Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet [ˈmilɛː] PRA (b. June 8, 1829 in Southampton; † August 13, 1896 in London) was a British painter from the Pre-Raphaelite circle. Millais was the first artist to be awarded the hereditary title of Baronet.
John Everett Millais's Life
John Everett Millais came from a middle-class Jersey family. His parents were John William Millais (1800-1870) and Mary Evamy (1789-1864). Between 1833 and 1838 he lived in St. Helier, Jersey, and in Dinan, Brittany.
A child prodigy, he attended Sass' Art School from 1838 to 1839 and won a Royal Society of Arts silver medal at age nine. In 1840, at the age of eleven, he was admitted - as the youngest member ever - by Sir Martin Archer Shee to the Royal Academy of Arts in London, from which he graduated successfully until 1847.
Here he was called "the child". In 1843 he received the silver medal for a drawing of antiquity. His painting The Tribe of Benjamin Seizing the Daughters of Shiloh was awarded a gold medal in 1847. In 1846 he was represented for the first time at the Royal Academy Exhibition with his painting Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru (1.28 × 1.72 m).
In July 1848, the Cyclographic Society was founded with the members: Everett Millais, Frederic George Stephens, Thomas Woolner, James Collinson, Walter Howell Deverell, and Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Their designs circulated in this circle, such as Rossetti's drawing Gretchen in Church, which was criticized by Millais.
However, this society was already dissolved at the end of August. Instead, they formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which was to become a comradeship rather than a true collaboration.
He maintained a joint studio with William Holman Hunt, whom he had met at the Academy, beginning in 1848. Millais was one of the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 and the most talented of all.
In 1849 he exhibited a first Pre-Raphaelite painting at the Academy: Isabella, inspired by a poem by John Keats.
His painting Christ in His Parents' House sparked public protest in 1850. John Ruskin's support changed public opinion in 1851, and Millais showed Ophelia in 1852. In 1853 he visited Scotland at the invitation of John Ruskin, whom he portrayed.
In 1855 he married Effie, Ruskin's wife, after their marriage was annulled. The couple had eight children. To avoid scandal in London society, they lived in Scotland until 1861.
By 1856, Millais had perfected his painting technique and was restlessly searching for new ways to express himself. He had realized that the precision of painting in the style of the Pre-Raphaelites was only a stage in his development.
In 1861 he moved back to London with the family. Here he had great success with his paintings of children. Particularly famous was his painting A Child's World of his grandson, which became famous under the name "Bubbles". The following story is passed down about it:
The painting, exhibited in the spring of 1886 at the Tooth & Sons Gallery, 5 and 6 Haymarket, London, was purchased by Sir Ingram, owner of the Illustrated London News magazine. He wanted to produce printing plates from it for the 1886 Christmas greetings.
Now Thomas J. Barratt of the firm A. & F. Pears saw the picture in Sir Ingram's office and bought it from him. The Pears firm was a soap manufacturer and Millais' Boy with Bubbles ("Bubbles") became very well known as a soap advertisement for the firm, which wanted to appeal to higher earners.
In 1863, Millais was elected to the Royal Academy. By the end of the 1860s, Millais had become an extraordinarily popular artist, including book illustrations, history, genre, and event paintings. He had a handsome income from selling licenses to publish his works as intaglio prints.
From 1870 he worked successfully as a society painter and portraitist and received numerous international awards, including the Prussian Order Pour le Mérite, the Belgian Order of Leopold, and the French Légion d'honneur. In 1882 Millais was admitted as a foreign member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
On July 16, 1885, Queen Victoria ennobled him with the hereditary title of Baronet, of Palace Gate, in the Parish of St. Mary Abbot, Kensington, in the County of Middlesex, and of Saint Ouen, in the Island of Jersey. In 1886, the Grosvenor Gallery exhibited 159 of his works. Later, his works were also on display at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts.
In 1889, he was instrumental in the establishment of the National Portrait Gallery in London. In 1896, a few months before his death, the Royal Academy appointed Sir John Everett Millais as its president.
He died on August 13, 1896, in Kensington, London, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. His title of nobility was inherited by his eldest son Everett Millais (1856-1897) as 2nd Baronet.
Paintings from his studio were auctioned at Christie's on May 1, 1897, March 21, and July 2, 1898.
John Everett Millais's Work
Millais's painting Christ in His Parents' House, commonly called The Carpenter's Shop at the time, caused one of the Royal Academy's biggest scandals when it was exhibited in the spring of 1850.
It was seen as blasphemous in its fidelity to nature and as having "papist" tendencies in Millais, a not insignificant accusation at the time in a religiously intolerant England. One of the fiercest opponents was the writer Charles Dickens. He complained:
"A hideous, wry-necked, blubbering redhead in a nightgown." And about Maria: she was "so repulsive in her ugliness that she would stand out as a monstrosity even in the most vulgar French tingle and the most seedy English doss house".
Queen Victoria was so disturbed by the fuss being made about the Pre-Raphaelite that she had some paintings brought to her palace. Consideration was given to banning the Pre-Raphaelites from the Academy's annual exhibitions. That's when John Ruskin, whose opinion was highly respected by the public, came to their rescue with two letters to the editor of The Times. The public furor and Ruskin's laudatory criticism spurred the Pre-Raphaelites on.
Millais illustrated a host of literary texts by notable writers, including Anthony Trollope's novels and the 1857 Moxon edition of Alfred Tennyson's Poems.
In the 1870s he mainly portrayed public figures, including Thomas Carlyle (1877), Lillie Langtry (1878), Gladstone (1879 and 1885), Disraeli (1881), and Tennyson (1881). It is believed that Millais also did this for financial reasons to provide for his large family.
His paintings of beautiful young women were also very popular, such as Stella in 1868. In the style of Sir Joshua Reynolds, he painted "Hearts are Trumps" the three daughters of Walter Armstrong - Elizabeth, Diana and Mary playing cards in 1872.
Important works
- Christ in the House of His Parents, 1849/1850; London, Tate Gallery.
- 'Isabella,' 1848-49 Walker Art Gallery collection Curator's choice - Millais's 'Isabella'
- Mariana, 1850/1850, oil on mahogany, 59.7×49.5 cm; formerly private property, owned by Tate Britain since 1999 in settlement of tax debts. Kahn Academy picture review
- The Huguenot, 1851/1852; exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1852 as 'A Huguenot, on St Bartholemew's Day, Refusing to Shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge'. Washington, Makins Collection Image review in Victorian Web Composition and its Consequences in Millais's A Huguenot on St. Bartholomew's Day.
- Ophelia, 1851/1852; London, Tate Gallery Image review of "Ophelia"
- Portrait of John Ruskin, 1853/1854; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
- Autumn leaves, 1855/1856, Manchester Art Gallery
- Image review of "Peace Concluded" 1856 - end of the Crimean War - The Putnam Dana McMillan Fund
- The Black Brunswicker, 1860; pictorial review. Liverpool, Lady Lever Art Gallery
- Apple Blossoms or Spring. 1858-59
- The North-West Passage 1874 in the Tate Gallery
- The Princes in the Tower, 1878, Holloway College, University of London
- John Henry Newman, portrait, 1881