PATRICK NASMYTH (1786—1831), son of a Scotch landscape painter, was born in Edinburgh, and came to London. His first exhibited picture at the Academy was a View of Loch Katrine, in 1811. In the British Institution Gallery of the same year his Loch Auchray appeared. It is by his pictures of simple English scenery that Nasmyth is best known. He took Hobbema and Wynants as models, and chose country lanes, hedge-rows, with dwarf oak-trees, for his subjects. Nasmyth was deaf in consequence of an illness, and having lost the use of his right hand by an accident, painted with his left. In the National Gallery are a Cottage, and The Angler's Nook; at South Kensington are Landscape with an Oak, Cottage by a Brook, and Landscape with a Haystack.
DAVID ROBERTS (1796—1864), a native of Stockbridge, near Edinburgh, began life as a house-decorator, and, becoming a scene-painter, found employment at Drury Lane in 1822. Marked success in this capacity led him to attempt a higher flight in architectural landscape. He exhibited Rouen Cathedral at the Academy in 1826, and very often contributed pictures to the British Institution and Society of British Artists; of the last-named body he was a foundation-member. Roberts made a tour in Spain for materials of pictures and sketches; noteworthy among the results of this journey are The Cathedral of Burgos, an exterior view, and a small Interior of the same, now in the National Gallery. Extending his travels to the East, Roberts produced The Ruins of Baalbec, and Jerusalem from the South-East. He was made a full member of the Academy in 1841, and lived to see his pictures sold for far higher prices than he had originally assigned to them. David Roberts is well known by "Sketches in the Holy Land, Syria, and Egypt."
RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON (1801—1828) passed most of his life abroad. He studied in the Louvre when a child, and gained his knowledge of art exclusively in Paris and Italy. His influence on the French school of genre and dramatic art was very great indeed, almost equal to that which Constable produced on the French artists in landscape. He died, aged twenty-seven, from the effects of a sunstroke received while sketching in Paris. Bonington excelled in landscape, marine, and figure subjects. He exhibited in the British Institution, among other pictures, two Views of the French Coast, which attracted much notice, and The Column of St. Mark's, Venice (National Gallery). Sir Richard Wallace possesses several of his best works, notably Henri IV. and the Spanish Ambassador.
WILLIAM JOHN MÜLLER (1812—1845) was another landscape painter whose career was brief, and who chiefly painted foreign scenery. He travelled in Germany, Italy and Switzerland, and for a time practised as a landscape painter at Bath, though with little success. In 1838 Müller visited Greece and Egypt, and in 1841 he was in Lycia. He had previously settled in London. His pictures were chiefly of Oriental scenes, and his fame was rapidly growing when he died. His works now command high prices. In the National Gallery we have a Landscape, with two Lycian Peasants, and a River Scene.
JOHN MARTIN (1789—1854) held a distinguished place as a painter of poetic or imaginative landscapes and architectural subjects. He was born near Hexham, and began the study of art in the humble field of coach painting at Newcastle. Coming to London, Martin worked at enamel painting, and in 1812 exhibited his first picture at the Academy, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion, which is one of his best works. This was followed by Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still (1816), The Death of Moses (1838), The Last Man (from Campbell's poem), The Eve of the Deluge, Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, &c. Martin's most famous works were not exhibited at the Academy, e.g. Belshazzar's Feast, The Fall of Babylon, and The Fall of Nineveh. Many of his compositions were engraved, securing for them a wide circulation. Mr. Redgrave said: "We can hardly agree with Bulwer, that Martin was 'more original, more self-dependent than Raphael or Michael Angelo.'" But if in his lifetime Martin was over-praised, he was unjustly depreciated afterwards. Many of his brother artists and the public, when the first astonishment his pictures created had passed away, called his art a trick and an illusion, his execution mechanical, his colouring bad, his figures vilely drawn, their actions and expressions bombastic and ridiculous. But, granting this, wholly or partially, it must be remembered that his art, or manner, was original; that it opened new views, which yielded glimpses of the sublime, and dreams and visions that art had not hitherto displayed; and that others, better prepared by previous study, working after him, have delighted, and are still delighting, the world with their works.