Martin. MARTIN, John, one of the most celebrated painters of the present century, was born at Haydon Bridge, near Hexham, Northumberland, on the 19th of July 1789. Having early expressed a desire to become a painter, his father decided upon apprenticing him to a coach-builder in Newcastle, to learn herald-painting, whither his family had removed. In consequence of a quarrel with his master, who does not seem to have treated young Martin very handsomely, the aspiring artist, eager "to practise," as he says himself, "the higher mysteries of the art," after having his original indentures cancelled, was placed under Bonifacio Musso, an Italian painter of considerable merit, and father of the eminent enamel-painter Charles Musso or Muss. Martin removed to London with his Italian master in September 1806, where he was engaged in painting on china and glass, "by which," he says, "and making water-colour drawings, and teaching, I supported myself; in fact, mine was a struggling artist's life when I married, which I did at nineteen." During his two years' residence in London, Martin applied himself with indefatigable industry during his leisure hours to the study of perspective and architecture, labouring till two or three o'clock in the morning in the depth of winter; and stimulated now by new responsibilities, he resolved to put forth a bold effort, and paint a large picture. This resolution he carried into effect; and after a month's application, he gave to the world in 1812 his first work, "Sadok in search of the Waters of Oblivion," which was admitted into the exhibition of the Royal Academy, and subsequently purchased for fifty guineas. His next works were the "Paradise," which obtained a place in the great room of the Academy, and the "Expulsion," which was sent to the British Institution. His next paintings, "Clytice" and "Joshua," were placed by the Academy in an ante-room, a circumstance which so offended Martin, that he removed his name from their list of candidates for membership, and by the laws of the academicians was thus rendered incapable of afterwards receiving any distinction at their hands. But the ultimate success of his "Joshua" amply compensated for the neglect shown to it by the Academy. This striking production was afterwards exhibited at the British Institution, and carried off the prize of the year. "The success of my 'Joshua,'" says Martin, "opened a new era to me." The attention excited by his next picture, the "Fall of Babylon," which appeared in 1819, was second only to that of the "Belshazzar." "Macbeth," one of his most successful landscapes, appeared the following year; and in 1821 he completed his elaborate picture of "Belshazzar's Feast," on which he had wrought an entire year, and which was awarded the premium of £200 by the British Institution. Martin had now attained a wide celebrity, and thus his most famous painting met at once with vehement opposition and unhesitating praise. His paintings were engraved, and found an extensive sale all over the kingdom. During all this storm of excitement this adventurous artist held on his way, and produced his "Destruction of Herod's Temple" in 1822; the "Seventh Plague" and "Paphian Bower" in 1823; the "Creation" in 1824; the "Deluge" in 1826; and the "Fall of Nineveh" in 1828—one of the most popular of all Martin's works. The cycle of his great works was now completed, and while his later pictures met with admirers, the enthusiasm awakened by his earlier efforts did not reappear. His hands were now full with the illustrations of Milton, which he drew on plates, and for which he received 2000 guineas. Martin was now much before the public in connection with various plans for improving the city of London, an object which he had deeply at heart, and for which he laboured with much energy during the last twenty years of his life. Occupied with these projects, Martin laid aside his pencil for some time, and on resuming it, found that his power had greatly left him. Yet his "sublime style"
was continued during the rest of his life. He produced "The Death of Moses" and "The Death of Jacob" in 1838; "The Eve of the Deluge" and "The Assuaging of the Waters" in 1840; "The Celestial City and River of Bliss" and "Pandemonium" in 1841; "The Flight into Egypt" in 1842; "Christ Stilling the Tempest" and "Canute the Great rebuking his Courtiers" in 1843; "Morning and Evening" in 1844; "The Judgment of Adam and Eve" and "The Fall of Adam" in 1845; "Evening—Coming Storm" in 1846; "Arthur and Egle in the Happy Valley" in 1849; "The Last Man" in 1850; "Valley of the Thames, viewed from Richmond Hill," in 1851; "Scene in a Forest—Twilight," 1852. Martin had been employed for the last four years on three great pictures illustrative of the last judgment, entitled "The Judgment," "The Day of Wrath," and "The Plains of Heaven," at which he laboured until within a few weeks of his death, and which he left unfinished. Having been attacked with a stroke of paralysis, he repaired to Douglas, Isle of Man, in quest of health, where he died on the 9th of February 1854. (See Martin's Autobiographic Notes in the Athenæum of February 25, 1854.)
Martin during his day had no rival in point of popularity, except Turner the great master of landscape. Martin's brother artists not unfrequently found much in his style to censure. Leslie, who was one of his warmest friends, while admiring the original power of Martin, found frequent occasion to dissent emphatically from his mode of treatment. His merits and defects were alike unquestionable; and it was the bold originality of the man that provoked so much criticism. In his expression of material grandeur he addressed the eye rather than the mind; in his delineations of the awful and the terrible in nature his imagination outran his judgment. Yet he triumphantly succeeded in ravishing the senses of the multitude, and in dazzling the eyes even of sagacious men. Whether it was by an illusory trick rather than by a stroke of genius, by bold theatrical display rather than by the chastened power of an exalted imagination, that Martin captivated the eyes of his admirers, he at all events acquired a very great popularity, and so long as his manner was new, he was enthusiastically applauded as a man of pre-eminent genius. He was certainly gifted with a power to fascinate, but familiarity was calculated to break the spell.