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''The World Before the Flood'' is an oil painting on canvas by English artist William Etty, first exhibited in 1828 and currently in the Southampton City Art Gallery. It depicts a scene from ''Paradise Lost'' in which, among a series of visions of the future shown to Adam, he sees the world immediately before the Great Flood. The painting illustrates the stages of courtship as described by Milton; a group of men select wives from a group of dancing women, drag their chosen woman from the group, and settle down to married life. Behind the courting group, an oncoming storm looms, a symbol of the destruction which the dancers and lovers are about to bring upon themselves. When first exhibited at the 1828 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition the painting attracted large crowds, and strongly divided critical opinion. It was greatly praised by many critics, who counted it among the finest works of art in the country. Other reviewers condemned it as crude, tasteless, offensive and poorly executed. The painting was bought at the Summer Exhibition by the Marquess of Stafford, which greatly pleased Etty. It was sold in 1908, long after Etty had fallen out of fashion, for a substantial loss, and sold again in 1937 for a further substantial loss to the Southampton City Art Gallery, where it remains. Another work by Etty, sold as ''A Bacchanalian Scene'' in 1830 and later renamed ''Landscape with Figures'', was identified in 1953 as a preliminary oil sketch for ''The World Before the Flood'' and purchased by the York Art Gallery. The two paintings were exhibited together as part of a major retrospective of Etty's work in 2011–12. ==Background== William Etty was born in 1787, the son of a York baker and miller. He began as an apprentice printer in Hull. On completing his seven-year apprenticeship he moved at the age of 18 to London "with a few pieces of chalk crayons", with the intention of becoming a history painter in the tradition of the Old Masters. Strongly influenced by the works of Titian and Rubens, he submitted paintings to the Royal Academy of Arts and the British Institution, all of which were either rejected or received scant attention when exhibited. In 1821 the Royal Academy accepted and exhibited one of Etty's works, ''The Arrival of Cleopatra in Cilicia'' (also known as ''The Triumph of Cleopatra''). The painting was extremely well received, and many of Etty's fellow artists greatly admired him. He was elected a full Royal Academician in 1828, at that time the most prestigious honour available to an artist. He became well respected for his ability to capture flesh tones accurately in painting, and for his fascination with contrasts in skin tones. Following the exhibition of ''Cleopatra'', over the next decade Etty tried to replicate its success by painting nude figures in biblical, literary and mythological settings.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=About the artist )〕 While some nudes by foreign artists were held in private English collections, the country had no tradition of nude painting and the display and distribution of nude material to the public had been suppressed since the 1787 Proclamation for the Discouragement of Vice. Etty was the first British artist to specialise in the nude, and the reaction of the lower classes to these paintings caused concern throughout the 19th century. Many critics condemned his repeated depictions of female nudity as indecent, although his portraits of male nudes were generally well received. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The World Before the Flood」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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