Later Life
Martin from about 1827-28 turned away from painting, and became involved with many plans and inventions. His brother Jonathan's trial for setting fire to York Minster also proved an expensive burden.
Martin developed a fascination with solving London's water and sewage problems, involving the creation of the Thames embankment, containing a central drainage system. His plans were visionary, and formed the basis for later engineers’ designs – Joseph Bazalgette's included. The plans, along with railway schemes, an idea for ‘laminating timber’, lighthouses, and draining islands, all survive. Debt and family pressures, including the suicide of his nephew (Jonathan’s son Richard) brought on depression which reached its worst in 1838.
From 1839 Martin's fortunes recovered and he exhibited many works during the 1840s, culminating in his triumphal Last Judgment trilogy of paintings (Tate Britain, London) which were completed in 1853, just before the stroke which paralysed his right side. He was never to recover and died on February 17, 1854, on the Isle of Man. He is buried in Kirk Braddan cemetery. Major exhibitions of his works are still mounted.
Read more about this topic: John Martin (painter)
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“I like sometimes to take rank hold on life and spend my day more as the animals do. Perhaps I have owed to this employment and to hunting, when quite young, my closest acquaintance with Nature. They early introduce us to and detain us in scenery with which otherwise, at that age, we should have little acquaintance.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“His speech is a burning fire;
With his lips he travaileth;
In his heart is a blind desire,
In his eyes foreknowledge of death:
He weaves, and is clothed with derision;
Sows, and he shall not reap;
His life is a watch or a vision
Between a sleep and a sleep.”
—A.C. (Algernon Charles)