Ruskin attacked Martin 's work early in his career. Writing under the pseudonym of Kata Phusin 'On The Proper Shapes of Pictures and Engravings' in February 1839, he noted that: 'Martin... whose chief sublimity consists in lamp-black, never made a design yet which the eye could endure, if reduced to a small size' ( Works, 1.243). He later described his works as 'merely a common manufacture, as much makeable to order as a tea-tray or a coal-scuttle' ( Works, 10.223). Ruskin also criticised Martin for his 'Reckless accumulation of false magnitude [which was] merely a vulgar weakness of brain, allied to nightmare' ( Works, 14.399). In The Bible of Amiens he asked his readers to compare an image of Belshazzar's feast with that produced by Martin, which is seen as 'Modern bombast as opposed to old simplicity' ( Works, 33.157).