John Everett Millais

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John Everett Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, was born on June 8, 1829, in
Southampton, Hampshire, England. Millais was a well-known painter and
illustrator in England and one of the original founders of the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood (PRB), along with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt.
The PRB was an artistic movement with that took inspiration from the purity of the
early Renaissance. The PRB embodied an unconventional–and often controversial–style.

Early Beginnings

In 1838, eleven-year-old Millais went to London. There he entered the Royal Academy schools where he went on to win every one of the academy prizes. Just ten years later, in 1848, Millais collaborated with William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Together, they formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. They named it the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood because they were fed up with the contemporary paintings and art which they believed was popularized due to the artist Raphael. All of the schools at this time followed this same, monotonous art form. Millais, Hunt and Rossetti were ready for a change.

Critiques and Praises

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The famous novelist Charles Dickens criticized Millais’s work.Dickens found Millais’s painting, Christ in the House of His Parents (1850),to be blasphemous due to its “lack of idealization and seeming irreverencein the use of the mundane.”

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During the 1850s, Millais created some of his best work.Essayist and critic John Ruskin and the famous author Théophile Gautierwere big admirers of Millais’s The Return of the Dove to the Ark (1851).Eugène Delacroix praised The Order of Release (1853).

Personal Life

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When Millais painted The Order of Release (1853),

the woman he painted, Effie Gray, was married to his friend,

John Ruskin. Despite being married for several years to Ruskin,

Effie was still a virgin. Effie would later get an annulment from Ruskin

and marry Millais. Millais and Effie had 8 children.

Greatest Works

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Millais’s Ophelia (1851-52) is among one of the most famous paintings in
the entire PRB. Millais painted The Blind Girl (1956) which also gained quick
popularity. The painting depicts “Victorian sentiment and technical facility.”

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Artist’s Decline

Millais’s work declined significantly in the later years of his life. In 1863 he became a full academician, and with that title he purposely chose to change his style to be more popular and less controversial. Millais drew illustrations for George Dalziel’s Parables (1864), E. Moxon’s edition of Tennyson’s poems, Once a Week, Good Words, and other periodicals. In 1870 Millais started painting pure landscapes such as, Lingering Autumn (1890). Perthshire, a place where Millais often hunted and fished, was the inspiration for several of his landscape pieces.

During this period, other great portraits were created including those of William Gladstone, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Cardinal Newman.

Big Milestones

The mid to late 1880s proved to be a significant time for Millais.

In 1885 Millais was named a baronet, and the following year

he was elected to be the president of the Royal Academy.

Death

John Everett Millais died on August 13, 1896, in London, England.


Sources

Barringer, T. J., Jason Rosenfeld, Alison Smith, Elizabeth Prettejohn, and Diane Waggoner. Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design. New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 2012. Print.
John Everett Millais – Música Mendelssohn. YouTube. N.p., 12 Sept. 2011. Web. 1 May 2013.

Jason Rosenfeld Discusses John Everett Millais. Dir. Jason Rosenfeld. YouTube. N.p., 19 Apr. 2012. Web. 1 May 2013.

Millais, John Everett. Christ in the House of His Parents. 1850. Oil on canvas. BBC Your Paintings. Public Catalogue Foundation. Web. 1 May 2013.

Millais, John Everett. Lingering Autumn. 1890. Oil on canvas. BBC Your Paintings. Public Catalogue Foundation. Web. 1 May 2013.

Millais, John Everett. Ophelia. 1851-52. Oil on canvas. BBC Your Paintings. Public Catalogue Foundation. Web. 1 May 2013.

Millais, John Everett. The Order of Release. 1853. Oil on canvas. BBC Your Paintings. Public Catalogue Foundation. Web. 1 May 2013.

Millais, John Everett. The Return of the Dove to the Ark. 1851. Oil on canvas. BBC Your Paintings. Public Catalogue Foundation. Web. 1 May 2013.

“Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 May 2013.

“Millais, Sir John Everett, 1st Baronet”. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Web. 1 May. 2013.

Contributor: Rebecca Sass