The Plains of Heaven (painting)

The Last Judgement is a triptych of oil paintings by the British artist John Martin, created in 1851–4. The work comprises three separate paintings on a theme of the end of the world, inspired by the Book of Revelation. The paintings are generally considered to be among Martin's most important works, and have been described by some art critics as his masterpiece.

The paintings were Martin's last major works before his death in 1854. They were exhibited to the public from the time of his death until the 1870s to advertise the sale of prints from engravings of the works, being displayed in galleries and exhibition halls all over the UK, in New York in 1856–7 and in Australia in 1878–9. It has been claimed that up to eight million people viewed the paintings during their extensive tours.

Martin's style of didactic expository art was rarely praised by art critics but remained popular with the public until the 1860s. He fell out of style by the end of the 19th century, and his works were pigeonholed as Victorian and religious by the early 20th century.

Critical opinion of Martin's work improved from the 1940s, and the Tate Gallery bought The Great Day of His Wrath in 1945. The triptych was reassembled at the Tate Gallery in 1974 after Charlotte Frank donated the two other works following the death of her husband, Robert Frank. The paintings were the cornerstone of the first substantial exhibition of Martin's works at the Tate Britain in 2011–12, with a theatrical son et lumière show dramatising the manner of their exhibition in Victorian Britain.

The first element of the triptych, The Last Judgement, is the central piece, intended to be displayed between the peaceful landscape of The Plains of Heaven to the left and the turbulent scene in The Great Day of His Wrath to the right. It combines elements of both, with a crowd of "saved" people to the left, and of the "damned" to the right, with the heavenly host above. A drawing in pencil and ink, signed and dated 1845, shows that this work was planned before Martin decided to paint a triptych, and Martin had started work on the painting by the end of 1849. Painted in oil on canvas, it measures 196.8 centimetres (77.5 in) by 325.7 centimetres (128.2 in).

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