The Bard
John Martin
JOHN MARTIN, c.1817. OIL ON CANVAS.
A battle cry against civility, against progress and technology, against domination by others – the Bard is a celebration of the primitive, the natural, and the spiritual. As King Edward I’s forces march on to conquer Wales, they are stopped by a Welsh Bard who curses the king, conjures his victims and predicts the rise of Wales and a new dawn of language in Britain – that of the Romantic Poets. Martin’s painting is inspired by the poem of the same name by Thomas Gray, capturing the drama of the scene and power of the bard, his proportion inhuman compared to the landscape and the invading army. Yet Martin captures something the poem could not: a breadth of beauty within the landscape, imposing and magic it unfurls ahead of us and dwarfs Edward’s men. The Bard, however, fits right in, his flowing robe mirrored in the rocks, trees and clouds around him. It is clear that this is his land and Martin deflty shows us why it is worth protecting. “Enough for me: with joy I see / The different doom our Fates assign. / Be thine Despair, and scept'red Care, / To triumph, and to die, are mine." / He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height / Deep in the roaring tide he plung'd to endless night.”