"Bill Martin's images possess an inexplicable compelling power," wrote Walter Hopps, the Smithsonian Institution's Curator of the 20th Century American Art Collection.

Martin’s specialty is circular, tondo-shaped canvases filled with a profusion of plants, trees, animals, cascades and freshets, painted in bright, vivid colors and with the meticulous precision of medieval illumination or Persian miniature art.

Martin often painted on round or semicircular canvases, about which Baker wrote: The half tondo format gives his picture spaces a dome-like curvature that makes them feel to the eye like complete worlds.

[8] Whitney Museum curator Robert Doty wrote that Martin's work creates "visions of Arcadian splendor, meticulously rendered landscapes which suggest a nostalgia for Eden and the availability of peace and joy through an expanded awareness of the beauty inherent in the land.

"[9] Stephen Prokopoff, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, said, "Bill Martin paints allegories that center upon our earth as a site for generation, for the continuing process of change and renewal…".

[11] Artweek's David Clark estimated that Martin's reproductions (and those of his contemporary Gage Taylor), "are on millions of walls throughout the western world.