THE LIFE OF CONRAD MARTENS 



principled fellow here who has been getting up what he calls Art 

 Unions, but I know him too well to have anything to do with him. 

 He gulled the public by saying that he gave prizes to the artists 

 for the best pictures ; but he kept the pictures, and his prizes were 

 in fact much below my prices. I have raffled a picture or two, 

 but that is disagreeable work, and now I am glad to find a 

 ' Games and Wagers Bill ' has put a stop to anything of the kind, 

 Art Unions and all ; only a charter will be given when applied 

 for by a Society of Artists, the same as in England. In my 

 opinion there is not talent enough in the Colony at present to 

 support a thing of the kind, and therefore I do not move in the 

 matter. There are some chaps, however, who call themselves 

 artists, trying to bring about something of the kind." 



In this connection another letter of the same period is interest- 

 ing. A Melbourne amateur, who had bought one of Martens' 

 pictures, sent with his cheque two pencil-drawings of his own 

 and a watercolour by Prout. Martens tempers the wind to the 

 shorn amateur by making some kindly comment on the drawings, 

 but accompanies it with severe criticism of the Prout, adding : 

 " We artists, you see, do not spare each other, whatever we say 

 about the performances of amateurs." 



Martens' slightly caustic references to brother brushes were 

 quite justified. Their work was, for the most part, heavy and 

 amateurish : to labour with such confreres is depressing to a 

 man of talent, and likely to lower his standards ; and this is 

 one of the drawbacks from which the native-born artist still 

 surfers, in that he has not the incentive of great work to freshen 

 his inspiration, or to keep him to the mark. Happily, in the last 

 decade Australia has produced some men of genius who are set- 

 ting a standard for posterity, as well as for to-day. But Martens 

 is a lonely figure. Though he was recognized as the leading 

 artist of his day, his work in his best years brought him less 

 than three hundred pounds per annum, and in his worst anything 

 up to fifty ; so it is little wonder that he sought the refuge of a 

 Government billet at the age of sixty-two, when his market was 

 declining with his powers. 



Like most men of active intelligence, he fallowed himself in 



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