Louis Victor Antonio Artan de Saint-Martin (20 April 1837 – 23 May 1890)[1] was a Dutch-Belgian painter and etcher who specialized in seascapes.
Artan began training for a military career, but quit when he was twenty and spent the next six years travelling through the Ardennes, making nature studies.
During this time, he became friends with Edouard Delvaux and, after 1858, began visiting Paris, where he was influenced by the Barbizon school and the French marine painter, Eugène Boudin.
When he returned home, he became one of the sixteen co-founders the Société Libre des Beaux-Arts, an association opposed to the stylistic hegemony of the academies and salons.
[2] From 1873 to 1874, Artan lived in Antwerp, where he joined with a group of progressive painters who were fighting the influence of the Academy of Fine Arts.