There's some remarkable apocalyptic imagery out and about from even earlier in the 19th century. Check out Samuel Colman's "The Edge of Doom" (a decent reproduc

There's some remarkable apocalyptic imagery out and about from even earlier in the 19th century. Check out Samuel Colman's "The Edge of Doom" (a decent reproduction at https://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/colman_edgedoom-web.jpg https://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/colman_edgedoom...) for a striking example. From the Brooklyn Museum's write-up: "In The Edge of Doom, Samuel Colman paints the ultimate disaster: the destruction of the world. Lightning was particularly suited for evoking the emotions of awe and terror associated with the Sublime notion of nature. Here, it strikes erratically, blasting classical buildings, carriages, paintings, and even Time (a figure with an hourglass and scythe) to create a central glowing void. All that survives is the memorial sculpture of William Shakespeare, then and now on view in London’s Westminster Abbey." - https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/4811 https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/4811 On one hand, this has to have been a British communication of contemporaneous Caspar David Friedrich sublime, but there also must have been something brewing in industrial London to create fear of impending absolute destruction, and this doesn't read as Biblical wrath to me.