Lightning in the Age of Benjamin Franklin
Blog overview
Since ancient times, thunder and lightning were seen as a wrathful Deity’s instruments of punishment. But when Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod in 1752, the way we view God and nature changed forever. Our scientific, religious, and artistic conceptions were transformed. With thunderstorms no longer a spectacle to be feared, Western poets, painters, and composers started to treat it as a subject in its own right. Never before was the beauty of lightning so extensively represented as during the transition from the Enlightenment to the Romantic era. Interestingly, Franklin visited the Dutch Republic twice, promoting his new device. Did he succeed?
