Elias Martin
Pioneer of Swedish landscape painting.
Elias Martin learned landscape and watercolour in England. His views of Stockholm and the Swedish countryside were something new in Sweden.
Elias Martin was born in Stockholm in 1739. His father was a carpenter, and Elias began as a craftsman. He worked at decorative painting and joinery before he was able to study at the school of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. His younger brother Johan Fredrik Martin became an engraver, and the brothers later worked closely together.
In the late 1760s Elias Martin went to England, where he stayed for more than ten years. This proved decisive. England had a strong tradition of landscape painting and watercolour, and Martin absorbed both its subjects and its techniques. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in London, a rare honour for a foreign artist.
In 1780 Gustav III called him home to Sweden, and he became a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. He painted and drew views of Stockholm, country houses, ironworks and Swedish nature. With his brother he published series of engravings of Swedish views, which reached a wide public. Until then landscape in Sweden had mostly served as a background to portraits and history paintings. Now nature and the city themselves became the main subject.
Martin's style is light and airy, with soft tones and big skies, in the spirit of English watercolour. He also made satirical and humorous drawings of city life, influenced by English caricaturists. He died in Stockholm in 1818. He is regarded as a pioneer of Swedish landscape painting, and his pictures are important records of how Stockholm and the country looked around 1800. The Nationalmuseum has a large collection of his work.