Sir John Millais

Sir John Millais by Frederick Wedmore

Sir John Millais, son of John William Millais and Mary, daughter of Richard Evemy, was born at Southampton in 1829, descended from a long-standing Jersey family though English in character. He won his first medal at the Society of Arts at nine, exhibited at the Academy at seventeen, and at twenty produced "Isabella," from Keats, announcing a striking new talent. He then painted the Pre-Raphaelite works "Carpenter's Shop," "Mariana in the Moated Grange," the "Huguenot," and "Ophelia," part of a group that included Mr. Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who also wrote and drew for the publication The Germ. These early works showed intense, dramatic emotion, choosing figures such as the Puritan maiden and Cavalier of the "Concealed Royalist" and the lovers of the "Huguenot" at their moment of crisis. This early manner gave way gradually: "Autumn Leaves" (1856) and "Vale of Rest" (1860) kept poetic feeling without violent emotion, relying on landscape to convey mood, the first depicting childhood wistfulness, the second a nun's melancholy resignation. "Spring Flowers" (1860), possibly the picture known as "Apple Blossom," showed girls under apple boughs. "My First Sermon" (1863) treated childhood in a popular vein. "Vanessa" (1869) showed growing technical boldness and brilliant colour and brushwork. Millais then turned to pure landscape, producing "Chill October," depicting wind over water and bent reeds and foliage. "New Laid Eggs" (1873) depicted rustic girlhood. The "North-West Passage" (1874) portrayed Trevelyan, associated with Shelley's career, as a sailor imagining a remote voyage, and was regarded as the summit of the painter's artistic greatness. "A Jersey Lily" (1878) portrayed Mrs. Langtry. His diploma picture invoked Velasquez, while the picture of the three Miss Armstrongs playing whist with a dummy followed Sir Joshua Reynolds, recalling his group portrait of the three Ladies Waldegrave. In 1879 Millais exhibited his portrait of Mr. Gladstone, acclaimed for its nobility and charm. The following "Mr. Bright" was comparatively unsuccessful, and the portrait of Lord Beaconsfield, shown in 1881, was disappointing owing to the sitter's illness. In 1882 came "Cardinal Newman," a tender and energetic performance that atoned for the preceding disappointments.

By Frederick Wedmore · First published 1899 · Genre: Biography, Art Criticism, Art History · 2,267 words

First lines

For the second time within a few months the Royal Academy has lost its chief, while English Painting is deprived of its most popular representative, and contemporary English Art of one who was long its most vigorous and most varied personality. Born at Southampton in 1829, the ‘son of John William Millais, Esquire, by Mary, daughter of Richard Evemy, Esquire' -- as the official biographies relate -- Millais was really the descendant of a Jersey family of long standing; but in character, personal and professional, he was typically English. It is partly by reason of the fact that, as a man and as an artist, Millais summed up some, perhaps, of the defects, many certainly of the great qualities, of our English race, that his popularity amongst all personal associates, and amongst the spectators of his decisive, strenuous, and eager work, was won so early, and has been so firmly held.

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art criticism · Victorian painting · Pre-Raphaelite movement · portraiture · landscape painting · artistic evolution · romantic imagery · poetic vision · technical mastery · 19th century · English art · artistic maturity

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