"The Writing on the Wall (or Belshazzar's Feast)"

One of the great exponents of Romanticism, the 19th century English painter, illustrator and mezzotint engraver John Martin, achieved huge popular acclaim with his history painting (more accurately, historical landscape painting) featuring melodramatic scenes of apocalyptic events taken from the Bible and other mythological sources.  His paintings are characterised by dramatic lighting and vast architectural settings.

John Martin was well known and respected for his dramatic paintings of religious subjects. Martin's vivid paintings of biblical, historical and literary themes, often on very large canvases, feature richly imaginative and spectacular settings for the human dramas depicted. The small scale of his figures contributes to the sense of them being overwhelmed by the landscape and forces surrounding them. His most well known painting is Belshazzar's Feast.