Radio 4's Saturday Review show looked at the John Martin: Apocalypse exhibition last saturday.

The panel discussed the paintings within the exhibition, the loud colours and vast canvasas that resemble scenes from modern day blockbuster movies.

Uninvited Guests have created an installation to accompany Martins' Triptych of Last Judgement paintings. While critics found little to credit in his work, it was very popular and toured the country's theatres, town halls and shopping bizaars. Uninvited Guests re-create the atmosphere of these tours and the immediate power of Martin's paintings to contemporary viewers.

Poet Cahal Dallat described the media piece as important in understanding the work in its context of "Victorian muscular Christianity". Without it, he says, "you're just looking at a lot of big canvases from history without understanding why Victorians were impassioned by Satan, Milton and all that sort of stuff."

You can listen to the discussion here. The section on the exhibition begins at 36minutes 25seconds.

The exhibition continues at Tate Britain until 15 January 2012 and The Last Judgement: A lecture at intervals is runs twice an hour.

Image: John Martin The Great Day of His Wrath, Tate

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