34 ON THE GENIUS OF JOHN MARTIN. 



they are beautiful, and are all delineated with the hand, the 

 power, and the skill of a master; whether the scene be of an 

 immortal bower of paradise, or a glittering and magnificent city r 

 or an old and solemn realm of ruin, the impress and the attri- 

 butes of genius are alike stamped upon each. A critic has 

 justly remarked, that " no painter has ever, like Martin, repre- 

 sented the immensity of space, none like him made architecture 

 so sublime, merely through its vastness; no painter like him has 

 spread forth the boundless valley or piled mountain upon mountain 

 to the sky, like him has none made light pour down in dazzling 

 floods from heaven ; and, none has like him painted the * darkness 

 visible' of the infernal deeps." The highest range of imaginative 

 genius, and the richest powers of invention are, therefore, qualities 

 which none will dispute him the possession of. Whilst, however, 

 we grant him the free abundance of these great powers, we must, 

 at the same time, remark, that in many of his pictures there are 

 evidences of a cautiousness and littleness of handling his brush, 

 which, when noticed, detract much from the general grandeur of 

 effect, which his pictures do otherwise most unquestionably 

 possess. Crowding, as he does, so many myriad beings in one 

 picture, and including in the same space such an immensity of 

 territory, a thousand dots stand in the place of as many human 

 forms, and a dash of the brush covers a wide extent of dominion ; 

 yet, if we examine these dots and dashes, we shall find them all 

 finished off with the same careful and cautious touch of the 

 pencil, that the more extended and prominent parts of the picture 

 are. And from this part of our subject the transition is easy to 

 another portion of it, in which that greatness of genius which is 

 Martin's own, is rendered still more proudly conspicuous. 



We allude to the magical splendour and extent of his architec- 

 tural perspective ; and in the rich sum of knowledge which he 

 possesses of this subject, he ranks superior to any artist living or 

 dead and we need scarcely tell our readers what rich and 

 abundant proofs of this he affords in his paintings it is a portion 

 of his art in which he appears absolutely to revel with delight. 

 Turner's perspective is rich and golden ; but Martin's is more 

 rich, varied, and dazzling still : it gives a splendid and mighty 

 extent of vastness to his landscapes, and spreads them out into 

 such long rich vistas of light and shade, that their extent and al- 

 titude appear almost lost. It has been said, that the vast realms 

 of perspective, which he places on the canvass, are only the media 

 through which he realizes to the eye of the spectator the grandeur 



