Conrad Martens and the Art of the Beagle

Natural History, April, 2005 by Elizabeth Ellis

As the artist who accompanied Charles Darwin for a time aboard the Beagle, Conrad Martens recorded firsthand many of the places and sights encountered on the ship's voyage of discovery. Born in London in 1801, Martens studied landscape painting in his early twenties under the watercolorist Copley Fielding. His historic experiences at sea began in 1833, when he took advantage of an opportunity to sail to India aboard the British navy ship Hyacinth, which was commanded by a friend. When the ship reached Rio de Janeiro, Martens learned that the Beagle expedition needed a draftsman and topographical artist to replace Augustus Earle, whose health had forced him to leave the venture.

Martens joined the Beagle in Montevideo, Uruguay, in July 1833. By then, the ship's captain, Robert FitzRoy, and Darwin had already been exploring the eastern coast of South America for a year and a half. Accompanied by the Adventure, a second, smaller vessel acquired by FitzRoy to help with the explorations, the Beagle sailed from Montevideo in early December, reaching Port Desire on the Patagonian coast around Christmas. In the months that followed, the expedition visited Tierra del Fuego and other South Atlantic regions, finally rounding Cape Horn through the Straits of Magellan in June 1834. When the ships arrived in Valparaiso, Chile, however, FitzRoy received word that the British Admiralty would not compensate him for the purchase of the Adventure or for payment to the artist. The ship had to be sold, and Martens, left behind, decided to travel to Sydney. He headed for Tahiti in early December and from there sailed to Australia, where he lived for the rest of his life.

But Martens's connection with Darwin was not at all severed. In 1836, when the Beagle arrived in Australia, Darwin visited Martens and bought two watercolors. And in 1862, after Origin of Species appeared, Martens wrote to his "old shipmate" to congratulate him on the book, although he said he had not read it and was reluctant "to think I have an origin in common with toads and tadpoles." He also sent Darwin a watercolor of the Brisbane River, in eastern Australia.

Martens, who died in 1878, enjoyed remarkable success in his adopted land, becoming "Australia's answer to J.M.W. Turner." His paintings and drawings are in the collections of the State Library of New South Wales and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, both in Sydney; in the Wollongong City Gallery, south of Sydney; in the National Library, in Canberra; and in the National Gallery of Victoria, in Melbourne; as well as in the British Museum and the National Maritime Museum, both in London, and the Darwin Archive at the library of the University of Cambridge.

Elizabeth Ellis, formerly curator of pictures and now Mitchell Librarian at the State Library of New South Wales, in Sydney, is the author of Conrad Martens: Life and Art (State Library of New South Wales Press, 1994).

RICHARD MILNER is a contributing editor of this magazine. His new book, Darwin's Universe, will be published this year by the University of California Press.