THE ART OF CONRAD MARTENS 



are no hesitations, no misgivings ; this is his natural element. 

 He had noted the styles of the masters before he left England, 

 and through a long life was ever adding to his equipment. 

 Throughout his scrupulously-kept notebooks there are con- 

 tinuous memoranda on practice. Here, a series of restricted 

 palettes, how to work with four colours black, ochre, indian red, 

 and cobalt or, again, with five or six pigments ; there, particulars 

 of phenomena observed, the colour mixtures for clouds, the manner 

 in which the illusion of light at evening may be attained ; 

 or, again, tints for trees, the greys of distances, the composition 

 of shadows. He is often occupied with methods of attack, out- 

 lining carefully a lay-in of greys and browns, and finishing with 

 the primitives but this method, if he essayed it, he certainly 

 abandoned, for it would have killed all richness of colour and 

 brilliancy of tone. Once he analyses carefully the colour of a tea 

 chest, giving the relative quantities, and how he may apply the 

 colour scheme to landscape. 



His technique in water-colour varies with the size of the work 

 and the paper employed, and is, I think, with the notable excep- 

 tion of Sydney from Vaucluse and The Five Islands, at its best in 

 medium-sized works like the Hartley Stockade, Moonlight a gem 

 that Hilder would have loved and the Landscape (Plate V.) 

 with a lake in middle distance, which, in the opinion of Mr. 

 Hardy Wilson, Cotman might have signed with easy assurance. 

 In many of these it is limpid and singularly direct, and the result 

 is a delight to dwell upon. His method was to float three or four 

 already determined tints softly and purely together. The execu- 

 tion is invariably swift, and the hues blend without break or mud- 

 diness, beginning with the tint of the sky and passing through 

 delicate distances to the warm ochres of the foreground. Upon 

 this finely graded base, when dry, he superimposed his drawing. 

 In the larger works he washed down the tones, as recommended 

 by Fielding's practice, to blend and soften the tints. This " wash- 

 ing down" gets rid of some of the size in the paper, and conduces 

 to a matt effect in the skies and distance ; colour is absorbed by 

 the paper and atmosphere is achieved at the expense of brilliance 

 of tone. With a clear outline to guide him, and his inimitable pencil 



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