Martin’s earliest study, as a young man at Albany, was with William Hart, a literalist of very engaging qualities. Hart was faithful to the forms of nature, as every true landscapist is, and dwelt upon the details of the scene with a lingering appreciation that did not, however, prevent him from coördinating them into a very charming _ensemble_. But his joy in the latter was of the obvious kind, such as any intelligent lover of the country shares; a joy in the pleasantness of generous pastures, dotted with cattle, and pervaded with a quiet prosperity; in the smiling sunshine and grateful shade, in cosey woodland retreats, that a man might seek in order to bury himself in the attractions of a book. Always it was the domestic happiness of the country side that won him, much, indeed, as it won Daubigny; for such choice of subject is not a consequence of a painter’s particular way of painting, but of his temperament. The much or little of suggestion that he receives from the landscape, the quality of personal feeling that he puts into his pictures, depend upon his character as a man; and the loyalty with which he follows his own true bias determines very largely the value of his work. Certainly this is a truism, and yet how often it is ignored; painters and amateurs establishing, each for himself, some particular basis of appreciation.
For example, to look for poetic quality in a landscape picture has become with many an axiom of standard, and they find its expression chiefly in the manner of tone. So they have no eyes for one of Monet’s naturalistic studies; its subtle fidelity to a phase of nature does not interest them. He has found the truth of nature to be enough for his own enjoyment, and as he has striven to make nature speak direct through his picture without any promptings to sentiment on his own part, they miss the suggestion of some special sentiment such as another painter will enforce, and find Monet unintelligible; much the same, presumably, as nature itself would be to them a sealed book. The text to them is unsuggestive; they need a commentator. And how scarce good commentators are! The vogue of poetic landscape has called into activity many whose sentiment is merest sentimentality; minor poets of the brush with a pretty knack of tone and tenderness that passes for poeticalness. It is necessary to clear the air of any such mild pretence of poetry before venturing to speak of Homer Martin as essentially the most poetic of all American landscape painters.