible, the Coran or the Talmud, you can find predictions about the end of times. The Bible goes on about an Antichrist who would come as a sign of the end and would act as the world tyrant before losing his battle against the Messiah and burning forever in the hellfire. The Coran predicts signs throughout the ages, which would end up being more evident & harsh towards the end and finally reach the Last Judgement. In Judaism, people of Israel as well as the rest of humankind would see the Messiah arriving and (re)creating his kingdom. Generally, the « bad one against God » is present in all three points of view as well as our humankind judgment. Common points for common histories but how should we interpret them? Few things are more complicated than religious texts (not even the string theory), for various reasons that go from the geographical location where the text was written, to the era or the constant semantic & linguistic false friends, metaphors…

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