Born: 1829
Died: 1896
Summary of John Everett Millais
Millais was a bona fide child genius who went on to gain both home and international recognition throughout his lifetime. With Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt, he formed a group of painters that defied the established rules of academic painting in the early 19th century. When it comes to British art, many consider the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to be one of the earliest avant-garde movements in the country, drawing influence from painters like Jan van Eyck and Albrecht Dürer. Millais, who was first known for his groundbreaking commitment to pictorial reality, then turned to political works before focusing on portraits and Scottish landscapes in later years. In addition, Millais is regarded as the first Academy artist to use newspaper illustrations and reproduction prints to broaden his artistic horizons. In 1896, he was elected President of the Royal Academy, capping off a stellar academic and professional career.
To put it another way, his work in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a major departure from the Academy’s “predictable” style of painting, which favoured Italian Renaissance and Classical art. Pious young guy with an almost obsessive attention to detail was behind his works. In his early paintings, he exhibited a particular bravery in the way he depicted religious characters as regular individuals in common natural settings.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was become a legitimate movement because to Millais’ efforts, and he deserves credit for making it more popular and credible. Through a sequence of romantic paintings juxtaposed with real-world political events, he was able to accomplish this. He was also praised for his ability to convey the emotions of his female characters in these historical works via his meticulous attention to detail.
After abandoning realism, Millais began painting landscapes depicting women and nature in a more colourful manner. Many people saw these paintings as contemplations on the ebb and flow of youth and beauty. For much that they weren’t to everyone’s taste, they were key transitional pieces that helped to broaden Millais’s influence in the Aesthetic movement by directly influencing John Ruskin, a prominent critic and promoter of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Millais produced a number of significant landscapes in Scotland for his mature works. The artist’s prior attention to detail was absent from these works, as he instead focused on utilising his palette to explore a wide spectrum of emotional effects. Millais’s landscapes were distinguishable from those of other landscape painters by the diversity of his imagery, which varied from great drama to peaceful sorrow.
Millais’ portrait paintings were a natural progression from his landscapes. On the other hand, his “unfussy” adult portraits of high-ranking public officials garnered parallels to the likes of Rembrandt and Velazquez because of their strength and humility. His images of young children were also incredibly effective and heartfelt, and he broke new ground in the crossover between fine art and mass printing (albeit not to everyone’s satisfaction).
Childhood
John Everett Millais was born into a middle-class military family, the eldest of three brothers and sisters. Both John and his brother William would follow in the footsteps of their father, John William Millais, who was an avid “Sunday painter” Home-schooled by Mary Emily Hodgkinson Millais had an ideal upbringing. Jason Rosenfeld, an art historian, said on older biographical publications on Millais “For example, there are many allusions to his early love of outdoor sports such as fishing or hiking or walking or riding a horse and playing cricket or swimming. His frail constitution and rail-thin body, which was often mentioned by people who knew him as an adult, had to be overcome in order to achieve this goal “As a matter of fact,.
His parents wholeheartedly supported Millais’s exceptional aptitude for painting. In 1838, the whole family relocated to London so that their nine-year-old son could begin to pursue a career in painting. “this gamble was on the strength of juvenile drawings that he had made of militiamen in France and Jersey and of fanciful subjects, and productive lessons from a Paris-trained artist and illustrator” says Rosenfeld.
Early Life
His mother introduced her son to the head of the Royal Academy of Arts, Sir Martin Shee, upon arriving in London. Her suggestion that her son should learn how to clean chimneys swiftly disregarded Mary, who was only nine years old. But she persevered, and when he examined samples of Millais’s work, he changed his mind about the artist completely. Millais was transferred to Henry Sass’s Academy to begin his studies and was accepted to the Royal Academy on probation two years later. In 1846, three years after obtaining his first medal of excellence, he was admitted as a full-time student. His youth did not distinguish him from his more experienced colleagues, who were typically charmed over by his upbeat demeanour and compassionate demeanour.. Although Millais was tormented for his young and small stature in comparison to his peers, he was “Millais became a favourite of the other pupils, lightly teased for his youth and diminutive size compared to the older students but generally adored” by his peers, according to Rosenfeld.
Mid Life
The Academy’s overwhelming concentration on Renaissance masters, particularly Raphael, irritated Millais, despite his good schooling. With fellow Academy students Dante Gabriel Rosetti, William Holman Hunt and James Collinson and William Michael Rosetti, he formed a secret group of seven young painters in 1848. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood would be the group’s moniker. Paintings of the Brotherhood focused on theological, intellectual, and lyrical influences, particularly those that dealt with love and death, to achieve a precise realism. At the age of 21, Millais painted one of his finest works, Christ at the House of his Parents (The Carpenter’s Shop), which is considered one of his best works.
“Primitives” such as Stefan Lochner and Fra Angelico were seen as a source of “the charm of simple devotion and a child-like heart” by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painters, according to art historian E. H. Gombrich, who traced a genealogy back to these artists. By contrast, Delacroix and Courbet’s more progressive/contemporary style, according to Gombrich, could not compete in terms of theme, and hence was doomed to be short-lived. According to art historian John Rothenstein, the Brotherhood “was the most positive English expression of a widespread imaginative recoil from the fog-girt meanness of the outward aspect of the society brought into being by the Industrial Revolution, and from the listless but pretentious classicism, remotely derivative from the Renaissance, that stood for ‘generalised form’, property scenery and studio lighting” at the time of its founding.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was influenced by art critic John Ruskin, who later became one of the group’s most ardent supporters. According to his predictions, they might “lay in our England the foundations of a school of art nobler than the world had seen for three hundred years” in England. ‘Artists must open their eyes to the profusion of topics accessible in the natural world, and transcend the strictures of conventional art education,’ Ruskin challenged the Brotherhood, according to Rosenfeld. Although the Brotherhood’s methods were an affront to established artists and clients, their popularity swiftly rose as a result of John Ruskin’s enthusiastic backing for the movement.
The religious Millais was surrounded by like-minded individuals, but he was excluded from the group after a while. Rosenfeld provides the following explanation: “He was famously single and didn’t appear to be interested in dating anybody. Despite earning more money than his colleagues, Millais chose to remain at home and support his family, even if it meant travelling to theatres to see sketch performers in order to pay the bills “For additional information, please see the following link: He was also pampered by his own family, and Millais’s cousin Edward Benest reportedly said, “everything in that house was characteristic of the great devotion of all to the young artist; and yet he was in no way spoilt”.
It wasn’t long until Millais overcame his social phobia after meeting Ruskin and his wife, Euphemia Chalmers Gray (nicknamed “Effie”). Ruskins had a rocky relationship as a married couple. Ruskin, who was nine years older than his bride, declined to marry her because he didn’t want to be a parent.
Effie quickly drew Millais’ attention, and he painted her multiple times throughout the course of his career (and even tutored her in art lessons). The artist’s interest to Effie grew into love as soon as he learnt about her unhappy marriage. As Millais started to separate himself from Ruskin, Effie developed love for him, making the situation much more problematic since he was painting Ruskin’s picture at the time. “If I had only myself to consult, I should write immediately and refuse to go on further with the portrait, which is the most hateful task I ever had to perform, but I am so anxious that Effie should not suffer further for any act of mine that I will put up with anything rather than increase her suffering” wrote Millais in 1854 to Effie’s mother. Effie Ruskins sued for an annulment in April 1854, ending the couple’s marriage (which was granted in July of that year). A year later, on July 3, 1855, he tied the knot with Effie, beginning a marriage marked by love and joy that would see the couple raise four boys and two daughters.
Ruskin and Millais’ relationship dissolved, although his appraisals of his work were always complimentary (if somewhat less enthusiastic). When Millais was painting Autumn Leaves, he was at the beginning of a new era in his career (1855-56). Moving away from a rigorous attention to reality, his latest works (ergo his move away from Pre-Raphaelitism). When Millais became a Royal Academy associate and realised the significance of prints to augmenting his income and establishing his name, Rosenfeld said that he introduced “a more mature aspect of his art” to his work.
Millais’ versatility grew in the late 1850s, and he began to use his work to make political comments. In addition, he started to use his own children as models in his work. Soon, he was inundated with requests for children’s photographs due to his unique ability to capture the spirit of youth. Even the most well-connected and prominent patrons were unable to get a piece of art because of the tremendous demand. During the Royal Academy supper on May 4, 1867, Albert, Prince of Wales expressed a wish to acquire a painting by Millais that included children, but Millais had to inform him that they were all sold.
His commercial work included the fabrication of 18 designs for an 1857 collection of Alfred Tennyson’s poetry in addition to the contracts he received and his willingness to sell copies of his paintings. In addition to several periodicals ranging from weeklies like the Illustrated London News and Punch to literary journals, Millais worked nonstop in black and white for nearly a decade, according to Rosenfeld. Even though he continued to produce illustrations, his income from selling his paintings grew steadily, and his output of those works decreased with time. It corresponded with an increase in his position at the Royal Academy of Arts (he would become a full Academician at the end of 1863).
James McNeill Whistler became a fan of Millais’s work after seeing his display at the Academy in 1859. After meeting, Whistler informed Millais, “I never flatter, but I will say that your picture is the finest piece of colour that has been on the walls of the Royal Academy for years”. Aesthetic movement founder John James Whistler was influenced by Millais’s narrative paintings, such as Spring (1856-59), which had a strong narrative aspect and included wonderfully depicted young ladies.
Late Life
Millais’s latter years were a whirlwind of activity, both professionally and personally. Although he was much acclaimed in exhibits, notably the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1878, he concentrated on landscapes and portraits in his latter years. Millais travelled to Scotland for inspiration for his landscape paintings, painting twenty-one views in all, frequently in inclement weather. It was written to his daughter Mary in 1876: “I could not feel my fingers, and gladly came in to a comfortable fire” he said.
Even though he had been painting portraits since his early years at the Academy, the stronger impasto manner of his later works earned him fresh admiration. Sitters liked him because of his personable demeanour, not only because he was really good in math. Fellow painter Louise Jopling described him as “the soul of good nature, and entirely without vanity, either personal or about his work and I never knew a man so utterly devoid of jealousy or spite” in an 1879 interview.
Benjamin Disraeli (in 1881) and William Ewart Gladstone (in 1882) were the two most prominent British politicians to order works by Millais (in 1879). On one occasion, Disraeli told the artist, “I am an extremely uncooperative sitter,” but “I will not easily give up my chance of being known to posterity by your illustrious pencil.” On another occasion, Gladstone granted the artist the title of Baronet, making him the first British artist to receive this honour. Millais wrote to his oldest daughter, “with the Queens approval Mr. Gladstone has made me a Baronet and the delight of the house is sweet to see, nothing but smiles from the kitchen upwards” as a reaction to the honour.
In 1878, Millais suffered a personal sorrow with the death of his son George from typhoid disease. He resorted to painting as a kind of therapy in the wake of the tragedy. Later, he wrote to his friend Louise Jopling, “” “When George passed away, I was thankful for the job I had done. Get you to your easel as soon as possible as the most reliable way of preventing forgetfulness and instead keeping your mind healthy and even joyfully occupied “For now.
On the other hand, in 1894, Millais was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. However, he continued to suffer from headaches and eye trouble after surgery and rehabilitation in Bath. He wrote to Effie, “this enforced idleness is so wearying to me sometimes I feel I can very well resume my work, at others the old feeling comes back, and I dread the experiment of returning to work for fear of getting ill again”. The worry of his declining health may have prompted him to return to religious themes in his last writings.
When he received the honour of President of the Royal Academy on February 20, 1896, Millais was in such terrible condition that he was unable to properly appreciate it. Even Queen Victoria was heartbroken when, only three months later, he was forced to endure an amputation of his vocal cords due to complications from a tracheotomy. The Queen had previously rejected his wife because of her annulment of her first marriage, which she wrongly interpreted as a divorce, according to Rosenfeld. The Queen addressed a letter to Effie in which she conveyed her personal, and the nation’s, regret at the loss of one of the finest British painters of his time.
During the nineteenth century, Millais played a significant influence in the modernization of British art. For his role in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood he has been described as a “a youthfully bold challenge to the staid nature of the Royal Academy and art in general in Britain” by art historian Jason Rosenfeld. The Pre-Raphaelites’ restoration of mediaeval styles, tales, and techniques of production had a great effect on the creation of the Arts and Crafts movement (a forerunner to Art Nouveau and Art Deco) and its rebirth of handicrafts in design.
During the nineteenth century, Millais had a significant impact on British art. Founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, one of the most radical groups in British art history, “a youthfully bold challenge to the staid nature of the Royal Academy and art in general in Britain” according to art historian Jason Rosenfeld. Pre-Raphaelites’ rebirth of mediaeval styles, tales, and techniques had a great effect on development of the Arts and Crafts movement (itself a forerunner to Art Nouveau and Art Deco) as well as its resurgence of handicrafts in design as a response to industrialization’s detrimental impact.
Famous Art by John Everett Millais
Christ in the House of His Parents (The Carpenter’s Shop)
1849-1850
In this painting, Millais shows a young Christ after he was pierced by a nail by mistake. Father Joseph leans over his workshop table, as mother Mary kneels by her son in an effort to console him. While Christ’s cousin, John, gives him a bowl of water as a healing salve, his grandma Anne still clutches the pliers she used to remove the nail. On the back wall are tools that will be used to make his crucifix, a cut on his palm that has dripped blood on to his left foot, and alludes to Christ’s stigmata, the wounds of the cross; the dove perched atop a ladder, which symbolises the Holy Spirit; and water carried by young John the Baptist, who played an important role in Christ’s life.
Ophelia
1851-1852
Ophelia, Millais’s most renowned painting, represents the scene from Hamlet in which Hamlet’s girlfriend drowns herself in a brook because of her anguish after the death of her father. Her haunting facial expression is highlighted against the rich natural tones of her natural surroundings as she floats on her back in the murky water with her arms spread. When it comes to applying paint, Millais has the uncommon ability to apply it with a deftness of touch that catches light, textures and natural nuances with incredible accuracy. The painting of Ophelia, on the other hand, was everything but pleasant for the artist. A letter he sent to the widow of Thomas Combe complains that he laboured eleven-hour days on the Hogsmill river near Ewell constructing the scene for Ophelia.
A Huguenot, on St Bartholomew’s Day, Refusing to Shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge
1851-1852
Couples hug behind a garden wall, surrounded by greenery, in the Huguenot. With his right hand, he blocks her from tying a white band around her lover’s left arm while he cradles her head with the left.
The artwork, widely regarded as a masterpiece of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood movement, depicts a historically accurate event: the Roman Catholics’ August 24, 1572 massacre of 3,000 Protestant Huguenots. To save her love’s life, she is attempting to persuade him to wear the white arm band that would show his Catholicism and save him from the impending death sentence. Millais highlighted the young man’s bravery by saying, “but he, holding his faith above his greatest worldly love, will be softly preventing her”. By showing the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as a real movement in British art history, the picture garnered a resounding positive response. After four years of “groping surprise” from critics and the public, “thick and thin vituperation” from critics and the public, the movement had “practically triumphed,” according to art critic William Michael Rosetti in 1853.
The Order of Release, 1746
1852-1853
Millais utilised his paintings to make political comments and to examine historical topics. The Order of Release narrates the narrative of a Jacobite soldier who was imprisoned during a revolt against British loyalists but was freed after the Battle of Culloden in April 1746. The artwork depicts great image detail, vibrant colours, and stunning tonalities. Soldiers from the British Army may be seen looking on as a prisoner is embraced by his wife, who is also carrying their baby boy. A dog paws at his master’s slung arm as he greets him upon his return.
Autumn Leaves
1855-1856
Autumn Leaves by John Everett Millais has a cluster of four young women in the front. In the middle of the mound of leaves, a group of young women are gathered around a basket of leaves, a rake in one hand, and an empty one in the other. Only the youngest seems to be neglecting her responsibilities as she holds an apple in her hands after taking a bite of it. Three females are engrossed with their surroundings, while the two on the left are focused on the viewer’s gaze. Effie’s two sisters, Alice and Sophie, are seen in dark green costumes in this painting, which was created immediately after Millais returned from his honeymoon.
Spring
1856-1859
This painting, Spring, has eight young girls sitting in an apple orchard, a common topic in Millais’ later work and one that is featured prominently in this painting. Flowers in two baskets show that they had previously been engaged in another activity, but now they are all in varied states of relaxation. With her arms out in front of her and her head pointed squarely toward the viewer, an older girl in an all-yellow outfit rests on her back with her hands clasped in front of her and a tiny basin of water nearby.
Chill October
1870
Chill Located near his wife’s family home in Perth, Seggieden is a small Scottish community surrounded by a darkening landscape. Everything is represented in fall tones of golds, browns, and yellows since the artist photographed the region in October. One can see a flock of birds flying above the grey, cloud-covered sky, which is caught by swaying trees on each side of the river, leaning left towards the canvas.
Hearts are Trumps: Portraits of Elizabeth, Diana, and Mary, Daughters of Walter Armstrong, Esq.
1872
The three daughters of Millais’ patron, Walter Armstrong, are shown in Hearts are Trumps. We can observe here that the artist’s attention to detail had not waned. Elizabeth, Diana, and Mary’s clothing, as well as backdrop elements like wallpaper, a giant potted plant, and an elegant furniture piece/card table, demonstrate this. The Tate Museum’s description of the painting implies that it is a work of art “The title of the piece and the card game hint to a race to be married first. This was a major issue for women in their socioeconomic level at the time. These ladies are shown to have mastered the social structures and expectations of the time as a game
The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone M. P.
1878-1879
William Ewart Gladstone, the British Prime Minister, was commissioned by Millais, but the artist requested that he create the portrait of himself. As a political person of his stature, he is shown in a pensive side-profile position. This is what Catherine said of the portrait: “Mr. Gladstone was thinking at the time how terrible a sin would be committed if England was to go to war for the Turks” she remarked. Rosenfeld claims that Millais’s portraiture style was unique “forces a face-to-face encounter with the sitter, without the distraction of other distractions When it came to guys like Gladstone, who saw themselves as intellectuals engaged in politics, this was a perfect fit”
Bubbles
1886
With this painting, Millais has taken a page from the footsteps of Jean-Siméon Chardin’s Soap Bubbles (1739) and Édouard Manet’s Soap Bubbles (1867). A soap bubble hovers above the subject’s head as he sits thoughtfully, painted by the artist’s own grandson. A pipe and a basin of soapy water are the instruments he used to make this amazing curiosity. Symbols such as rotten fruit, hourglasses, timepieces, and bubbles are all used in Millais’s vanitas paintings, which have been used for centuries, to convey the idea of death and the passage of time.
BULLET POINTED (SUMMARISED)
Best for Students and a Huge Time Saver
- Millais was a bona fide child genius who went on to gain both home and international recognition throughout his lifetime.
- With Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt, he formed a group of painters that defied the established rules of academic painting in the early 19th century.
- When it comes to British art, many consider the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to be one of the earliest avant-garde movements in the country, drawing influence from painters like Jan van Eyck and Albrecht Dürer.
- Millais, who was first known for his groundbreaking commitment to pictorial reality, then turned to political works before focusing on portraits and Scottish landscapes in later years.
- In addition, Millais is regarded as the first Academy artist to use newspaper illustrations and reproduction prints to broaden his artistic horizons.
- In 1896, he was elected President of the Royal Academy, capping off a stellar academic and professional career.
- To put it another way, his work in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a major departure from the Academy’s “predictable” style of painting, which favoured Italian Renaissance and Classical art.
- Pious young guy with an almost obsessive attention to detail was behind his works.
- In his early paintings, he exhibited a particular bravery in the way he depicted religious characters as regular individuals in common natural settings.
- The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was become a legitimate movement because to Millais’ efforts, and he deserves credit for making it more popular and credible.
- Through a sequence of romantic paintings juxtaposed with real-world political events, he was able to accomplish this.
- He was also praised for his ability to convey the emotions of his female characters in these historical works via his meticulous attention to detail.
- After abandoning realism, Millais began painting landscapes depicting women and nature in a more colourful manner.
- Many people saw these paintings as contemplations on the ebb and flow of youth and beauty.
- For much that they weren’t to everyone’s taste, they were key transitional pieces that helped to broaden Millais’s influence in the Aesthetic movement by directly influencing John Ruskin, a prominent critic and promoter of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
- Millais produced a number of significant landscapes in Scotland for his mature works.
- The artist’s prior attention to detail was absent from these works, as he instead focused on utilising his palette to explore a wide spectrum of emotional effects.
- Millais’s landscapes were distinguishable from those of other landscape painters by the diversity of his imagery, which varied from great drama to peaceful sorrow.
- Millais’ portrait paintings were a natural progression from his landscapes.
- On the other hand, his “unfussy” adult portraits of high-ranking public officials garnered parallels to the likes of Rembrandt and Velazquez because of their strength and humility.
- His images of young children were also incredibly effective and heartfelt, and he broke new ground in the crossover between fine art and mass printing (albeit not to everyone’s satisfaction).
Information Citations
En.wikipedia.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/.
