The Last Man

Martin's The Last Man from 1849, inspired by Mary Shelley's 1826 novel imagining the last survivor of a plague that destroys humanity, was painted in the final years of his life and represents the bleakest expression of his apocalyptic vision. Shelley's novel, written in the shadow of personal bereavement, projected the Romantic preoccupation with isolation and extinction onto a cosmic scale, and Martin's visual translation deployed his characteristic formula—solitary figure in vast empty landscape—to give the literary scenario pictorial reality. The theme of human extinction was particularly resonant in the mid-nineteenth century context of industrial transformation, colonial expansion, and the first generation's encounter with geological deep time and species extinction through fossil evidence. Martin's Last Man was among the most unrelentingly bleak images produced by British Romantic painting.

The solitary figure in a vast, desolate landscape creates Martin's characteristic effect of human insignificance against cosmic forces. The panoramic composition and dramatic lighting create an atmosphere of sublime desolation.