The Sun. — 1832-08-21 (London, England)

PARTS M. AND IV. We have just been favoured with the lettered proofs of these two parts. They abound in Mr. Martin's usual faults and excellencies, who, whatever may be said of his want of human sympathies, of his utter inability to give adequate expression to the passions, is, so far as mere imagination is concerned, the most striking painter of the age. In his power of pourtraying the grand and terrific in scenery—of bringing vividly before us the stately domes and gorgeous temples of the Babylons and Ninevehs of old,— above all, in his perfect and absolute mastery over space, no artist just now before the world equals, or even comes near him. Here, his genius " dwells like a star apart." In other respects,  it merely glimmers with cold, feeble, uncertain radiance. Haydon surpasses him in strength of feeling ; Etty in the anatomical details of the human figure ; Wilkie in the forcible simplicity with which he tells and works out a story, and makes himself understood at a glance. Mr. iVlartin (except in the ideal) cannot compete with these great masters of art ; he must therefore content himself with the praise of being able to resuscitate the " famous Babylon," and give us the best, because the truest, idea we have yet had of the glories of the city of Semiramis. The Death of Abel is a fine production, subject to the strictures we have just hinted. Nothing can be grander, more sublime, or more filling to the imagination than the adjuncts of the pi cture : by adjuncts, we mean, the war of elements that is going forward in the once peaceful Eden, as if to mark the awful hour when death first stole upon the human race : the frowning crags, thunder-smitten and blasted with lightning; the vast chaos of clouds, hanging, like a curse, upon earth ; the broad, winding Euphrates here reflecting the meteoric splendours of heaven, there black with the deep shadows of the overhanging cliffs ;--nothing, we repeat, can be more impressive in their way than these things ; but here our praise must stop. The still-life of the picture is precisely that part which should possess most spirit and animation. For what are the leading ideas that the Death of Abel suggests? Not the grief of the father, not the hysterics of the mother, not the corpse stretched full-length on the ground ; these are but auxiliaries to produce a general effect : the one prominent feature, round which the whole interest of the picture rallies, is the figure of Cain himself. The rage, remorse, horror, phrenzy, depicted by the countenance and gestures of the first of earth's murderers—this it is that gives its character and imparts its striking moral interest to the story. Yet Mr. Martin has backed out of this, which he must have felt to be a, dilemma, and has got rid of it by a side-wind. His Cain is a sad vulgarism. His countenance is devoid of passion ; there is no curse branded on his forehead ; he takes things coolly, and looks like a mere pickpocket who has stolen a watch and seals, and is running away from the cry of " Stop thief !" Adam and Eve are better ; but the former is too exaggerated, and the latter too devoid of sentiment . Of the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah it is impossible to speak in too high terms of praise. It is as magnificent—as sublime a description as even Mr. Martin himself ever produced. The figure of the solitary prophet in the foreground, bewailing with uplifted hands and eyes the catastrophe which he foresaw, yet could not avert, adds considerably to the effect, and impresses us with a high idea of Mr. Martin's poetic sensibility. The Deluge is also an imposing production ; but it is too much of a Variorum edition of Mr. Martin's former painting on the same subject. This, however, we will say, that he is the only painter who has ever impressed us with a lively notion of this catastrophe. All the other Deluges we have ever seen—and we have seen some dozens of this favourite subject of art— have invariably reminded us of a❑ equinoctial overflow of the Thames in the Essex marshes.