Explore the Reception of this artwork.
Critical opinion concerning The World Before the Flood was divided when the painting, along with two other of Etty's works, was exhibited at the 1828 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Some reviewers were intensely critical of the piece. A writer in the Literary Gazette called the painting a "deadly sin against good taste", describing the background as "unnecessarily harsh and crude" with "much to blame and lament" and the dancing figures "outrageous", complaining that the women reminded him not of Paradise Lost, but of the scantily clad witches in Robert Burns's Tam o' Shanter.An anonymous critic in the Monthly Magazine disparaged the "writhings and twinings" of the painting's subjects, describing them as "as close to the unpardonable limits as anything that has lately appealed to the public eye". This same writer disapproved of the dark skin tones of some of the figures, arguing that "the brown visage of the gipsey gives but a dingy image of the roses and lilies that, from time immemorial, have made the charm of British beauty." The correspondent for The London Magazine felt that although the painting was "in many respects worthy of admiration ... [there] is a spirit, a boldness, and a startling effect," the work was poorly executed overall. Its depiction of women drew particular ire: "the expression of the faces is vapid; the features rather homely; the limbs, though not ill-drawn, have not that finish and play of the muscles, which alone give lightness and elasticity. They seem lifted up with difficulty, and ready to fall." The review upbraided Etty as an artist who had "advanced half way on his road to classic excellence; and there, when he should have proceeded with increased ardour and more careful exactness from being in view of his object, he has stopped short." Etty's fellow artist John Constable privately described the work as "a revel rout of Satyrs and lady bums as usual".Other critics offered a more positive impression of the piece. The Examiner celebrated Etty's having "outdone his former self, and most of his contemporaries". A reviewer in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction said: "Few pictures have attracted or deserved more attention than this masterly production," describing the figures as "graceful and elegant". The Athenaeum thought it "decidedly the most attractive picture in the whole Exhibition", noting that their review was delayed because in the opening week of the exhibition, "the crowds which continually stood in front of it rendered it quite impossible to get such a view of it as would enable us to do it justice." Colburn's New Monthly Magazine considered it "another instance of the rapid advances which this rising artist is making towards perfection". The most effusive praise was offered in poetic form by John Taylor, who in September 1828 imagined that if Milton and Nicolas Poussin were both alive to see the painting, Milton would view it with "proud delight", while Poussin would suffer an "envious thorn" with the realization that Etty's abilities had surpassed his own.
Nicolas Poussin Literary Gazette Royal Academy Summer Exhibition Tam o' Shanter The Athenaeum The Examiner Paradise Lost The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction The London Magazine John Taylor Monthly Magazine John Constable Colburn's New Monthly Magazine Robert Burns