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The pictures he exhibited in 1851 were
also badly received. A Huguenot (1851; private collection) won
great popularity, however, and its pathetic theme of lovers parted by
historical circumstances reoccurred in The Proscribed Royalist
(1853; private collection), The Black Brunswicker (1860; Lady Lever
Art Gallery, Port Sunlight), and others. The two-figure formula removed
the need for more complex compositions, which Millais seems to have found
difficult. His best-known picture, Ophelia (1851-2; Tate Gallery,
London), illustrates his working method during this time - the setting
painted meticulously from nature during the summer and the figure added
from a model in the studio during the winter - ready for the Royal Academy
exhibition in May.
Growing Success
While he was painting the portrait of the eminent art critic John
Ruskin, staged on a Scottish waterfall (1854; private collection),
Millais fell in love with his sitter's wife, Effie. Soon after her divorce
from Ruskin they married, and the first of eight children was born in
1856. Family commitments inevitably made Millais conscious of the need
to sell his work, which he did with mounting success, earning by the 1880s
some £30,000 a year.
In the later 1850s he created a series of pictures whose power lay in
the evocation of a general mood rather than the description of a particular
situation. The most atmospheric is Autumn Leaves (1856; City of
Manchester Art Gallery), in which the budding youth of a group of girls
is set against the seasonal decay of natural things: dead leaves burning
at dusk. The conjunction was calculated to induce, he claimed, "the
deepest religious reflection". Landscape and figures interact in
a similar way in other works, such as The Blind Girl (1856; City
of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery), in which the beauty of the scenery
intensifies the subject's pathos, and The Vale of Rest (1859; Tate
Gallery, London), a rather strange image of nuns digging a grave in the
gathering gloom of evening.
Illustrations
Millais had always demonstrated an immense talent for drawing
and his many finished pen-and-ink
drawings of the earlier 1850s, for example The Race-Meeting
(1853; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), a scene reminiscent of contemporary
novels, led him naturally to illustration, an art form he took up with
the edition of Tennyson's poems published by Moxon in 1857. Throughout
the 1860s he was a prolific illustrator, both for magazines, notably Once
a Week, and for novels, especially those of Trollope.
Membership of Royal Academy
Millais' painting technique, already losing its Pre-Raphaelite meticulousness,
became increasingly broad from now on, enabling him to work more quickly
and on larger canvases. He admired English 18th-century portraitists and
the Old Masters, and when in 1868 he
was made a full member of the London Royal Academy, he named his presentation
picture Souvenir of Velazquez (1868; Royal Academy of Arts, London).
Another 19th century Royal Academician who became close friends with Millais
was Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-73), the
highly popular animal painter.
Portrait Painting
First in a line of portrait studies of
single children - often his own - was My First Sermon (1863; Guildhall
Art Gallery, London), depicting a little girl in a pew. Cherry Ripe (1879;
private collection) in the style of Joshua
Reynolds, the much more painterly manner of which exemplifies the
evolution of Millais' style, was published as a fine art colour print,
selling 600,000 copies. He also dealt in historical child-subjects such
as The Boyhood of Raleigh (1870; Tate Gallery, London). Another
category was the young lady in 18th-century costume; the painting Clarissa
(1887; private collection), modeled by his daughter Sophie, imitates Gainsborough's
portrait The Honourable Mrs Graham (1777; National
Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh).
Landscape Painting
Millais' first major pure landscape
painting was Chill October (1870; private collection). Autumn
and winter visits to Scotland, during which he did much hunting and shooting
as well as landscape-painting, came to provide a welcome escape from the
increasing pressures of his London portrait practice. His depictions of
often rather bleak scenes were intended to suggest human sentiments, especially
loneliness and a sense of the impassivity of Nature. They show technical
subtlety in rendering effects of wind, dew, and mist, and sensitivity
in capturing the mood of a certain season or time of day, as for example
in Lingering Autumn (1890; Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight).
Hearts are Trumps (1872; Tate Gallery, London), showing three ladies
around a card-table, is an early example of his society portraiture. Such
luxuriously dressed female sitters exercised Millais' now bold and rich
handling of paint. With male subjects he concentrated on the delineation
of strong character in the features: for example in the two portraits
of Gladstone (1879, National
Portrait Gallery, London; and 1885, Christ Church, Oxford). Outline
is a particularly telling aspect of his work, seen to effect in Mrs
Jopling (1879; Collection of L.M. Jopling, on loan to the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford). With its three-quarter-length figure set against a plain
background, this compares in simplicity of statement with contemporary
work by the classical Impressionist Edouard
Manet.
Later Life
Concerning Millais' several studies of old age, the patriotic North-West
Passage (1874; Tate Gallery, London), which shows a retired sea-dog,
is the most attractive, especially in its colouring. The Ruling Passion
(1885; Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum), depicting a bedridden ornithologist,
typifies Millais' later preference for dark tones and an overall impression
of brownness. This is also seen in the late religious
paintings, for instance St Stephen (1895; Tate Gallery, London).
Created a baronet in 1885, and elected President of the London
Royal Academy in 1896, Millais commanded the highest personal popularity
and professional esteem.
Paintings by John Everett Millais
Works by Sir John Everett Millais can be
seen in the world's best art museums,
including the Tate Collection London, the London Royal Academy of Arts,
and the J Paul Getty Museum Los Angeles.
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