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Title: Sir John Everett Millais

Author: A. L. Baldry

Release date: October 25, 2022 [eBook #69227]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: George Bell & Sons, 1902

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS ***







[Illustration: A YEOMAN OF THE GUARD.]



  Bell's Miniature Series of Painters


  SIR JOHN EVERETT
  MILLAIS


  BY A. L. BALDRY



  LONDON
  GEORGE BELL & SONS
  1908




  First Published, December, 1902.
  Reprinted, December, 1907.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


  Life of the Artist
      The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
      Later Developments
      Last Years

  The Art of Millais

  Our Illustrations

  The Chief Works of Millais in Public Galleries, etc.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


A Yeoman of the Guard ... _Frontispiece_

Christ in the House of His Parents

A Souvenir of Velazquez

The Vale of Rest

Ophelia

Autumn Leaves

The North-West Passage

Thomas Carlyle




SIR JOHN MILLAIS



HIS LIFE

Although John Everett Millais was born, on June 8, 1829, at Portland
Place, Southampton, his father was an inhabitant of Jersey, and a
member of a family which had been settled in that island from a date
anterior to the Norman conquest.  The first five years of the child's
life were spent in Jersey, but in 1835 he was taken by his parents to
Dinan, in Brittany, where he began, by his sketches of the scenery of
the place and the types of the people, to give the first convincing
proofs of the remarkable artistic capacity that was in him.  These
early efforts were so surprising, and attracted so much attention
outside his family circle, that when he was not more than nine years
old he was brought to London for an expert opinion on his chances in
the profession for which he seemed predestined.  The President of the
Royal Academy, Sir Martin Archer Shee, was consulted, and his
encouraging declaration, that "Nature had provided for the boy's
success," decided the future of the young artist, who was at once
allowed to begin serious study.

In 1838 he entered the drawing-school in Bloomsbury which was carried
on by Henry Sass, and regarded as the best available place for the
training of budding genius.  In the same year he took the silver
medal of the Society of Arts, for a drawing from the antique, and
caused quite a sensation when he appeared, at the distribution of the
prizes, to receive his award from the Duke of Sussex, who was
presiding.  The surprise of the spectators is said to have been
unbounded when "Mr. Millais" came forward, a small child in a
pinafore, to answer to his name, and even the officials at first
found it hard to believe that he could be really the winner of the
medal.

For two years he remained under the tuition of Mr. Sass, and, helped
by his teaching and by a good deal of work from the casts in the
British Museum, the boy developed so rapidly that when he was only
eleven years old he gained admission to the Royal Academy Schools,
the youngest student, it is said, that has ever been received into
them.  His career there was a series of successes.  For six years he
laboured indefatigably, and plainly proved his ability by taking
prize after prize, beginning with a silver medal in 1843, and ending,
in 1847, with the gold medal for a historical picture, _The Tribe of
Benjamin seizing the Daughters of Shiloh_.

Subjects of this type seem at that time to have attracted him
strongly, and to have occupied a great deal of his attention, for in
1846 he had painted, and exhibited at the Academy, _Pizarro seizing
the Inca of Peru_, which is now in the South Kensington Museum, and
in the following year another study of violent action, _Elgiva seized
by Order of Archbishop Odo_.  To 1847 also belongs the great design,
_The Widow bestowing her Mite_, for the Westminster Hall competition,
a canvas fourteen feet long by ten feet high, covered with life-size
figures.  Such an effort speaks well for the energy and ambition of a
lad of eighteen, who could within the space of a few months carry out
so vast an undertaking in addition to the _Elgiva_, and his gold
medal picture.

So far his progress had been, from the point of view of his elder
contemporaries, very promising and satisfactory.  He had proved
himself to be possessed of unusual gifts; and apparently historical
art was to have in him an exponent of rather a rare type, a painter
who would carry on its traditions with some degree of vitality.  But
really he had only been feeling his way, and, not having had time as
yet to analyse his inclinations, he had temporarily accepted, with
youthful imitativeness, the precepts of his teachers and
fellow-students.  It did not take him long to discover that he was on
the wrong track, and to decide that there was in another direction a
far better opportunity for the assertion of his own independent
convictions.

About the middle of the year 1848, he, and his friends Rossetti and
Holman Hunt, inspired partly by the example of Ford Madox Brown, and
partly by their own study of the works of the Italian Primitives who,
before the time of Raphael, had laboured with devout and simple
naturalism, decided that the principles which guided the early
masters were being deliberately ignored by the modern men.  So these
three youths agreed among themselves to break away from most of the
regulations by which they had been bound in their student days and to
formulate a new art creed of their own.  From this agreement sprang
into existence an association, that, despite the small number of its
members, and the shortness of its life, has left upon the history of
the British School a mark clear and ineffaceable.



THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, as this association was called by way
of declaring the intentions and ambitions of the men who belonged to
it, was formally constituted during the autumn of 1848.  It included,
in addition to the three originators, two other painters, James
Collinson and F. G. Stephens; a sculptor, Thomas Woolner; and a
writer, William Michael Rossetti, who acted as secretary of the
Brotherhood.  Ford Madox Brown never became a member, although he
entirely sympathised with the artistic aims of the group, for he had,
it is said, doubts concerning the utility of such a banding together,
and was more inclined to favour independent action; but several other
young painters, who were never formally of the company, gave it
practical support, and openly adopted its methods.  Indeed, the list
of these outside sympathisers soon became a long one; it included
such able workers as William Bell Scott, Arthur Hughes, Thomas
Seddon, W. L. Windus, and W. H. Deverell, who were directly inspired
by the beliefs of the Brotherhood, and if, as would be quite
legitimate, it were extended to take in all the others whose first
essays in art were controlled by Pre-Raphaelite principles, an
astonishing number of artists who have reached high rank in their
profession could be added to it.

[Illustration: CHRIST IN THE HOUSE OF HIS PARENTS.]

At first the inner significance of the Pre-Raphaelite movement was
lost upon the general public.  When, in 1849, Millais exhibited at
the Academy his _Lorenzo and Isabella_, by which his adoption of the
new creed was plainly enough asserted, the picture was not unkindly
received.  It was ridiculed, perhaps, by the people who realised that
it showed an artistic intention somewhat unlike that which was then
generally prevalent; but its novelty of manner was put down to the
youth and inexperience of the artist, and was regarded as a minor
defect that a few more years of practice would remedy.

But in January, 1850, the Brotherhood took a step that very
effectually removed any doubts that were felt by the public about the
meaning of such canvases.  They began to issue a monthly magazine,
called "The Germ," in which they and their friends stated with
sufficient frankness what Pre-Raphaelitism really meant, and what
were the opinions that they professed.  As a commercial speculation
the magazine must be reckoned a failure, for after the fourth number
it ceased to be issued, and at no time had it any general
circulation.  It served its purpose, however, of making quite
intelligible the creed of its promoters; and it gave to the world
certain etchings of Holman Hunt, Collinson, Madox Brown, and
Deverell, and much literary matter by Coventry Patmore, Woolner, W.
B. Scott, F. G. stephens, the two Rossettis and their sister
Christina, and some other writers.  An etching was prepared by
Millais for the fifth number, an illustration of a story that Dante
Rossetti was to write; but this fifth number did not appear.

Though "The Germ" died so quickly for want of support, it had fully
accomplished what was required of it in the way of propagandism.
When the next batch of Pre-Raphaelite efforts was exhibited in the
spring of 1850 there was no trace of hesitation or toleration in the
comments of the older artists and the press.  A perfect storm of
abuse broke out.  Against _Ferdinand lured by Ariel_ and _Christ in
the House of His Parents_, which were the chief pictures sent by
Millais to the Academy, the bitterest attack was directed.
Everything that could be said or done to minimise their influence,
and to discredit the motives by which they were inspired, was
lavished upon them without restraint, in a kind of frenzy of
anguished excitement.

All this, however, was mild in comparison with the agitation in the
following year, when it was seen that the Pre-Raphaelites, instead of
bowing to the storm and recanting their opinions, were prepared to go
to even greater lengths in the avowal of their convictions.  The
opposition had done its best to howl them down, and to frighten them
by ferocious threats; but all this expenditure of misapplied energy
had had no result.  Millais exhibited _The Woodman's Daughter_, _The
Return of the Dove to the Ark_, and _Mariana in the Moated Grange_,
and Holman Hunt _Valentine and Sylvia_; while the other members of
the group gave equally definite proofs of their intention to
persevere in the course they had adopted.

Alarm at this defiance, and perhaps an uneasy consciousness of the
real strength of a movement that gave so little sign of yielding to
pressure, drove the supporters of the existing condition of affairs
to almost incredible lengths.  They demanded that these canvases
should be removed from the exhibition of the Academy, summarily
expelled as outrages on good taste; they urged the students in the
art schools to shun the Brotherhood and everyone connected with it;
they descended to the lowest depths of misrepresentation, and drew
the line at nothing in the way of exaggeration.  Calm and critical
judgment ceased, for the moment, to exist, and a hysterical absence
of balance threw into confusion even the best ordered and judicious
minds.

This outburst had one immediate effect, an unpleasant one for the
young artists, it checked for a while the sale of their pictures.
_Christ in the House of His Parents_ had been painted on commission
for a well-known dealer, and it remained for many years on his hands;
but _Ferdinand lured by Ariel_, which had also been commissioned, was
refused by the intending purchaser.  It was afterwards sold to Mr.
Richard Ellison, a collector of rare discrimination, who was
introduced to Millais by a mutual friend.  Other canvases belonging
to the same period either returned from the exhibitions to the
artist's studio, or were parted with at low prices and on terms of
payment none too favourable.

But after a little while things began to mend.  The attack exhausted
itself by its very excess of virulence; and here and there strong men
came forward to champion the cause of the Pre-Raphaelites.  Mr.
Ruskin, especially, appeared in the arena as an enthusiastic advocate
of an undertaking that was in every way calculated to appeal to his
vivid sympathies.  He declared with acute and prophetic insight that
the pilloried artists were laying "the foundations of a school of art
nobler than the world has seen for three hundred years."  His
explanations of their methods were just what were wanted to set
people thinking.  Some years, it is true, elapsed before his
enthusiasm, and the dogged perseverance of the young men, finally
converted the great majority of art lovers; but the conversion did
come, and it was complete.

Meanwhile Millais was manfully playing his part in the struggle,
giving no sign that he minded being, as he put it in after years, "so
dreadfully bullied."  Nothing could shake his resolve to work out his
artistic destiny in the way he thought best.  Happily he was not
entirely without encouragement from the chiefs of his own profession,
for just at the time when the outside world was decrying him most
strenuously, the Academy elected him an Associate.  This election,
was, however, quashed, because he was discovered to be under the age
at which admission was possible, and it was not till 1853 that he was
again chosen.  By this time he had added to the list of his paintings
his exquisite _Ophelia_, _The Huguenot_, _The Proscribed Royalist_
and _The Order of Release_, all works of the highest value, and
regarded to-day as evidences of a quite extraordinary ability.

For about ten years he remained faithful to the Pre-Raphaelite creed,
and made no serious attempt to modify his methods.  During this
period appeared his _Portrait of Mr. Ruskin_, _The Rescue_, _Autumn
Leaves_, _The Blind Girl_, _Sir Isumbras at the Ford_, _The Vale of
Rest_, and _Apple Blossoms_, of which the last two are to be reckoned
as to some extent transitional, leading the way to the later changes
in both his theory and practice.  What was to be the nature of these
changes was foreshadowed by _The Eve of St. Agnes_, shown at the
Academy in 1863, the year before his advancement to the rank of Royal
Academician.  This was the beginning of a period during which he
wavered between recollections of his earlier style and an obvious
desire to find new ways of expressing himself.  These variations in
his production implied that he was just then uncertain as to the
course which it would be best for him to follow.  He recognised that
there were many details of his youthful creed which had served their
purpose and ought to be set aside.  He was conscious of the
possibilities that his wonderful command over his materials opened up
to him, and he knew that his years of devoted study had given him an
equipment of knowledge that would serve him in any emergency; what he
was seeking was the exact form in which to cast his efforts so as to
allow full scope to his abilities and to make indisputable that wide
popularity which was coming to him at last.



LATER DEVELOPMENTS

There was no hesitation about the avowal of his new views when
finally he did make up his mind.  With a suddenness that was
absolutely startling, he abandoned the close and careful realism that
marked in such canvases as _Asleep_, _Awake_, and _The Minuet_, the
still-continuing influence of his Pre-Raphaelite conviction, and
chose instead the riotous freedom of touch, and the happy readiness
of suggestion that make his _Souvenir of Velasquez_, _Rosalind and
Celia_, and _Stella_ so impressive.  The dramatic point of this
change is that a year sufficed to bring it into active operation.  In
1867 he was still anxious to work out bit by bit and part by part
every fact that his subject might present, and, in his zeal for
naturalism, to leave no chance of mistake about the exact meaning of
his treatment; in 1868 he had thrown himself heart and soul into the
task of persuading his admirers to accept hints in the place of plain
statements, and to understand subtle compromises with nature, instead
of direct transcriptions of her assertions.

[Illustration: A SOUVENIR OF VELASQUEZ.]

Thenceforward his progress was an almost unbroken series of
successes, gained by superb mastery of craftsmanship, and by the
splendid confidence in himself that put his intentions always beyond
the possibility of doubt.  With few exceptions his pictures, to the
end of his life, were worthy to rank with the best that the British
school can show, great in accomplishment, admirable in style, and
attractive always by their frankness of manner and purity of motive.
In some ways he enlarged his borders, for in 1871 he made, with
_Chill October_, his first digression into landscape without figures,
and began that array of important studies of the open air which
reveal most instructively his limitless patience and searching power
of observation.

As a portrait painter also he developed superlative gifts, adding
year by year to a collection of masterpieces unequalled by any of his
contemporaries.  He was fortunate in his sitters, and the list of his
productions in this branch of art includes a large proportion of the
most beautiful women and distinguished men who have graced the latter
half of the century.  He immortalised impartially leaders of fashion,
pretty children, noted politicians, and people eminent in many
professions; and in his rendering of these various types he missed
nothing of the individuality and distinctive character with which
each one was endowed.  Here especially his Pre-Raphaelite training
stood him in good stead; for the habit of close analysis and careful
investigation had been so impressed upon him by the experiences of
his youth, that his instinctive judgment was now perfectly reliable,
and his ability to decide promptly and with certainty about the
aspects of his subject which were fittest for pictorial record had
become absolutely complete.

In this succession of portraits some stand out commandingly as
notable performances even for an artist who was always
distinguished--for example, _Mrs. Bischoffsheim_ (1873), _Miss
Eveleen Tennant_ (1874), _Mrs. Jopling_ (1879), _Mrs. Perugini_
(1880), _Sir Henry Irving_ (1884), _The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone_
(1885), _J. C. Hook, R.A._ (1882), and _The Marquis of Salisbury_
(1883)--marking great moments in his career; just as from time to
time figure compositions of rare importance, like _The North-West
Passage_ (1874), _Effie Deans_ (1877), _The Princes in the Tower_
(1878), and _Speak!  Speak!_ (1895), punctuated the progress of his
intellectual and imaginative evolution.  He was always, to the last
day of his life, ambitious and eager to grapple with problems of
technical expression.  Courage to face the supreme difficulties of
his profession never failed him.  He had no idea of avoiding
responsibilities, or of finding in an easy convention a way to evade
his duty to art; and he tried consistently to bring his production up
to the high level that would satisfy his ideals.  When he missed his
aim--and there is no such thing as unvarying success for any
artist--it was not for want of thought or sincere effort, but rather
from over-anxiety.  He once said of himself, "I may honestly say that
I never consciously put an idle touch upon canvas, and that I have
always been earnest and hard-working; yet the worst pictures I ever
painted in my life are those into which I threw most trouble and
labour"; and in these few words he summed up his whole history.



LAST YEARS

It was characteristic of him that the honours which were heaped upon
him in his later years should have diminished neither the strength of
his work nor the charm of his personality.  Affectation or
self-consciousness were the last things that were possible to such a
nature with its almost boyish energy and magnificent vitality.  Yet
he had every reason to be proud of success that had come to him, not
by fortunate chance, but as a result of his own tenacity.  He was
made an Officer of the Legion of Honour, and received the Medaille
d'Honneur at the Paris International Exhibition, in 1878; the degree
of D.C.L. was conferred upon him at Oxford in 1880, and at Durham in
1893; he was elected a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery in
1881, a Foreign Associate of the Académie des Beaux Arts in 1882, and
President of the Royal Academy in 1896; he was created a Baronet in
1885, and an Officer of the Order of Leopold in 1895; and was,
besides, an Officer of the Order of St. Maurice, and the Prussian
Order "Pour la Mérite," and a member of the Academies of Vienna,
Belgium, Antwerp, and of St. Luke, Rome, and San Fernando, Madrid.
He was one of the few Englishmen invited to contribute his portrait
to the great collection of pictures of artists painted by themselves
in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence.  Such a record proves most
cogently the manner in which the public estimate of his capacity
changed as years went on; it is instructive to compare its unanimity
of recognition with the story of the time when art teachers were
urging their pupils to greet the name of Millais with hisses, and
were holding up his work, and that of his associates, to the
bitterest execration.

The post of President of the Royal Academy he held for only six
months, for he succeeded Lord Leighton on February 20th, 1896, and
died on 13th of August in the same year.  His election, however,
rounded off appropriately that long association with the Academy to
which he referred in his speech at the 1895 banquet, at which he
presided in the absence of Lord Leighton.  "I must tell you briefly
my connection with this Academy.  I entered the Antique School as a
probationer, when I was eleven years of age; then became a student in
the Life School; and I have risen from stage to stage until I reached
the position I now hold of Royal Academician: so that, man and boy, I
have been intimately connected with this Academy for more than half a
century.  I have received here a free education as an artist--an
advantage any lad may enjoy who can pass a qualifying
examination--and I owe the Academy a debt of gratitude I never can
repay.  I can, however, make this return--I can give it my love.  I
love everything belonging to it; the casts I have drawn from as a
boy, the books I have consulted in our Library, the very benches I
have sat on."  No other teaching institution had, indeed, had any
part in his education; no other art society had given him assistance
at a moment when the world was against him; and in no other direction
had such practical belief in the greatness of his future been
manifested.  Truly, he owed a debt of gratitude to the Academy, and
he repaid it by being ever one of its most active supporters, and by
doing infinite credit to its best traditions.

There was something peculiarly pathetic in the fact that his life
should have ended just when he had reached the position that must
have seemed to him, after his long and intimate connection with the
Academy, the most honourable to which he could aspire.  To be the
head of the institution that he loved so well, and to be hailed as
chief in the place that had seen every stage of his development, from
childhood to ripe maturity, could not fail to be anything but
exquisitely gratifying to a man of his nature.  But almost at the
moment of his election it appeared that there was little time left
him in which to enjoy the honour that had crowned his many years of
devotion to the great principles of art.  The fatal disease that had
gripped him a little while before was not to be shaken off, and was
sapping rapidly and effectually even his superb vitality.  He worked
on, however, almost to the end, hopeful even in the midst of
suffering, active in carrying out the duties of his office, and busy
as ever with the canvases that crowded his studio.  He was fully
represented in the Academy Exhibition of 1896, by a group of
portraits, and by a picture, _A Forerunner_, which showed no sign of
failing strength or of any relaxation in his grasp of the essentials
of his craft.

Then, with painful suddenness, came the verdict of his doctors, that
his case was hopeless.  The throat trouble, that had been growing
month by month more acute and distressing, was pronounced to be
cancer and incurable.  In June the disease had made such strides that
the end seemed to be imminent, but an operation gave him some relief,
and his life was prolonged till the middle of August, when at last
death released him from his agony.  He passed away at the house in
Palace Gate, Kensington, which had been the scene of the many
triumphs of his later years, dying as he had lived, full of courage
and patience, fearing nothing, and meeting his fate with cheerful
resignation.  On August 20th, he was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral,
beside his old friend Lord Leighton, whom only a few months before he
had helped to lay to rest.

His death not only left a gap in the ranks of art, but it also took
away, while he was yet in the full enjoyment of his powers, a man
whose sterling qualities had attracted a host of friends.  His
frankness and honesty, his geniality and kindliness, and, above all,
his manly wholesomeness, without taint of modern decadence or
morbidity, endeared him to everyone with whom he came in contact.  He
was typically English, in the best sense, with all the physical and
mental attributes that have enabled our race to dominate the world, a
lover of the country, a good shot, a keen fisherman, and a fearless
horseman.  The very look of him, with his stalwart, well set-up
figure, and handsome, self-reliant face, conveyed the impression of
perfect health of mind and body, and declared the inexhaustible
vigour of his nature.




HIS ART

With all his definiteness of opinion and sincere belief in the
accuracy of his own judgment, Millais was too keenly alive to the
varieties of nature, too earnest in his observation of the life about
him, to fall into the mechanical habit of repeating himself.  He was
robust, modern and practical, a man whose instinct was active rather
than contemplative; and he might even be said to be wanting in
imagination, if by imagination is understood the capacity to evolve
things curious and unusual out of the inner consciousness.

But if he lacked imagination in this sense, he more than made up for
the deficiency by the exquisite acuteness of his insight into natural
facts, and by the depth of his judgment about the essentials of art.
He made no mistakes through ignorance or want of proper preparation;
and he never failed because he grudged the preliminary thought needed
to carry to success a great undertaking.  Indeed, the one thing that
he always preached was application, constant industry devoted to the
task of finding out how work should be done.  Carelessness he
condemned; but he had no love for that type of performance which
shows the trouble that the producer has taken over it.  He contended,
justly, that it was the duty of the artist to so master the executive
details of his profession that his work should impress the spectator
by its ready certainty rather than its conscientious toil.

The need to strive for the quality of freshness in technical
expression was, however, very far from being the only thing he
insisted upon.  He had, as well, a strong belief in the importance of
a definitely independent attitude with regard to choice of pictorial
motive, and selection of suitable material.  But beyond this he
advocated special precautions against any narrowing of the artist's
practice by too close adherence to one kind of picture.  He once put
this conviction into words of considerable significance.
"Individuality is not all that should be looked to; a varied manner
must be cultivated as well.  I believe that however admirably he may
paint in a certain method, or however perfectly he may render a
certain class of subject, the artist should not be content to adhere
to a speciality of manner or method.  A fine style is good, but it is
not everything--it is not absolutely necessary."

Certainly Sir John carried out these principles in his own
production.  He had many sides to his character as an artist, and
used his powers of observation with splendid freedom.  His popularity
was gained not by the reiteration of any one set of ideas, but by
showing himself equally capable in many forms of painting.  In his
figure pictures he was by turns dramatic, romantic, sternly
realistic, and at times sentimental in a robust way; in his portraits
he was incisive, direct, and accurate; in his landscapes precise,
exact, and searchingly correct in his rendering of what was before
him; and in his water-colours and drawings in black and white
delightfully facile and ingenious.  He had no speciality, and no set
conviction that there was one particular thing he could do better
than anything else; so that he never restrained his love of variety
or bound himself by limitations based simply upon expediency.

In any classification of his works, the first place must necessarily
be given to his figure paintings and portraits.  Indeed, they make up
the bulk of his achievement, and represent the fullest growth of his
capacity.  The history of his life is principally written in them.
The charm of his personality distinguishes them all--a charm as
evident in the simpler and more limited subjects as in those which
made great demands upon his powers of invention and contrivance.
There was never any suggestion that he did not honestly feel the
motive with which he was dealing, or that he was not perfectly
convinced that what he had chosen was worthy of record.  If he
failed, it was because he had misapprehended the suitability of his
material, not because he had been trying to do something outside the
range of his belief.

Curiously, perhaps, his honesty and directness were at the same time
the source of what was best in his pictures, and the cause of their
chief weaknesses.  Had he not been so frank and wholesome-minded he
could never have arrived at that exquisite appreciation of the
daintiness of childhood to which he gave expression in a great many
of his most successful canvases, and could never have gained, as he
did, the hearts of all classes of art lovers.  Only a worshipper of
children, with the most absolute sympathy with their ways and habits,
could have painted pictures as persuasive as _Cherry Ripe_, _A Waif_,
_Caller Herrin'_, _The Princess Elizabeth_, and that long series of
pretty studies of which _Perfect Bliss_, _Dropped from the Nest_,
_Forbidden Fruit_, and _Little Mrs. Gamp_ may be quoted as types.
Only a man with the happiest sense of delicate shades of character
could have commanded the extraordinary popularity that came to him as
a result of his production of pictures such as these.

Yet it was to these very qualities that was due his occasional want
of success in dealing with stronger themes.  His dramatic pictures
descended at times into an artlessness that was only redeemed from
feebleness by its obvious sincerity.  They failed because he
concerned himself so much with matters of fact that he missed the
greater possibilities of the subjects he had selected, and because in
his desire to be real and convincing he forgot that there was a need
to appeal to the imagination of people who would not be satisfied
with plain statements.

[Illustration: THE VALE OF REST.]

On the other hand it is possible to select from among his subject
pictures several that prove him to have had brilliant moments when he
could reach the greater heights of pictorial invention.  There are
quite half a dozen of his canvases which by their wonderful vitality,
their deep significance, and force of expression make good a claim to
the possession of the finest kind of mastery.  _The Vale of Rest_,
_The North-West Passage_, _The Order of Release_, _The Ruling
Passion_, _The Boyhood of Raleigh_, and perhaps _Effie Deans_ show
that he could grasp with all possible firmness and state with
unflinching decision, motives that called for great mental exertion.
Their qualities are those that come from a minute insight not only
into details of character, but also into the principles which govern
the dramatic side of pictorial art.  No false note spoils the harmony
of these compositions, no touch of uncertainty or divided opinion;
they are confident and assured, and their meaning is not to be
questioned.  They express the thoughts of a man who, with all his
straightforwardness and simplicity, could now and then look beneath
the surface and work out problems far more profound than it was his
every-day habit to investigate.

His romance, especially, had this merit of being well thought out.
It was never complicated by excess of details, and was strict in its
adherence to the main facts of the story, without irrelevant matter
introduced to complete picturesquely an imperfect conception.  _The
Knight Errant_ is a very good example of his method of dealing with
an incident evolved from his own fancy; and _Victory, O Lord!_ is
equally characteristic as an instance of the power with which he
could seize upon the salient points of a subject suggested to him by
written history.  Many of his finer paintings were illustrative
records of the impressions made upon him by things he had read, and
expressions of the instinct that brought him throughout his life such
success as a draughtsman in black and white; but they were only
occasionally direct illustrations of particular passages from books.
More often what he gave was his view of what might have happened,
rather than a plain reproduction in paint of what was already fixed
in words.

He preferred to base himself more upon the spirit than the letter of
a story, to find a new reading for himself, and to treat it with a
considerable degree of independence.  In _The Princes in the Tower_
he followed none of the accepted versions, and in _Effie Deans_ he
made a subject out of the slightest possible suggestion in the text
of the romance; yet both pictures show that peculiar air of
conviction which results from a perfect understanding of what is
essential for the proper application of dramatic material.  In these,
as in almost all his renderings of incident, appears his habit of
attacking not the climax of the story, but rather one of its earlier
stages, an intermediate moment when the action is still in progress
and the final result is suggested rather than clearly foreshadowed.
This habit was always strong upon him.  It gave their particular
interest to such early works as _The Huguenot_, _The Black
Brunswicker_, _The Proscribed Royalist_, and _The Escape of a
Heretic_, just as much as it did to later pictures like _The Girlhood
of St. Theresa_, or _Speak!  Speak!_; and by introducing a touch of
speculation into the record of his thoughts he enhanced the
fascination which was never wanting in his sturdy inventions.

Indeed, there was in every branch of his figure-painting some
sufficient reason for his popularity, some distinct attractiveness of
mental quality to add convincingly to the impression created by his
superlative command over technicalities.  He could be tender, dainty,
and refined in his studies of children; serious and solemn in his
symbolical compositions; pathetic, vigorous, and passionate by turns
in his subject-pictures; and through all ran a vein of sentiment that
was always wholesome, clean, and intelligible.  He never affected to
be influenced by feelings that were not honestly natural to him, nor
did he pretend to represent anything that he did not believe in
sincerely and without question.  What he painted was invariably what
he felt at the moment; and, whether it was a masterpiece or a
comparative failure it expressed simply the appeal that the subject
had made to him; and his response to this appeal was always
unconventional and definite.

He trusted in the same way to a personal impression of his sitter
when he set himself to paint a portrait.  What he wanted was to show
that he understood the individuality of the man or woman before him,
and that his understanding had helped him to make clear to others the
special idiosyncrasies that separated that man or woman from the
ordinary crowd.  Portraiture to him was a matter of observation, of
receptiveness to suggestion, and acceptance of what was visible,
rather than an artistic process which enabled him to give free scope
to his inventive instincts.

Perhaps he was less analytical and discriminating in his pictures of
women.  They seemed to appeal to him less than men did as subjects
for psychological study.  What he preferred to dwell upon were the
physical charms of femininity, beauty of face and form, elegance of
carriage, and that rounded fulness of development that argues perfect
healthiness of body and mind.  The stateliness of the card-players in
_Hearts are Trumps_, the air of high breeding and conscious power
which distinguishes the portrait of the Duchess of Westminster, and
the more matronly splendour of _Mrs. Bischoffsheim_, mark the chief
variations in his manner of painting womankind; occasionally only did
he diverge into more detailed character, as in _Miss Eveleen
Tennant_, _Mrs. Jopling_, and _Mrs. Perugini_; but as a rule he was
content to treat the freshness and brilliant vitality of his feminine
sitters, and to leave untouched their possibilities of passion or
strong emotion.  His men were full of vigorous aspirations,
restrained for the moment, yet near the surface and ready at any time
to break into activity; but his women were serene and unmoved,
prepared, perhaps, for conquest, but wrapped in a reserve that would
not allow them to make the first advances.

That his preference for repose in representation did not lead the
artist into a dry convention, or into any disregard of the essential
points of difference between people, is very evident if a comparison
is made of his chief portraits.  Beneath their reserve appears a
wonderful variety of manner, and a superb power of interpretation.
They are studied, exact, and intensely real.  No perfunctory labour
is seen in them, and their value is diminished by no slurring over of
the little things which help to define the more intimate
characteristics of the modern man.

The unquestionable popularity that Millais gained by his excursions
into landscape was equally due to the fact that he was a student of
nature, not an imaginative interpreter of what she presented.  He
dealt with facts and left fancies almost entirely alone.  In the
series of canvases that began with _Chill October_, and ended with
_Halcyon Weather_, there was infinite industry, marvellous accuracy,
perfect veracity of record, but little effort to be anything but
absolutely exact in his statement of what he saw.  His amazing
patience and his surprising quickness of vision, enabled him to grasp
with easy confidence the plain truths of nature, and his command of
brushwork ensured a rare perfection in his pictorial expression of
the matter that he had selected for representation.  Nothing was
implied or left in sketchy incompleteness, because his patience had
failed him before he had realised the complicated fulness of his
subject.  He spared himself no toil to arrive at what seemed to him
to be the perfection of nature, and he was as minutely attentive, as
surely certain of himself, as he ever was in his figure work.

As a necessary consequence, however, of this manner of working, he
never could be ranked among the inspired painters of the open air,
nor could he ever be said to have dealt exhaustively with the
problems presented by natural phenomena.  He remained untouched by
the subtleties of atmospheric effect, by the varieties of momentary
illumination, or by the fleeting glories of aerial colour, which
provide the student of nature's devices with the chief incentive to
artistic effort.  He was always too much concerned with the things at
his feet, with matter that he could dissect and investigate, to give
much thought to the broad and comprehensive scheme of which these
things formed part.  Whatever he arrived at in the way of a record of
a natural effect was reached not so much by thorough understanding of
the effect as a whole, as by an amazingly acute interpretation of the
influence exercised by it upon the details upon which his eyes were
fixed.

An excellent instance of this is afforded in _The Blind Girl_, where
he has given little enough attention to the grandeur of the passing
storm-clouds, and has concentrated the whole of his energies upon the
rendering, with supreme fidelity, of dripping weeds and a drenched
hillside lighted by the rays of the setting sun.  As a record of
microscopic insight, the picture is superlatively successful; it
could hardly be more closely reasoned out; but, as a representation
of Nature in one of her most impressive moods, it is ineffectual and
unconvincing.  So, too, his most popular landscape, _Chill October_,
falls short of greatness, because it is too plainly studied bit by
bit, and part by part, and built up precisely by the careful putting
in place of material collected for the pictorial purpose.  It holds
together, not because it has one great dominating intention, but
because its construction is so ingenious, and its mechanism so
workmanlike, that no single detail can be criticised as out of
relation to the rest.  It can hardly be called learned in design, nor
can it be said to have any conspicuous dignity of style; yet the
knowledge of form, the intimate observation of the growth of
riverside vegetation, and the appreciation of autumnal colouring,
which were turned to account by the artist in his treatment of the
subject, make the canvas prominent among the greatest nature studies
of modern times.

No consideration of his influence and no review of his performance
would be complete without an appreciative reference to his services
to black and white.  As a painter he has a secure place among the
chief modern masters of the world; but what he did for pictorial art
was paralleled, if not surpassed, by his assertion of the dignity and
importance of illustration as a form of occupation for even the
greatest of art workers.

It has been well said that if Millais had never devoted himself to
the painting of oil pictures, but had given his life entirely to the
work of book illustration, his position would still have been
indisputable, and his magnificent ability would have been amply
demonstrated.  There is, indeed, a great deal of truth in this
contention.  Although the world would have been the poorer for the
loss of his masterly essays in brushwork, and of his wonderful
exercises in the arrangement of strong colour, it would have
possessed extremely significant evidence of the reality of his
artistic judgment, and of the adaptability of his inventive powers.
In his black and white work he showed frequently a side of his
capacity that appeared in his painting only on great occasions, a
sense of dramatic exigencies, a feeling for illustrative meanings,
far beyond what was suggested by the general run of his pictures.  As
an interpreter of the fancies of other men he was exceptionally
intelligent, with a memorable grasp of the salient points of the
story and a remarkable facility in summarising essentials.  He was
afraid of nothing in the way of a subject, and spared no labour to
make his drawings completely expressive.

His love of black and white was indeed a genuine one.  Illustration
was not to him, as it so often is with other men, a mere expedient,
resorted to because an unappreciative public refused to recognise the
merit and importance of his paintings, and abandoned gladly as soon
as he found he could make a sufficient income without it.  On the
contrary, he welcomed the opportunities with which this branch of art
practice provided him, and regarded them as of the highest value.
For more than twenty years he was a prolific illustrator, constantly
busy with drawings that were reproduced in all kinds of books and
magazines; and even in his later life occasional examples appeared to
prove that his hand had not lost its cunning and that his interest in
this type of work was undiminished.

How deeply he felt about this particular subject is, perhaps, best
proved by his constant advocacy, within and without the Academy, of
the claims of illustrative draughtsmen to official recognition.
Before the Royal Commission on the Academy he strenuously urged that
workers in black and white should be declared eligible for election
to membership of that institution as draughtsmen purely, instead of
being required to disguise themselves as picture painters before they
could hope for admission; and his pleading then expressed a
conviction which remained strong in him till his death.  He spoke
with real authority on a matter that, both by inclination and
association, he was fully qualified to discuss.  His experience of
illustrative drawing, and his acquaintance with the history of its
development, were both peculiarly intimate; and he knew exactly what
were the possibilities of influence possessed by the craft.

About his technical methods there is comparatively little to be said.
He was not a worker who concerned himself very deeply over devices of
execution, or cared to codify his system of painting in accordance
with scientific principles.  He drew well, and handled his materials
with the sureness and confidence that came from complete knowledge of
what he wanted to do.  His chief desire, as has been already stated,
was to retain in pictures that had really cost him deep thought and
prolonged labour an aspect of spontaneity and freshness; to be direct
in statement and simple in expression.  He had a well-founded belief
that the finest art was that in which the meaning of the artist was
to be realised with the least amount of seeking and with as little
inquiry as possible about his intentions.  Consequently, he strove
all his life to master the intricacies of his craft, so that no
hesitation on his part might make his meaning vague or indefinite.

Speed he always had.  Even in the apparently laborious period of his
Pre-Raphaelite performance he could, and did, paint with amazing
facility--the head of Ferdinand in _Ferdinand lured by Ariel_, was,
for instance, completed in five hours--and as years went on his
certainty became even more indisputable.  _Cherry Ripe_ was painted
in a week, _The Last Rose of Summer_ in not more than four days, and
for many of his portraits half a dozen sittings sufficed to give him
all that was necessary for the achievement of a masterpiece.  His
quickness of apprehension and accuracy of vision helped him to a
prompt decision as to choice of material; and when his direction was
once fixed, his inexhaustible energy carried him easily through the
work of production.  Nature had well equipped him for his profession,
and wisely he followed the lines she had laid down.




OUR ILLUSTRATIONS

The works which have been reproduced as illustrations to this summary
of the career of one of the greatest artists whom the British school
has known have been selected with the intention of representing the
more important stages in his progress.  It is comparatively easy to
divide his life into different periods, each one of which was marked
by some achievements of more than ordinary significance.  Thus the
_Christ in the House of His Parents_ (1849), and _Ophelia_ (1852)
belong to the time when he was a devout believer in the creed of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; _Autumn Leaves_ (1856) and _The Vale of
Rest_ (1858) show the first beginnings of the change of conviction
which led him a few years later to an almost complete abandonment of
his earlier principles; _A Souvenir of Velasquez_ (1868) marks the
end of the transition from his youthful methods to the vigorous
freedom of his middle life; _The North-West Passage_ (1874) and _A
Yeoman of the Guard_ (1876), the triumphant attainment of absolute
mastery over all the details of his craft, and the _Thomas Carlyle_
(1877), the commencement of that period of sober confidence in his
perfected skill which continued till his death in 1896.

There is hardly one of these pictures which does not by its
superlative quality deserve a place among the great things that may
be said to have made our art history.  They show Sir John Millais not
only as a splendid executant but also as a frank and sincere thinker
on art questions, who did not hesitate to modify his opinions as his
widening experience proved to him that a better way than the one
which he was following at the moment might be found to lead him to
the highest results.  It is a fortunate circumstance that with one
exception the whole of this group of noble works can be counted as
public property.  They have passed into galleries where they are
always accessible, and they are within the reach of every student who
wishes to profit by the great lessons they are able to teach.



CHRIST IN THE HOUSE OF HIS PARENTS

This is the earliest and in some respects the most ambitious of the
Pre-Raphaelite pictures.  In it all the resources of Pre-Raphaelitism
are turned to good account, and the logic of the creed is asserted
with unquestioning faith.  A verse in Zechariah, "And one shall say
unto him, 'What are these wounds in thine hands?'  Then he shall
answer, 'Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends,'"
provided the motive, and the love of exact and searching observation
which was from the first the governing principle of the artist's
practice, controlled every detail of the execution.

As a religious painting, a representation of a Holy Family, this work
was by no means approved by the mid-century critics.  One of the
writers of the period, who joined in the general outcry against the
picture, declared, with what seems now to have been quite unnecessary
emphasis, that it touched "the lowest depths of what is mean, odious,
repulsive, and repelling."  It certainly shows no respect for any of
the traditions which were then popularly supposed to call for the
unquestioning support of every artist, for the spirit by which was
inspired such a composition, for instance, as Sir Charles Eastlake's
_Christ lamenting over Jerusalem_, a picture now in the Tate Gallery,
which explains very well the sort of feebleness that was in fashion
in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Millais did not hesitate to put on one side all the namby-pamby
prettiness and elegant affectation which governed the production of
his contemporaries, and struck out for himself in a very different
direction.  He laid the scene of his story in the house of Joseph,
and, to quote another critic, associated the characters of the sacred
story "with the meanest details of a carpenter's shop, with no
conceivable omission of misery, of dirt, and even of disease, all
finished with the same loathsome minuteness."  The child Christ
stands before the carpenter's bench with the Virgin kneeling beside
him preparing to bind up with a piece of linen a wound in his hand,
at which Joseph leaning forward from the end of the bench is looking.
St. Anne in the background is picking up a pair of pincers, and
beside Joseph is John the Baptist coming towards the central group
with a bowl of water in his hands.  An assistant on the other side of
the picture watches the incident gravely.

The keynote of the whole composition is its earnest symbolism.  Every
one of the lovingly laboured details explains something of the story,
the tools on the wall, the dove perched on the ladder, and the sheep,
typifying the faithful, and the wattled fence, an emblem of the
Church, which are seen through the doorway; while in the meadow
beyond is placed a well as a symbol of Truth.  In its imaginative
qualities, the picture is not less masterly than in its technical
accuracy, and excites as much wonder by the depth of thought it
reveals as by its astonishing accomplishment.  It is the most
original of all the artist's earlier works, marking definitely his
emancipation from the influences of his student days, and his
development in craftsmanship.



OPHELIA

The _Ophelia_ is neither in scale nor in imaginative invention as
impressive as the _Christ in the House of His Parents_, but it is,
without doubt, one of the pictures by which he will most surely be
remembered.  It is an admirable example of his searching study of
natural details, close and elaborate in its realisation of every part
of the subject, and curiously true in its rendering of the subtle
tones of brilliant daylight.  Only an observer endowed with
extraordinary keenness of vision, and with absolutely inexhaustible
patience could have interpreted so exactly all the complexities of
such a scene.  In no part of the canvas is it possible to detect any
relaxation of his strenuous effort after completeness; nothing is
slurred over, and nothing which could add to the persuasiveness of
the work is omitted.

[Illustration: OPHELIA.]

The points which are particularly to be noticed are the amazing
accuracy of the drawing of every leaf and twig in the background, the
truth with which the floating draperies and the river weeds lying
beneath the surface of the water have been rendered, and the
brilliant vivacity of the colour, which, strong and insistent as it
is, entirely avoids garishness and rankness of quality.  There is,
too, a delightful tenderness of sentiment which suits to perfection a
subject full of sympathetic suggestion.  Not a trace of affectation
is to be perceived; the sincerity and good faith of the artist cannot
for an instant be doubted, and his understanding of the dramatic
meaning of the incident chosen is perfectly judicious.  It would not
be easy to find a picture which marks more truly the difference
between the finish that comes from learned study, and the mere
surface elaboration by which an uninspired artist seeks to hide his
insufficiency of technical knowledge.  The imitative painter is
satisfied if he can deceive the eye by tricks of handling, cunningly
managed, and cares little for the broad effect of his canvas as a
whole; but Millais, who was a man of genius, could never have
contented himself with the cheap popularity attainable by such
devices.  He took a far larger view of his artistic responsibility,
and even in his most prolonged and assiduous labour he never forgot
that the part which every touch had to play in the general pictorial
scheme had to be considered.  That he should never have lost the
unity of effect of _his Ophelia_, though he spent many weeks painting
the landscape setting of the figure, in a quiet corner on the Ewell
River, near Kingston, may be regarded as a convincing proof of his
rare fitness for dealing with some of the greater problems of open
air painting.



AUTUMN LEAVES

As an example of his use of poetic and tender sentiment this picture
is now rightly admired as the most fascinating of all the works which
he produced during his life.  It is neither a great composition nor
an amazing illustration of minute patience in technical performance;
but it has a spontaneous charm of manner that puts it among the few
modern masterpieces.  When it was first exhibited it was not properly
understood by the general public, but expert observers even then
appreciated its delicate symbolism, and saw in it qualities of the
noblest kind.  Mr. Ruskin praised it with generous enthusiasm, and
not only ranked it as one of the monumental canvases of the world,
but declared that not even to Titian could be assigned a place higher
than that which Millais had reached by this triumphant achievement.

[Illustration: AUTUMN LEAVES.]

Judged as a piece of painting it is surprisingly free from all those
little artifices which a less thoughtful artist would have used to
increase the strength of his appeal to the attention of the public.
It is studiously quiet in manner and formal in composition, an
arrangement of severe lines and simple masses, which might easily
have been made blankly inexpressive if they had been managed with
less subtle perception of the deeper possibilities of the subject.
But this very reserve gives the picture much of its strangely
sympathetic beauty, and increases its hold upon the feelings of all
people who are not satisfied with the superficialities of pictorial
art.  The attitudes of the figures, the expressions of the faces, the
bareness of the landscape against which the group of children is set,
and the solemn stillness of the autumn twilight which pervades the
whole composition are all of value in the carrying out of the
artist's intention.  The lingering sadness of autumn is throughout
the idea which was in his mind, and the way in which this is
symbolised in every touch and every detail is well-nigh perfect.

The picture is also remarkable because it is practically the first in
which Millais showed that masterly understanding of the character and
ways of children, which was so often and so delightfully displayed in
his later production.  The young girls who are grouped round the fire
of faded leaves are painted with inimitable grace and tenderness.
Their unconscious naturalness is wholly charming, their unstudied
ease of gesture is extraordinarily well rendered; and there is in the
purity of the delicate little faces a suggestion of the innocence of
childhood which is exquisitely fresh and attractive.  Yet no
impossible idealisation spoils the truth of the painting.  They are
frankly children who play their parts in it, not little angels with
none of the instincts of human beings.



THE VALE OF REST

Although the public, after having become accustomed to the artist's
uncompromising Pre-Raphaelitism, must have been warned by the
symbolism of _Autumn Leaves_ of the coming change in his methods, the
appearance of his _Vale of Rest_ at the Academy in 1859 caused a very
definite sensation.  People then found themselves called upon to
accept him as a didactic and imaginative moralist.  He had, indeed,
entered upon his transition, and had moved far from the literalism of
_Christ in the House of His Parents_, and the obvious actuality of
_Ophelia_, towards the closely impending declaration of those
individual preferences which were to guide him in the work of the
latter half of his life.  _The Vale of Rest_ is said to have been of
all his paintings the one that Millais estimated most highly; and it
is with justice reckoned among the most brilliant achievements which
mark great moments in his career.

It is certainly the picture which combines most surely his power of
thought, and his capacity for stating forcibly and dramatically the
things which he imagined.  There is in it a manly sincerity which
cannot be questioned, and there is besides a kind of solemn beauty
that comes from his instinctive avoidance of sensationalism and from
his naturally correct preference for simplicity of treatment.  This
simplicity and sincerity of manner can always be found in his best
paintings, and when applied, as in _The Vale of Rest_, to the avowal
of a strong conviction must be regarded as accountable for the
extraordinary persuasiveness of his art.  An artist of less
straightforward habit of mind would have sought to complicate his
statement by adding little things with the idea of stimulating the
curiosity of the observer; but Millais was content, when he had found
a subject inherently dignified and impressive, to leave it to tell
its own story and not to embroider it with trivial accessories.  To
this reticence is due the monumental character of _The Vale of Rest_;
there is nothing in it to distract attention, and nothing which could
jar on the imagination, and so diminish the value of the lesson which
it is intended to teach.

Perhaps the greatest triumph of all is the way in which the picture,
despite the sadness, the grimness almost, of the subject, escapes
morbidity.  It would have been so easy to introduce into it a touch
of fantastic mysticism, or to spoil its mystery by asserting too
plainly the moral of the story, but the artist has been proof against
every temptation, and has gone through with the work in the way that
his wholesome instincts told him would be most correct.  The dominant
note is one of peace, and the restfulness of the secluded convent
graveyard in which the last act of the drama of life is played
typifies truly the long sleep which comes at last to end the troubles
and strivings of humanity.  None of the turmoil of the world intrudes
into this vale of rest, and even nature herself is in sympathy with
its gentle calm.



SOUVENIR OF VELASQUEZ

If the _Vale of Rest_ marks significantly the transition through
which Millais passed before he finally found the way that he followed
for the last thirty years of his life, the _Souvenir of Velasquez_
shows decisively what was the nature of the change that came over his
art.  Between 1859 and 1867 he seemed to have settled down into a
habit of careful and rather laborious manipulation and to have become
a confirmed lover of high finish and a scrupulous exponent of what
were almost unnecessary realities.  But suddenly, in 1868, he threw
all this minute precision aside and avowed himself to be a robust
impressionist, glorying in his power to give by a few large and
summary touches a vivid suggestion of many facts, and eager to render
great effects rather than microscopically analysed and elaborately
assorted details.  There was no mistaking this change and no
explaining it away.  It meant that he had abandoned once and for ever
all that had remained to him of the restrictions of the
Pre-Raphaelite method and had begun to apply its principles in such a
way that he could aim henceforth at the highest flights of executive
expression.

Among the many pictures which he produced at this period to prove how
completely the wish to rival the great executants of other schools
had possessed him, the _Souvenir of Velasquez_ stands out as the
cleverest in craftsmanship, and the most delightful in feeling.  It
is not merely an amazingly direct piece of brushwork in which every
touch shows the hand of a master of technical contrivance, but as a
reflection of the spirit of childhood it deserves, as well, to be
spoken of as a veritable inspiration.  The beauty of the face is very
remarkable, and there is a pretty stateliness in the pose of the
young sitter which accords perfectly with the old-world costume in
which she is represented.  As the title implies, the general
arrangement and treatment of the picture were suggested by the
practice of the great Spanish master, but this _Souvenir_ is a great
deal more than a copy of the methods of another artist; it has in
full measure the personal qualities by which almost everything that
Millais touched was distinguished.

[Illustration: THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE.]

That this performance was not a happy accident, one of those chance
successes which sometimes come to an artist as a result of a
fortunate combination of circumstances, was put beyond doubt by the
character of his contributions to the Academy exhibitions during the
next half dozen years.  He fully maintained the high level of
executive performance at which he had arrived, and continued steadily
to widen the scope of his activity.  There seemed to be no problem of
handling which he was unprepared to attack and no difficulty that he
feared as insurmountable.



THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE

In this work, painted in 1874, he displayed his strength in a large
and ambitious composition.  As a subject picture it may fairly be
reckoned as the most complete assertion of his mature conviction that
he ever put before the public.  Its motive was one calculated to
appeal vividly to his militant instincts, and was suited in every way
to his robust and energetic personality.  The idea of indomitable
perseverance in the face of apparently overwhelming dangers, of
tenacious effort to triumphantly accomplish a great intention, was
quite in accordance with his natural sympathies; and the picture has
therefore an inner significance to which almost as much interest
attaches as to its outward aspect of unhesitating certainty.  It is,
perhaps, a little unequal in execution, but parts of it are
magnificent, and especially the head of the old seaman, who sits at
the table and listens to the story of Arctic exploration that is
being read to him by the girl seated at his feet.  The sitter for
this splendid study of rugged age was Mr. Trelawny, the friend of
Shelley and Byron.

According to his usual custom Millais did little more than suggest in
the picture the story implied by the title.  _The North-West Passage_
is not an illustrative painting of adventures in the Arctic region,
but a piece of domestic genre on a large scale intended rather to
stimulate the imagination than to record something actually
accomplished.  But to every thinking man it is wanting in nothing
that gives interest to a work of art.  It teaches an admirable lesson
and points a moral well worth attention; and in its combination of
strenuousness and simple directness, it reflects exactly the nature
of one of the frankest and least self-conscious of men.  The canvas
is a tribute to the many great personalities whose lives have been
devoted to the making of our national history, and, rightly
understood, it is an eloquent appeal to us all to follow worthily in
their footsteps.



A YEOMAN OF THE GUARD

Another masterpiece exhibited three years later has now found a
permanent resting-place in the National Gallery.  This riotous and
gorgeous exercise in strong colour could only have been accomplished
by an artist whose splendid audacity was equalled by his knowledge of
his craft.  The scarlet uniform, with its lavish embroidery of black
and gold and picturesque fashion, was something that exactly suited
his fancy; and he revelled in his struggle with the many problems of
technique which such a subject presented for solution.  Yet there is
little sign in the picture that he found it more than usually
exacting; and there is no evidence that he devoted to it an
exceptional amount of labour.  It is particularly memorable for its
consistent and thorough treatment, for the sound judgment with which
every variation of the colour and every component part of the design
have been managed; and it seems to have been carried through without
hesitation or change of intention.  It is an unfaltering record of a
clearly defined impression, and is not less interesting on account of
the sensitive and characteristic rendering of the worn, old face of
the model than as a piece of still life painting of quite
extraordinary force.  The qualities that make it great are those
which distinguish the productions of none but the unquestionable
masters of pictorial art.



THOMAS CARLYLE

[Illustration: THOMAS CARLYLE.]

The _Portrait of Thomas Carlyle_ has qualities scarcely less
commanding, though it did not offer such opportunities for the
display of masterly contrivance as were afforded by the _Yeoman of
the Guard_.  To deal with masses of strong colour, or to attempt
audacities of brushwork, would not have been correct in a simple
presentation of a modern man.  But even without any spectacular
additions this picture is a remarkable one, because it reveals so
plainly the discernment of character which had much to do with the
success that Millais gained in portraiture.  He cannot be said to
have spared Carlyle in his analysis, nor to have tried to soften off
the angularities of disposition which made the grim old sage more
feared than loved by the people with whom he came in contact.  The
face is frankly that of a man who has been soured by the warfare of
life; it is hard, dogmatic, fierce perhaps, and certainly intolerant,
but it is keenly intellectual and shrewdly reflective.  There is
courage and firmness of conviction in every line, and the instinct of
the tenacious fighter is declared in all the rugged and rough-hewn
features.  The unflinching gaze of the angry eyes, deep-set under the
lowering brows, is wonderfully suggested, and the cynical,
contemptuous mouth is magnificently drawn without any trace of
caricature.  That such a man should have summed up humanity as
"mostly fools" would seem natural enough to every one who studies
this portrait; the Carlyle that Millais has put on record for us does
not look like a lover of his species, nor like a man who would find
much pleasure in the society of his fellows.  Perhaps the painter has
been too severe--to such a breezy enthusiast Carlyle must have been
more than a little repellent--but he has indisputably been perfectly
consistent in his statement of what he considered to be the right
reading of the complex character of his famous sitter.




THE CHIEF WORKS OF MILLAIS IN PUBLIC GALLERIES, ETC.


NATIONAL GALLERY.

The Yeoman of the Guard.  1876.  4 ft. 7 in. by 3 ft. 8 in.  (1494.)

Portrait of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.  1879.  4 ft. 1 in. by 3
ft.  (1666.)


TATE GALLERY.

Ophelia.  1852.  2 ft. 6 in. by 3 ft. 8 in.  (1506.) Tate Gift.

The Vale of Rest.  1858.  3 ft. 4 in. by 5 ft. 7 in.  (1507.)  Tate
Gift.

The Knight Errant.  1870.  6 ft. by 4 ft. 5 in.  (1508.)  Tate Gift.

The North-West Passage.  1874.  5 ft. 9 in. by 7 ft. 4 in. (1509.)
Tate Gift.

Mercy--St. Bartholomew's Day--1572.  1886.  6 ft. 1 in. by 4 ft. 4
in. (1510.) Tate Gift.

Saint Stephen.  1895.  5 ft. by 3 ft. 9 in.  (1563.) Tate Gift.

A Disciple.  1895.  4 ft. 1 in. by 2 ft. 11 in.  (1564.) Tate Gift.

Speak!  Speak!  1895.  5 ft. 6 in. by 6 ft. 11 in.  (1584.) Chantrey
Bequest.

The Order of Release--1746.  1853.  3 ft. 4 in. by 2 ft. 5 in.
(1657.) Tate Gift.

The Boyhood of Raleigh.  (1691.) 4 ft. by 4 ft. 8 in.  Gift of Lady
Tate.  (1870.)

A Maid offering a Basket of Fruit to a Cavalier.  6 in. by 4½ in.
(1807.) Bequeathed by Mr. Henry Vaughan.

Charles I. and his Son in the Studio of Van Dyck.  6¼ in. by 4½ in.
(1808.) Bequeathed by Mr. Henry Vaughan.

Equestrian Portrait.  1882.  10 ft. 5 in. by 7 ft. 7 in. (1503.)
Anonymous donor.

N.B.  Sir Edwin Landseer painted the gray palfrey with the gorgeous
accoutrements, intending it for an equestrian portrait of Queen
Victoria, but this was never carried out, and ultimately the picture
was sent to Millais, who painted his daughter, now Mrs. James, in
this old riding costume, together with the page, the dog, and the
background, and called the picture "Nell Gwynne."  It is also
sometimes known as Diana Vernon.

It is initialled both by Landseer and Millais, and the date is that
of its completion by Millais.


NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.

The Earl of Beaconsfield.  A copy by Boyle from Millais' portrait.

Thomas Carlyle.  1877.  An unfinished portrait.  3 ft. 9 in. by 2 ft.
10 in.

William Wilkie Collins, the novelist.  11 in. by 7 in.

John Leech, caricaturist.  In water-colours.  11 in. by 9 in.


BIRMINGHAM ART GALLERY.

The Widow's Mite.  1869.  3 ft. 10 in. by 2 ft. 7 in. (171.)

The Blind Girl.  1856.  Pre-Raphaelite work.  2 ft. 8 in. by 1 ft. 9
in. (172.) Presented by the Rt. Hon. William Kenrick.


BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY, QUEEN VICTORIA ST., LONDON.

Portrait of the Earl of Shaftesbury.  1877.


CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD.

Portrait of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone.  1885.


FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE.

The Bridesmaid.  ("All Hallows' E'en.")  1851.


THE GARRICK CLUB, LONDON.

Portrait of Sir Henry Irving.  1884.


INSTITUTE OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, LONDON.

Portrait of Sir John Fowler, Bart., C.E.  1868.


LEEDS ART GALLERY

  Childhood.  } 
  Youth.      }  A series of panels for lunettes 
  Manhood.    }  formerly in the Judges' Lodgings in
  Age.        }  Leeds.  Painted in 1847.  
  Music.      } 
  Art.        }


LIVERPOOL ART GALLERY.

Lorenzo and Isabella.  1849.  Pre-Raphaelite work.  4 ft. 9 in. by 3
ft. 4 in. Purchased in 1884.  (337.)

The Martyr of the Solway, in 1680.  1870.  1 ft. 10 in. by 2 ft. 4
in.  Presented by Mr. George Holt in 1895.  (525.)


MANCHESTER ART GALLERY.

Autumn Leaves.  1856.  Pre-Raphaelite work.  3 ft. 5 in. by 2 ft. 5
in.  (144.)  Bought from the Leathart Collection.

A Flood.  1870.  3 ft. 2 in. by 4 ft. 8 in.  (145.)  From the
Matthews Collection.

"Victory, O Lord!" 1871.  6 ft. 4 in. by 4 ft. 6 in.  (171.)  Bought
from the Executors of Mrs. Reiss, 1894.


THE CORPORATION OF MANCHESTER.

Portrait of Bishop Fraser.  1880.

Portrait of Queen Alexandra when Princess of Wales.  1886.


NATIONAL GALLERY OF CANADA.

Portrait of the Marquis of Lorne, now Duke of Argyll.  1884.


NEW SOUTH WALES GALLERY, AUSTRALIA.

The Captive.  1882.


THE CORPORATION OF OLDHAM.

Portrait of T. O. Barlow, R.A.  1886.


OXFORD UNIVERSITY GALLERY.

Portrait of Thomas Combe.  1850.

Return of the Dove to the Ark.  1851.


THE ROYAL ACADEMY, BURLINGTON HOUSE DIPLOMA GALLERY.

A Souvenir of Velazquez.  1868.


ROYAL HOLLOWAY COLLEGE, EGHAM.

The Princes in the Tower.  1878.

The Princess Elizabeth.  1879.


SHAKESPEARE MUSEUM, STRATFORD ON-AVON.

Portrait of Lord Ronald Gower.  1876.


ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL, LONDON.

Portrait of Sir James Paget.  1872.

Portrait of Luther Holden, P.R.C.S.  1880.


UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

Portrait of the Rev. John Caird, D.D.  1881.


THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.

Portrait of George Grote.  1871.




  CHISWICK PRESS: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
  TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.









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