John Martin - from the ends of the earth

The public clambered to see John Martin's paintings in his lifetime. Such was his popularity that his canvases would be exhibited not only in galleries, but also in music halls and theatres, which could fit far bigger crowds. Often 12ft long and featuring earth-shattering apocalyptic scenes, they never disappointed, drawing shivers and gasps from 19th-century audiences.

So how did Martin, a working-class northerner, rise from rank poverty to befriend Prince Albert and become the biggest mass-market artist of his time? And why did the establishment scorn his achievements?

Tate Britain hopes to provide some answers in an exhibition, John Martin: Apocalypse, that opens on 21 September. It also hopes to solve the riddle of why he is so little remembered today.

Born in 1789 in a one-room family cottage in Northumberland, Martin began as a coach painter. When he moved to London and turned to imaginative artwork, he did so in monumental style, creating immense canvases filled with fantasy Armageddons and biblical catastrophes. People responded in their hordes: one work was viewed by a third of the British population. Another had to be put behind a cordon to prevent damage from pressing crowds. The work was a hit when taken on tour to New York and Australia.

His popular image was less as an artist and more as a visionary whose work could be found on the walls of European royalty, Russian emperors and even the Brontë parsonage. Victorian Britain had seen nothing like it, but the art elite was not amused and he was dismissed as a pretender. Martin Myrone, chief curator of the Tate Britain exhibition, says his paintings were judged too unsophisticated and showy.

John Ruskin, his harshest critic, condemned his work as "mere manufacture, as much makeable to order as a tea-tray or a coal-scuttle", and the Royal Academy refused him entry. Yet today's art historians agree that this criticism revealed the snobbery of the establishment and not Martin's failings.

He argued publicly with the RA and might have smarted from his exclusion, but at least he could console himself with the large fortune he made.

What also distinguished him from his contemporaries, aside from the audacious aesthetic style, was his sharp commercial sense and his grasp of the worth of hisimages. He used new print technology to reproduce originals at a rapid rate and sent them across the world to be sold. He incorporated technology and commerce into his practice, much like Andy Warhol, and earned his fortune by such clever reproduction and by having a glittering circle of friends that included Charles Dickens and King Leopold of Belgium.

Given the larger history of the period, Martin summed up the anxieties of the age. End-of-the-world scenes tapped into the nightmares of the day; the French Revolution was still fresh in people's minds, and with it, the fear of the destabilisation of other ancient European regimes.

Britain was a global empire in many people's eyes like ancient Babylon. It had power and the luxury, but also the vulnerability of a great empire to crumble. Among his most seminal works was Belshazzar's Feast, featuring the biblical story of the fall of Babylon and King Belshazzar being warned of the downfall of his city by luminous writing on the wall.

"The public had never seen a painting like that before. It was a vast panoramic spectacle. He was a master of sublime pictoral effects, someone who created visual spectacles, with an emphasis on architectural setting," says Myrone. The painting is 9ft across and he wanted to create the perspective of a mile-long palace in it.

Another central work in his oeuvre was produced late in his career. The Great Day of his Wrath was part of a "last judgement" triptych and featured the end of the world, with cities collapsing, created with an extraordinary breadth of conception.

"The sense of scale was overwhelming. There were reports of how many people came to see it. It was the first painting that needed a barrier around it. What's interesting is that many people looked at it not as an artwork but as a vision of biblical truth," says Myrone.

Martin's was also an era that saw a massive expansion of art with larger audiences than ever before.

"New print technology reached very large, international audiences," says Myrone, "and he was among the first to exploit it through the circulation of prints."

It was not just his work but also his personal appearance and persona that was flamboyant. It is clear he was a social climber as a young man, striking up a friendship with Prince Leopold of Belgium (who would later become king) while sharing digs in Marylebone. With the reputation of a fixer – it was Leopold who introduced Queen Victoria to Prince Albert – Martin may have known he would prove to be very useful for his career. He did little to hide this side of himself. He was proud of his connections to high society and created a special cabinet for the medals given to him by the likes of Louis-Philippe of France, the Emperor of Russia and Victoria herself. "We also found that in the hallway of his house in Chelsea there were busts of Queen Victoria, King Leopold and himself," says Myrone. "He wanted people to know he had real connections and despite his popular image as a visionary eccentric, he was athletic and oiled his hair, someone who wanted people to know that he fitted in to high society."

His creative influence in his lifetime, though substantial, especially on writers such as the Brontës (who copied some of his fantasy paintings) and Dickens, has grown since his death. Fantasy writers such as H P Lovecraft, and more recently, China Mieville and Alan Moore, have spoken of the importance of his work. His influence on these writers is particularly marked in a composition such as Sadak in Search of Waters of Oblivion, a striking 6ft-high, volcanic landscape with a tiny figure struggling onto a rock. This was painted in 1812 – early on in his career – but it anticipates the modern fantasy genre, resembling a cinematic shot or a clip from Star Trek. In this sense, he was a visionary indeed.

John Martin: Apocalypse,

Tate Britain, London SW1 (020 7887 8888) 21 Sept to 15 Jan