William Cosmo Monkhouse

“ MILLAIS, Sir JOHN EVERETT (1829–1896) , painter of history, genre, landscape, and portraits, and president of the Royal Academy, born at Southampton on 8 June 1829, was the youngest son of John William Millais, who belonged to an old Norman family settled in Jersey for many generations, and Emily Mary, daughter of John Evamy, and the widow of Enoch Hodgkinson, by whom she had two sons. The father (who died in 1870) was noted in the island of Jersey for his good looks and charming manners. He was also a good musician and a fair artist, and held a commission in the Jersey militia. ”

“ It is also to be remembered that Rossetti was at this time a mere tyro in painting, whereas Millais was a trained artist, and that of love of nature and skill in expressing it Millais could learn nothing from Rossetti.
At all events it is quite certain that Mr. Holman Hunt and Millais were most intimately associated in all their views and in their practice. They had worked together in complete sympathy from the days of their studentship, and they together started the new movement. ”

“ During these years Millais was wont to spend much time in the country to paint his backgrounds, lodging at farmhouses and cottages, in company with his brother, Mr. Holman Hunt, and Charles Allston Collins. Having settled upon the piece of landscape he meant to introduce, he would paint it day by day with exact fidelity and almost microscopic minuteness. Such backgrounds, not only in his pictures, but those of Holman Hunt and their followers, form a very distinct feature of the strict 'Pre-Raphaelite' period. ”

“ From this time forward for some thirty years Burgess visited Spain annually, and devoted his life to the study of Spanish life and character. Once at least he went over to Morocco and made sketches, but, with the exception of one or two Moorish pictures and an occasional portrait, the subjects of his pictures were henceforth almost exclusively Spanish. The first result of his visits to the Peninsula was a picture called 'Castilian Almsgiving,' which appeared at the Academy in 1859. His Spanish pictures attracted some attention, but his first great success was the 'Bravo Toro' of 1865. ”

“ For many years Cope had been associated with the prince in his schemes for the advancement of art, and the artist in his reminiscences bears witness to the prince's invariable kindness. In 1865 and 1866 Cope finished his bust frescoes in the House of Lords: ‘Meeting of Train Bands to relieve the Siege of Gloucester’ and ‘Speaker Lenthall asserting the Privileges of the Commons.’ In 1866 he became secretary of the building committee appointed to make arrangements for the removal of the Royal Academy from Trafalgar Souare. ”

“ Holman Hunt, deeply conscious of the lifeless condition into which British art had fallen, determined to adopt a style of absolute independence as to art dogma and convention, which they called 'Pre-Raphaelitism.' The next to join the movement was Dante Gabriel Rossetti [q.v.] , who at this time was struggling with the technical difficulties of painting under the instruction of Holman Hunt, but was unknown to Millais. ”

“ He became less sedulous in his search for subjects, less romantic in his feeling, more content to paint the life about him, without drawing much upon his imagination, or even his faculty for refined selection. ”

“ In 1871 he was one of the committee of artists employed in the decoration of Westminster Hall who made a report on fresco painting (see Return to House of Commons, No. 19 of 1872) . In 1875 he was appointed professor and lecturer on painting to the Royal Academy. His lectures were published in 1883. Always of independent means, Armitage was able to follow his ideals in art without regard to fashion or profit, and several of his largest works were executed entirely at his own expense. ”

“ He listens to a young woman who is reading some tale of Arctic exploration. The artist never painted a finer head than that of the sailor, and the execution throughout is so fine that the picture is regarded by some as his masterpiece. 'A Yeoman of the Guard' (1877) , with his age-worn face and uniform of scarlet and gold, is as strong in character, and perhaps the artist's most splendid effort as a colourist. It was, however, as a portrait painter that he added most to his great reputation during the last twenty-five years of his life. ”

“ In 1879 Cope left his house at Kensington and married his second wife, Miss Eleanor Smart. They settled at Maidenhead on the Thames in a house called Craufurd Rise. In 1883 he retired on to the list of honorary members of the Royal Academy, and ceased the active practice of his profession, though he still amused himself occasionally with painting, and as late as 1886 acted as examiner in painting for the South Kensington Schools of Art. ”

“ The comparative freedom with which he was now painting offended Ruskin, who devoted to 'Sir Isumbras' several pages of stern reproof, declaring, in his 'Notes' for 1857, that the change in the artist's manner from the years of 'Ophelia' and 'Mariana' 'is not only Fall—it is catastrophe.' This picture was very cleverly caricatured in a lithograph by Mr. F. Sandys, in which the horse is turned to a donkey branded J. R., the knight into Millais, while Dante Rossetti and Holman Hunt take the places of the girl and the boy. ”

“ In 'Apple Blossoms' some beautiful girls are sporting in an orchard under boughs of brilliant apple blossom, painted with great force and freedom. The central figure is Miss Georgiana Moncrieff (Lady Dudley) ; Lady Forbes, two sisters-in-law, and a model sat for the others. Ruskin extolled the power with which these pictures were painted, and called 'The Vale of Rest' a 'great picture,' but still insisted on the deterioration of the artist. At this time Millais still seems to have suffered much from the animosity of critics and others, and to have felt anxiety about the future ”

“ Val Prinsep, R.A. 'The Knight Errant' is remarkable from the fine execution of a full-length life-size female figure, the only one to be found in the artist's works. Of the others the most successful, perhaps, were 'The Evil One sowing Tares,' a version in oils of one of a fine series of designs for ' The Parables of Our Lord,' published by Bradbury & Evans, 'A Flood' (a child carried in its wooden cradle down the swollen stream) , and 'The Boyhood of Raleigh,' in which two boys (his own sons Everett and George) are listening to the strange tales of a sailor returned from the Spanish main. ”

“ The artist in this picture is Alonzo Cano, and his 'almsgiving' consists in making sketches and giving them away to the poor. After his election as a full member of the Academy Burgess painted, among other works, 'Freedom of the Press' (his diploma work) (1890) , 'A Modern St. Francis' (1891) , 'Rehearsing the Miserere, Spain' (1894) , and 'Students reading prohibited Books' (1895) . All these were scenes of Spanish life, but in his last completed picture he reverted to his own country for his subject, and painted 'A Mothers' Meeting in the Country,' now in the possession of his widow (1897) . ”

“ In 1861 the fresco of ‘Raising the Standard’ was placed in the same corridor. In 1862 he executed by the water-glass method the fresco of ‘The Defence of Basing House,’ and in 1863-4 that of the ‘Expulsion of Fellows from Oxford for refusing to sign the Covenant.’ In 1863 Cope was examined before the Royal Academy commission, and in 1865 he exhibited a study of Fra Angelico in oil, afterwards executed in mosaic on a larger scale at the South Kensington Museum. ”

“ Hellers, before they removed to Southampton, where Sir John and his elder brother William Henry (also an artist, and the author of 'The Game Birds of England') were born. The family returned to Jersey soon after Millais's birth, and there he developed a taste for natural history and sketching. A frame containing drawings done when only seven years old was exhibited at the Royal Academy in the winter of 1898. He drew a portrait of his maternal grandfather, John Evamy, fishing, when he was eight years old, and another of his father when he was eleven. ”

“ While at work no one worked harder than Millais, but no one enjoyed his holidays more, or was more convinced of the importance of long and thorough ones. Every year he spent some months in the country, usually in Scotland, where he could indulge his love of shooting and salmon fishing. ”

“ The blind girl, with red hair and a concertina, is not beautiful, but the group is pathetic from its very truth and simplicity. The background one of the best the artist ever painted represents the common and village of Icklesham, near Winchelsea. 'L'Enfant du Regiment,' now called ' The Random Shot,' is supposed to be an incident in the French Revolution, and represents a wounded child lying on a soldier's cloak in a church. The tomb on which the cloak is spread was painted from one in Icklesham church.
In the spring of 1857 Millais took lodgings in Savile Row. ”

“ Though to the last no failure of hand or eye was observable in his paintings, his health had for some time caused anxiety to his friends. He had from his youth suffered from valvular disease of the heart, which was hereditary, and this affection, combined with pneumonia, was the cause of his death. ”

“ He made several architectural designs for Ruskin, and in 1854 painted a portrait of him standing by the river Finlass, which was bought by Sir Thomas Dyke Acland [q. v. Suppl.] In the autumn of 1853 he took to hunting with John Leech [q. v.] , and in November of the same year he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. By this time the brotherhood, whose meetings had always been few and far between, had died a natural death, and Millais had soon to lose the companionship of Mr. Holman Hunt, who went to Syria in February 1854. ”

“ Miss Kiallmark sat for the principal figure in the latter. They attracted notice, and ‘Paolo and Francesca’ was bought by the Art Union of London, and the other by Mr. Villebois of Benham, who gave him for it 150l., a large sum to the artist at that time. ”

“ Unfortunately the work on which he bestowed his higher energies, the frescoes in the House of Lords, are for the most part in a deplorable condition. Of his smaller work good specimens are included in the Sheepshanks bequest at South Kensington.
[Reminiscences of Charles West Cope, R.A. by his son Charles Henry Cope, M.A.; Men of the Time; Annual Register; Returns to House of Commons, 23 of 1854, 295 of 1861, and 19 of 1872; Art Journal, 1869; Athenæum 1890, ii. 328, and 1892 ii. 166; Hamerton's Etching and Etchers.] ”

“ During the Crimean war he visited Russia, and in 1856 exhibited ‘The Bottom of the Ravine at Inkerman,’ and in 1857 a ‘Souvenir of Scutari.’ He also painted large pictures of the ‘Heavy Cavalry Charge at Balaclava,’ and ‘The Stand of the Guards at Inkerman,’ which were not exhibited. ”

“ H. F. Makins. 'The Huguenot,' the figures of which were painted from Mr. Arthur (afterwards General) Lempriere and Miss Ryan, was bought by a dealer named White for 300l. 'Ophelia' was a portrait of Miss Siddall (Mrs. D. G. Rossetti) , and the scene was painted by the side of the Ewell at Kingston. For 'The Proscribed Royalist' Mr. Arthur Hughes, the well-known painter, sat, Miss Ryan again appearing in the female figure. The scene was a little wood near Hayes in Kent. In 'The Order of Release' the female figure was painted from Mrs. Ruskin, who was afterwards to become his wife. ”

“ Standen) , painted in 1847 for the Royal Academy, but not exhibited. To 1849 belongs a portrait by Millais (exhibited in 1850) of Wyatt and his grandchild. Other acquaintances made at Oxford were Mr. and Mrs. Combe of the Clarendon Press, with whom he became intimate, and Mr. Drury of Shotover Park. He earned money also, and from the age of sixteen defrayed the greater part of the household expenses in Gower Street, where he lived with his family. In 1845 he was engaged to paint small pictures and backgrounds for a dealer named Ralph Thomas for 100l. a year. ”

“ His subjects were incidents in ordinary Spanish life, telling tales of humour and pathos much in the manner of Wilkie in his Scottish (not Spanish) period, and he told them very well. There is an admirable bust of Burgess by Mr. Onslow Ford, R.A.
[Men of the Time; Cat. of the Royal Academy; Art Journal, vol. xxxii.; Mag. of Art, 1882; Press notices, Times, Daily Graphic, &c., especially in November 1897; private information.] ”

“ In 1846 he visited Switzerland, and in 1848 he exhibited a large picture of ‘Cardinal Wolsey's Reception at Leicester Abbey’ (painted for Prince Albert) , and was raised to the full honours of the Royal Academy. In this year he was engaged on the fresco of ‘Griselda’ on the wall of the upper waiting hall of the House of Lords. It is now in ruins as well as another from ‘Lara,’ afterwards painted by Cope in the same hall. A small sketch of the ‘Griselda’ was sold to Munro of Novar. In 1849 he exhibited ‘The First-born’ (life-size) , which was painted for Mr. ”

“ Cat. of Grosvenor Gallery, Summer Exhibition, 1886 (F. G. Stephens) ; Chambers's Encyclopædia (art. ‘Pre-Raphaelitism’, by W. Holman Hunt) ; Royal Academy Cat., Winter, 1898; Cat. of Fine Art Society, 1881 (A. Lang) ; Holman Hunt's Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1905; Pre-Raphaelite Diaries and Letters, ed. W. M. Rossetti; Cat. National Gallery of British Art; Spielmann's Millais and his Works; Sir W. B. Richmond's Leighton, Millais, &c.; J. B. Payne's The Pedigree of the Family of Millais; Ruskin's Notes on Royal Academy Exhibitions, Pre-Raphaelitism, and Modern Painters ”