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MILLAIS
Tate Britain, London
26 September 2007-13 January 2008

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
15 February-18 May 2008

Municipal Museum of Art, Kitakyushu
7 June-17 August 2008

Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo
30 August-26 October 2008

Reviewed for H-Museum by Prof. Dr. Antoine Capet, University of Rouen
E-Mail: antoine.capet@univ-rouen.fr

Past visitors of the Tate Gallery, as it was then known, will be familiar
with the archetypal Millais which seems to be on permanent display,
_Ophelia_, "the most popular painting at Tate Britain". Indeed, such is the
association between Millais, _Ophelia_ and the Tate that this painting
provides the cover photograph for the useful booklet given to visitors, for
the Press pack and also for the accompanying catalogue [1]--besides forming
the background to the Exhibition poster. Naturally, there is more to Sir
John Everett Millais (1829-1896) than _Ophelia_ (1851), and Tate Britain has
organized a long-awaited retrospective, the first since 1967 (at the Royal
Academy) and, the Press release indicates, "the first exhibition since 1898
to examine the entirety of the artist's career"--notably because it includes
a large group of his late Scottish landscapes. It is naturally impossible to
discuss here all the 140 paintings and works on paper which are featured,
but the exemplary website pages devoted to the Exhibition give illustrations
of all the major works displayed, with excellent explanatory notes.[2]

Not unexpectedly, the first room concentrates on Pre-Raphaelitism, since the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in John Millais's parents’ house in
1848. Among the other future celebrities present were William Holman Hunt
and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. If Pre-Raphaelitism can best be described in
opposition to Academicism or, as the Minneapolis Institute of Arts defines
it on its website, a "style which advocated a return to serious subjects and
naturalistic representation, and emphasized accuracy of detail and color",
then the precocious work of Millais did not adumbrate his future
Pre-Raphaelite militancy. The Exhibition has a magnificently Academic
_Pizarro seizing the Inca of Peru_ (1846)--admittedly painted when he was
only sixteen. Technically, the first painting to be explicitly presented in
the context of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was _Isabella_ (1848–9).
Together with _Christ in the House of His Parents (The Carpenter’s Shop)_
(1849-50), these paintings established Millais's reputation as a
_provocateur_, the former because of its overt rejection of Academicism, the
latter for reasons which ring all sorts of familiar bells today. The more
bigoted Protestants saw the scene as having inacceptable Roman Catholic
tendencies and the general religiosity of the time was averse to realistic
depiction of Jesus Christ. With _The Eve of St Agnes_ (1850) and _Mariana_
(1850-1), Millais deliberately infringed the conventions of the time by
associating erotic desire with "respectable women". The superb contemporary
portraits shown (_Portrait of a Gentleman and his Grandchild (James Wyatt
and his Granddaughter, Mary Wyatt)_, 1849; _Mrs James Wyatt Jr and her
Daughter Sarah_, 1850; _Thomas Combe_, 1850) apparently did little to
compensate for the scandalous nature of his other works--and yet,
paradoxically, the Royal Academy never refused to exhibit them.

Room 2, on "Romance and Modern Genre" is largely devoted to his next field
of exploration, that of figure painting with a historical dimension, often
depicting the conflict between love and patriotic or religious duty. We thus
have _A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day, refusing to shield himself from
Danger by wearing the Roman Catholic Badge_ (1851-2, on the massacre of
French Protestants by Roman Catholic mobs on 24 August 1572); _ The Order of
Release, 1746_ (1852-3, on the last Jacobite Rebellion);  _The Proscribed
Royalist, 1651_ (1852-3, on the English Civil War); _ Peace Concluded, 1856_
(1856, on the ending of the Crimean War); _The Escape of a Heretic, 1559_
(1857, on the Spanish Holy Inquisition); _The Black Brunswicker_ (1859-60,
on the Battle of Waterloo). Only six years separate _ The Order of Release,
1746_ from _Pizarro seizing the Inca of Peru_, and yet these two “historical
scenes” are light-years apart--or so they appear to be to the non-specialist
of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Room 2 also contains the well known picture
of _The Blind Girl_ (1854-6), in all its glorious colour (the girl’s red
hair!), impossible to render even with the best modern techniques of
reproduction.

Then the visitor moves on to the smaller Room 3, whose central theme is
Aestheticism. The curators (Alison Smith, Curator at Tate Britain, and Jason
Rosenfeld, Associate Professor at Marymount Manhattan College, New York)
explain their choice of this term in a very convincing wall text. Millais’s
evolution is perfectly encapsulated in the difference which one perceives
between _Spring_ (1856-9), with its arguably archetypal characteristics of
Pre-Raphaelitism, and _The Vale of Rest (Where the weary find repose)_
(1858). We are therefore not surprised to see the continuation of this
evolution towards "The Grand Tradition" in the next room, with classical
Biblical subjects (and also with a tendency to classical treatment?) like
_Esther_ (1863-5) or _Jephthah_ (1867). Fortunately, the curators provide
their modern de-Christianised visitors with the essential information on
these Old Testament subjects--but few members of the public seemed to be
interested. In contrast, the two assassinated sons of Edward IV in _The
Princes in the Tower_ (1878) continue to speak to the crowds (it was hardly
possible to approach some of the pictures, let alone the captions, when I
was there--this is of course the ambivalent ransom of success for all museum
authorities). The patriotic scenes, _ The Boyhood of Raleigh_ (1869-70) and
_ The North-West Passage_ (1874), do not arouse the same enthusiasm as when
they were first exhibited. We must bear the Imperial context in mind:
Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India in 1877 as the culmination of
Disraeli’s efforts to revive interest in the Empire, largely neglected by
his Liberal rivals. Few visitors today will look at these pictures with the
Imperial pride which they both assumed and enhanced. That the former young
rebels of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood now appeared as supporters of the
Conservative Imperial dream was of course highly ironical.

As a total contrast to his "Imperialist" pictures, Millais produced the
"Fancy Pictures" of Room 5. A wall text conveniently explains what the
phrase means in art history: "The 'fancy picture' first came into existence
during the eighteenth century and can be described as genre painting where
the sentiment takes precedence over evolved narrative". The archetypal work
in this category is the celebrated _Bubbles_ (1886). The original was not
often seen until recently, but it is now on long loan to the Lady Lever Art
Gallery, whose website usefully retraces the history of the painting,
indirectly explaining why Millais was blamed for his commercialism (one more
inexcusable sin for the idealists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of his
young days):

_Bubbles_ will be forever linked with washing and cleanliness because it was
used to advertise Pears' soap. Owners of the painting Unilever has granted
the Lady Lever a long-term loan. In many people’s minds the painting is also
associated with the song _I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles_, anthem of Cup
Finalists West Ham FC since the 1920s when the song was a hit. Painted by
Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir John Everett Millais in 1886 and his best-known
work, _Bubbles_ was originally called _A Child’s World_. It shows the
artist’s grandson William James dressed in a Little Lord Fauntleroy-style
velvet costume with a ruffled collar. The painting was bought by A & F
Pears
and the managing director, Thomas Barrett, turned it into an advertisement
by adding a bar of soap in the foreground. It was a brilliant masterstroke
and the painting is today still associated with the product. Lever Brothers
acquired A & F Pears in 1914 and subsequently the company became part of
the
Unilever Group. Pears was retained as a separate brand and Unilever kept
_Bubbles_ at its global headquarters on the banks of the Thames.[3]

Entering the impressively large Room 6, one is immediately fascinated by the
reconstruction of Millais’s studio, including the actual 18th c. arm chair
used by his wealthy sitters and his large studio easel (his palette, brushes
and oils are also on display). This is the room devoted to the "Portraits"
which made him a very rich man--and one understands why when one sees that
it features two Prime Ministers (_The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, MP_,
1878-9 and _ Benjamin Disraeli, The Earl of Beaconsfield, KG_, 1881), a
banker's daughter and marchioness (_The Marchioness of Huntly_, 1870), a
banker’s wife (_Mrs. Bischoffsheim_, 1872-3), a fashionable actor (_Henry
Irving, Esq_, 1883), a future successful actress (_A Jersey Lily_ [Lillie
Langtry], 1877-8) and two famous authors (_Thomas Carlyle_, 1877 and _
Alfred Tennyson_, 1881) besides his self-portrait (_Portrait of the
Painter_, 1880, commissioned by the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, to be
hung in its Collezione degli Autoritratti next to Velázquez, Bernini and
Dürer) and those of his wife and some of his children.

Few people must have seen the originals of the twelve paintings of the
Highlands of Perthshire which form the theme of the final room, "The Late
Landscapes", because they are widely dispersed. If _Scotch Firs: 'The
silence that is in the lonely woods'_ (1873, a quotation from Wordsworth)
arguably reminds the viewer of Millais's Pre-Raphaelite manner, the caption
of _ ‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind'_ (1892, a quotation from _As You Like
It_) informs us that it is “one of the artist's rare paintings dealing with
contemporary social ills" (a man abandoning his family). And when the
caption of the stupendously gorgeous large painting, _The Sound of Many
Waters_ (1876) tells us that “in this mature work he effectively conveyed
the features of volcanic rock without the meticulousness of
Pre-Raphaelitism", we wonder what the result would have been if he had
displayed "the meticulousness of Pre-Raphaelitism". The free visitor's
booklet has a map of the locations (near the River Tay) where these
landscapes were painted--an excellent idea.

Subscribers who can visit the Exhibition in London, Amsterdam, Kitakyushu or
Tokyo are unreservedly encouraged to do so. Those who cannot should not fail
to go to the dedicated website. A symposium supported by the Paul Mellon
Centre for Studies in British Art on "Millais, Hunt and Modern Life" will
take place on Friday 30 November (10.00-19.00), with a private view with
drinks for participants on Thursday 29 November (19.00-21.30).[4]

Notes:
[1] Rosenfeld, Jason & Smith, Alison. _Millais_. London : Tate, 2007. 272
pp. ISBN: 1854376675 (pbk.); 1854377469 (hbk.).
[2] http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/millais/default.shtm
[3] National Museums Liverpool, Lady Lever Art Gallery website :
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mediacentre/displayrelease.aspx?id=544
[4] Details on :
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/eventseducation/symposia/11234.htm


=====================

Tate Britain
Millbank
London SW1P 4RG
E-mail: visiting.britain@tate.org.uk

Switchboard :
020 7887 8000 (international +44 20 7887 8000)
Recorded information :
020 7887 8008 (international +44 20 7887 8008)
Millais tickets :
020 7887 8888 (international +44 20 7887 8888)

Exhibition Hours :
Daily, 10.00-17.50 (last admission 17.00)

Admission £11 (£10 seniors, £9 concessions)
www.tate.org.uk


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