John Everett Millais

John Everett Millais was a renowned English painter and one of the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a movement which is now deemed the most important British art movement of the 19th century. Born in 1829 in Southampton, Millais was considered a child prodigy, admitted to the Royal Academy of Art at just 11 years old, as their younger ever student.

There, Millais met William Holman Hunt, with whom he would form the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood alongside Dante Gabriel Rossetti. They started out as a secret society, this trio — along with several other artists — held their first meeting in 1848, but wouldn’t remain in the shadows for long.

Implicit in their name was a criticism of academic teaching at that time, which treated Raphael and his fellow artists of the High Renaissance as paragons. The Pre-Raphaelites saw earlier Italian painting, of the Quattrocento, as much purer, less mannered and more worthy of emulation.

Millais and his fellow Pre-Raphaelites shared a fondness for heightened colours, literary and religious subject matter and meticulous attention to detail. These qualities are exemplified in one of his most enduring image Ophelia (1851–52, Tate Britain). The painting’s protagonist, the tragic Shakespearean character Ophelia, floats in a river surrounded by lush display of flora. This iconic painting is celebrated for its technical brilliance and emotional depth depicted in great naturalist detail, making it one of the most beloved works in the canon of British art.

John Everett Millais’ paintings carry an unvarnished realism, in praise of the artist’s innovative approach and profound humanity. Millais’ phenomenal success and popularity were based to a considerable extent on his skill as a painter of childhood. He had begun to explore the field in 1856, when he exhibited L’Enfant du Régiment (1854–55, Yale) at the Royal Academy, and continued developing this subject matter well into the 1860s.

Throughout his career, Millais produced a vast array of works, from portraits of leading figures in Victorian society to illustrations for publications like an edition of Lord Tennyson’s poems and novels by Anthony Trollope.

In 1885, Millais was made a baronet and became the first artist to be honoured with a hereditary title. He was elected President of the Royal Academy in 1896, the same year of his death. John Everett Millais remains a towering figure in the history of British art, celebrated for his technical mastery and the enduring beauty of his paintings.