THE ART OF CONRAD MARTENS 



study before him, Martens next proceeded to the building of his pic- 

 ture, laying his flat washes of general tone and skilfully treating their 

 edges. Finally he individualized the forms, pulled his composition 

 together with infinite little touches, and finished with Chinese 

 white in his lights and occasional body-colour in the foreground. 

 This is the only weakness in his technique, for the glaze of yellow 

 has disappeared and left his lights naked and a little cold as in 

 the smoke and sunset reflections of his Sydney Harbour, 1 866, in 

 the Mitchell Library. The practice of that day permitted the use 

 of opaque pigment ; even De Wint, purist of the medium, was at 

 times guilty of falling back upon its easy security. It is scarcely 

 necessary to say that, except in gouache, where it enters into 

 every component tint, a water-colour is better without this heavy 

 addition ; for whenever its use becomes apparent it disturbs the 

 technical unity of the work. 



The legitimate use of white is with grey paper, as masterfully 

 employed by Turner in his Rivers of France. Martens was 

 singularly skilful in working upon such a toned base, and 

 some of his most delightful minor works, such as the slight 

 sketch Sydney from Potts Point, are executed upon bluish and grey 

 papers. These are never over-elaborated ; the sketch element 

 is preserved and the colours artfully disposed without undue 

 preciosity ; they have a genuinely captivating and careless charm, 

 and that element of grace which was one of the most constant 

 attendants of Conrad Martens' mind. 



We have, perhaps, paid dearly for our devotion to Charles 

 Darwin and his Descent of Man. The materialism of the nine- 

 teenth century, which found its issue in the Great War, was due 

 not so much to the decay of the religious spirit as to man's depre- 

 ciation of his own to the relegation of all things to a scientific 

 standard. Art has suffered immeasurably by this degrading 

 worship of facts ; and the Impressionist movement in painting, 

 once past its first decent impulse of revolt, ended by denying 

 to art all individuality and all emotional significance. It made 

 the painter a mere recorder of light and colour, an automaton 

 without sensibility or intelligence. A landscape was no longer, 

 as in the words of Amiel, " a state of soul," but a spectrum 



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