MASTERPIECES
IN COLOUR

EDITED BY . .
T. LEMAN HARE

MILLAIS

1829—1896

“Masterpieces in Colour” Series

Others in Preparation.

Millais

BY A. LYS BALDRY
ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT
REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.

[Pg ix]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[Pg 11]

As a record of some half century of
brilliant activity, and of practically
unbroken success, the life-story of John
Everett Millais is in many respects
unlike those which can be told about
the majority of artists who have played
great parts in the modern art world. He
[Pg 12]had none of the hard struggle for recognition,
or of the fight against adverse circumstances,
which have too often embittered
the earlier years of men destined to take
eventually the highest rank in their profession.
Things went well with him from the
first; he gained attention at an age when
most painters have barely begun to make
a bid for popularity, and his position was
assured almost before he had arrived at
man’s estate. He owed some of his success,
no doubt, to his attractive and vigorous
personality, but it was due in far greater
measure to the extraordinary powers which
he manifested from the very outset of his
career.

For there was something almost sensational
in the manner of his development, in
his unusual precocity, and in the youthful
[Pg 15]
self-confidence which enabled him to take
a prominent place among the leaders of
artistic opinion while he was still little
more than a boy. So early was the proof
given that he possessed absolutely uncommon
powers, that he was not more than
nine years old when he began serious art
training; and so evident even then was his
destiny that this training was commenced
on the advice of Sir Martin Archer Shee,
the President of the Royal Academy, to
whom the child’s performances had been
submitted by parents anxious for an expert
opinion. The President’s declaration when
he saw these early efforts, that “nature
had provided for the boy’s success,” was
emphatic enough to dissipate any doubts
there might have been whether or not
young Millais was to be encouraged in his[Pg 16]
artistic inclinations; and that this emphasis
was justified by subsequent results no one
to-day can dispute.

The family from which Millais sprang
was not one with any past record of art
achievement. His ancestors were men of
action and inclined rather to be fighters
than students of the arts. They were Normans
who had settled in Jersey, and had
for several hundred years been counted
among the more important landholders in
that island, where at different times they
held several estates. From these ancestors
Millais derived his energetic temperament
and that militant activity which
enabled him in his career as an artist to
triumph signally over established prejudices—the
qualities which undoubtedly
helped him to make his power felt even[Pg 17]
by the people who were most opposed
to him.

He was born on June 8th, 1829, at
Southampton, where his parents were temporarily
living, but his earliest years were
spent in Jersey. It was in 1835 that he
began to show definitely his artistic inclinations;
he was at Dinan then with his
parents and he amused himself there by
making sketches of the country and people
with success so remarkable that even
strangers did not hesitate to recognise him
as a budding genius. Three years later
this estimate was confirmed by Sir Martin
Archer Shee, and the boy was then sent to
work at the art school which Henry Sass
carried on in Bloomsbury, a school which
had at that time a considerable reputation
as a training place for art students, and in[Pg 18]
which most of the early Victorian painters
received their preliminary education.

Soon after he entered this school Millais
gave a very striking proof of his precocious
ability—he gained the silver medal of the
Society of Arts for a drawing of the antique,
and an amusing story is told of the
sensation he created when he appeared at
the prize-giving to receive his award. The
Duke of Sussex was presiding at the meeting,
and to his amazement, when the name
of “Mr Millais” was called, a small child
presented himself as the winner of the
medal. To amazement succeeded admiration
when a consultation with the officials
of the Society proved that this boy of nine
was really the successful competitor, and
the presentation was received with great
applause by the spectators of the scene.[Pg 19]

After two years’ work under Sass, with
some study in the British Museum in addition,
he was admitted into the schools of
the Royal Academy, and, though his age
then was only eleven, he began almost
immediately to prove how well he could
hold his own in this new sphere of activity.
During the six years over which
his studentship at the Academy extended
he won every prize for which he competed,
and carried off finally the gold medal for
historical painting with a picture of “The
Tribe of Benjamin Seizing the Daughters
of Shiloh.” This was in 1847; in the previous
year he had made his first appearance
as an exhibitor at the Academy with
an ambitious composition, “Pizarro Seizing
the Inca of Peru,” which is now in the
Victoria and Albert Museum. His most[Pg 20]
ambitious effort at this period was, however,
the design, “The Widow Bestowing
her Mite,” which he produced in 1847 for
the Westminster Hall competition, a vast
canvas crowded with life-sized figures which
was remarkable enough to have made the
reputation of a far older and more experienced
painter.

So far his progress had been without
interruption. The rare brilliancy of his
student career had gained him the fullest
approval of his fellow-workers in art, and
he was beginning his career as a producer
with every prospect of becoming immediately
one of the most popular artists of his
time. Everything was in his favour; he
had undeniable ability, good health, and an
attractive personality, and he had proved
in many ways that, young as he was, he[Pg 21]
could handle large undertakings with sound
judgment and complete confidence. Yet,
with what seemed to be his way smooth
before him, he did not hesitate to risk his
already assured position in the art world
by setting himself openly in opposition to
the opinions of practically all the men
who were then counted as the leaders of
his profession. That he knew what might
be the penalty he would have to pay for
this rebellion against the fashion of the
moment can scarcely be doubted, but he
was by nature too strenuous a fighter to
be daunted by dangerous possibilities, and
his convictions, once formed, were always
too strong to yield to any considerations
of expediency.

In 1848, he and two friends of about
his own age, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and[Pg 22]
William Holman Hunt, conceived the idea
of making a practical protest against the
inefficiency of the work which was being
done by the more popular artists of the
time. The three youths had come under
the influence of Ford Madox Brown, who
with splendid sincerity was labouring to
realise an ideal based not upon fashion,
but upon an earnest desire for truthful
expression, and by his example they were
induced to study a purer type of art than
any they could see about them. For this
purer art they turned to the works of
the Italian Primitives, whose childlike unconventionality
and unhesitating naturalism
touched a responsive chord in the natures
of these youths who still retained some of
the simple faith in reality which is one of
the charms of childhood. They decided
[Pg 25]
that for the future they would base their own
practice upon that of the early Italians,
and that they would have none of the artificialities
of the age in which they found
themselves. Their resolve was a bold one,
but the manner in which they proceeded to
make it effective was bolder still.

They organised an association, the title
of which, “The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,”
significantly asserted the nature of
their artistic aims, and as the founders of
this association they pledged themselves to
seek the inspiration of their art in those
Italian painters who had lived before
Raphael was born, and whose sterling
principles were abandoned by Raphael and
his successors. To the three founders of
the Brotherhood were joined two other
painters, James Collinson, and F. G.[Pg 26]
Stephens, a sculptor, Thomas Woolner and
Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s brother, William
Michael, who, being a writer, was given
the office of secretary. The Brotherhood,
so constituted, was formally inaugurated in
the autumn of 1848, and the members at
once set to work to prove by their acts
the reality of their belief in the creed they
had adopted.

The first fruits of the movement were
seen in the following spring at the Academy
where Millais, who was then, it must
be remembered, not quite twenty, exhibited
his “Lorenzo and Isabella,” a picture
striking in its originality and in its unusual
power. What it implied was not, however,
immediately realised by the public; that
the manner of the painting made it very
unlike those by which it was surrounded[Pg 27]
was generally recognised, but most people,
if they thought about the matter at all,
seem to have assumed that the painter
had failed to bring himself into line with
the art of his time through youthful inexperience
rather than by deliberate intention.
Time and practice, they considered,
would correct such deficiencies in taste as
were apparent in the “Lorenzo and Isabella,”
and when the lad had arrived at
years of discretion he would be the first
to see the necessity for amendment.

But the members of the Brotherhood,
probably feeling that their initial effort had
not produced quite the effect intended,
took other steps to define their attitude.
They started, in January 1850, a magazine
called The Germ, which was proffered
as the organ of the new movement. It[Pg 28]
was sufficiently uncompromising in its confession
of faith, and neither its text nor
its illustrations were wanting in clearness
of statement. The magazine, indeed, was
what it was intended to be, an open challenge
to all the advocates of the old order
of things; and as such it was taken by
the people who saw it. It was only in existence
for four months, but even in that
short time it did its work thoroughly, and
put an end to any doubts there were in
the minds of art lovers and art workers
concerning the meaning of Pre-Raphaelitism;
thenceforward Millais and his friends
had certainly no reason to complain of
being ignored.

The attention which was given to the
pictures they sent to the 1850 Academy exhibition
was, however, by no means what[Pg 29]
they desired, though, doubtless, it must have
been much what they expected. Millais
exhibited a “Portrait of a Gentleman
and his Grandchild,” “Ferdinand Lured by
Ariel,” and “Christ in the House of His
Parents”—better known as “The Carpenter’s
Shop”—and these visible embodiments
of the principles laid down in The
Germ were received with an absolute
storm of abuse. The audacity of the
young painters who sought by works of
this character to discredit the smug and
artificial respectability of the art which was
then in vogue excited the critics beyond
control and brought forth a veritable orgie
of virulent expostulation.

Millais, with his mind made up and his
fighting instinct fully roused, was not the
man to yield to clamour. He made no con[Pg 30]cessions,
but, loyally supporting the policy
of the Brotherhood, showed at the Academy
in 1851 “The Woodman’s Daughter,”
“Mariana in the Moated Grange,” and
“The Return of the Dove to the Ark,” all
of which were as frank in their Pre-Raphaelitism
as any of the previous year’s
canvases, and all of which were greeted
with even more vehement disapproval by
the literary custodians of the popular taste.
Every possible kind of misrepresentation
of the aims of the young painter and his
friends was employed to discredit their
efforts, all sorts of base motives were imputed
to them; ridicule, specious argument,
and insult were used in turn to drive them
from the course they had deliberately
chosen. Appeals were even made to the
Academy to have the pictures, round[Pg 31]
which this controversy was raging, removed
summarily from the exhibition as
things unfit to be set before the eyes of
the public. But fortunately the courage
of the Brotherhood was proof against
everything which the opposition could do,
and neither abuse nor threats had any
effect. Yet Millais at the time suffered for
his principles; paintings which had been
commissioned were thrown upon his hands,
and his pictures almost ceased to be saleable.
He had every proof that his Pre-Raphaelitism
was commercially a mistake
and that, if he persisted, the absolute
marring of his career as a popular painter,
was more than likely, yet, so stubborn
was his conviction that he made no change
in either his principles or his practice.

Happily, as time went on, the position[Pg 32]
of affairs began to improve; the opposition
exhausted itself by excess of violence, and
able champions of the movement took up
the cudgels in defence of the young artists.
One of the most authoritative of these
champions was Ruskin, who found in this
apparently forlorn hope infinite possibilities
of artistic progress, and whose declaration
that the Pre-Raphaelites were laying “the
foundations of a school of art nobler than
the world has seen for three hundred years”
generously expressed his sentiments towards
the Brotherhood. He took the
trouble to study their art, and to analyse
their motives, so that he based his advocacy
not upon vague sympathy but upon real
understanding of artistic principles which
were sane and sound enough to satisfy even
his exacting demand for purity of æsthetic
[Pg 35]
purpose. That the ultimate success of Pre-Raphaelitism
was due to his energetic interposition
cannot, of course, be claimed—the
boldness and tenacity of the artists
who had adopted the new creed had more to
do with the improvement which was brought
about in the popular attitude—but Ruskin’s
counter attack upon the critics had a valuable
effect, and undoubtedly helped greatly
to open the eyes of the public.

It is interesting, too, to note that just at
the moment when the attack was fiercest
the Royal Academy showed its faith in
Millais by electing him an Associate. He
is said to have been the youngest student
ever received into the Academy schools,
and he must have been one of the youngest
painters ever chosen as an Associate, for
after his election it was discovered that he[Pg 36]
had not reached the age at which, under
the Academy rules, admission to the Associateship
was possible. So his election had
to be declared invalid and he had to wait
some few years longer—until 1853—for the
official recognition of his claims. But it
must assuredly be counted to the credit of
the Academy that such readiness should
have been shown to admit the ability of a
young artist who was openly in rebellion
against the fashions of his time, and whose
work was by implication a condemnation
of much that was being done even by
members of the Academic circle.

His election in 1853 came more as a
matter of course; by that date he had
won his way to a position which could
scarcely be questioned even by the bitterest
opponents of Pre-Raphaelitism, and he had[Pg 37]
laid securely the foundations of that remarkable
popularity which he was destined
to enjoy for the rest of his life. It would
have been hard, indeed, to deny that he
deserved whatever rewards were due to
artistic merit of the highest order, for his
pictures had passed well beyond the stage
of brilliant promise into that of commanding
achievement. His “Ophelia” and “The
Huguenot” in 1852, his “Order of Release”
and “The Proscribed Royalist” in 1853,
and his exquisite “Portrait of Mr. Ruskin”
in 1854, are to be accounted as masterly
performances which would have done full
credit to a painter whose skill had been
matured by more than half a lifetime of
strenuous effort, and which, as the productions
of a young man who did not reach
his twenty-fifth birthday until the summer[Pg 38]
of 1854, are of really extraordinary importance.
The “Ophelia,” “The Huguenot,”
and “The Order of Release,” can be placed,
indeed, among the most memorable expositions
of his artistic conviction, and the
“Portrait of Mr. Ruskin” ranks with the
“Ophelia” as one of the most astonishing
examples of searching and faithful study
which can be found in modern art.

These pictures were followed closely by
others not less notable—by “The Rescue”
in 1855, by “Autumn Leaves,” “The Random
Shot,” “The Blind Girl,” and “Peace Concluded,”
in 1856, and by “Sir Isumbras at
the Ford,” “The Escape of a Heretic,” and
“News from Home,” in 1857. Of this group
“Sir Isumbras at the Ford” was the least
successful, but “Autumn Leaves,” with its
exquisite delicacy of sentiment, and those
[Pg 41]
two delightful little canvases, “The Blind
Girl,” and “The Random Shot,” are of
supreme interest both on account of the
depth of thought which they reveal and of
their splendid executive accomplishment.

Another great picture appeared in 1859—“The
Vale of Rest,” which differed from
most of the works which Millais had hitherto
produced in its larger qualities of handling
and more serious symbolism. Its special
importance was not fully realised by the
artist’s admirers when it was first exhibited,
but Millais himself looked upon it as the
best thing he had done; and this opinion
has since been generally recognised as sufficiently
well founded. He had not before
shown so much solemnity of feeling nor
quite so complete a grasp of the larger
pictorial essentials, though in “Autumn[Pg 42]
Leaves” there was decidedly more than a
hint of the seriousness of purpose which
gave authority and dignity of style to “The
Vale of Rest.”

There was at this time a change coming
over his art, a change which suggested
that the stricter limits of Pre-Raphaelitism
were a little too narrow for him now that
his youthful enthusiasms were being replaced
by the more tolerant ideas of mental
maturity. But he was in no haste to
abandon his earlier principles; he sought
rather to find how they might be widened
to cover artistic motives which scarcely
came within the scope of the creed to
which the Brotherhood had originally been
pledged. So he alternated between the
literalism of “The Black Brunswicker”
(1860), “The White Cockade” (1862), “My[Pg 43]
First Sermon” (1863), “My Second Sermon”
(1864), and “Asleep” and “Awake,” which
were shown in 1867 with that daintiest of
all his earlier paintings, “The Minuet,” and
the sombre suggestion of such imaginative
pictures as “The Enemy Sowing Tares,”
and the finely conceived “Eve of St. Agnes,”
of which the former was exhibited at the
Academy in 1865, and the latter in 1863. It
seemed as if he was trying to make up his
mind as to the direction he was to take
for the future, testing his powers in various
ways, and studying himself to see how his
wishes and his temperament could best be
brought into accord.

But when in 1868 he broke into the new
art world in which he was to reign supreme
for nearly thirty years, his abandonment of
the technical methods which he had adopted[Pg 44]
in 1849, and used ever since with comparatively
little modification, was as decisive as
it was surprising. In 1867 he was the
careful, searching, and literal student of
small details, precise in brushwork, and
exactly realistic in his record of what
he had microscopically examined. His
“Asleep” and “Awake” were in his most
matter-of-fact vein, almost pedantically
accurate in statement of obvious facts; and
even his charming “Minuet” was elaborated
with a care that left nothing for the imagination
to supply. In 1868, however, all
this dwelling upon little things, all this
studied minuteness of touch and literal presentation
of what was obvious, had suddenly
disappeared. All that remained to him of
his Pre-Raphaelitism was the acuteness of
vision which had served him so well for[Pg 45]
twenty years in his intimate examination
of nature; everything else had gone, his
minute actuality was replaced by large and
generous suggestion, his restrained brushwork
by the broadest and most emphatic
handling, his realistic view by a kind of
magnificent impressionism which expressed
rightly enough the personal robustness of
the man himself.

What made this change the more dramatic
was the absence of any suggestion
in his previous work that he was preparing
for an executive departure of such a
marked kind. A diversion into a new class
of subjects, or an inclination towards a
more serious type of sentiment, might perhaps
have been looked for from the painter
of “The Vale of Rest,” “The Enemy Sowing
Tares,” and “The Eve of St. Agnes,”[Pg 46]
but even in the larger manner of these
pictures, there was little to imply that he
desired to adopt a new mode of painting.
But if the “Souvenir of Velazquez,”
“Stella,” “The Pilgrims to St. Paul’s,” and
“The Sisters,” which he contributed to
the 1868 Academy, are compared with what
he had done before, the full significance
of his action can be perceived.

The “Souvenir of Velazquez,” indeed,
is one of the most decisive pieces of fluent
brushwork which has been produced by
any modern painter of the British school.
It is entirely convincing in its directness
and in its summariness of executive suggestion,
and as a masterly performance it
is by no means unworthy to stand beside
the works of that master to whom it was
in some sort designed as a tribute. But[Pg 47]
it has a peculiarly English charm which
Millais grafted with happy discretion on
to the technical manner of the Spanish
school, and as a study of childish grace it
is almost inimitably persuasive. The little
princesses whom Velazquez painted were
too often robbed of their daintiness by the
formality of the surroundings in which it
was their misfortune to be placed, but the
child in this picture by Millais has lost
none of her freshness, and, with all her
finery, is still a happy, young, little thing,
ready for a romp as soon as the sitting is
over. In the long series of fascinating
studies of child-life which he painted with
quite exquisite sympathy, this one claims
a place of particular prominence on account
of its beauty of characterisation, and
its entire absence of affectation, quite as[Pg 48]
much as it does on account of its qualities
as a consummate exercise in craftsmanship.

This was the canvas which he finally
decided to hand over to the Academy as
his diploma work. He had been promoted
to the rank of Academician in 1863, and
his intention then was to be represented
in the Diploma Gallery by “The Enemy
Sowing Tares,” which he regarded as in
every way a sound example of his powers.
But his fellow-Academicians, for some not
very intelligible reason, did not agree with
him about the suitability of this picture,
and it was, therefore, refused. So he sent
them the “Souvenir of Velazquez” instead,
a fortunate choice, for it brought permanently
into a quasi-public gallery what is
indisputably an achievement worthy of him
at his best.[Pg 49]

[Pg 51]Once started on his new direction as
a painter he went forward with unhesitating
confidence in his ability to realise
his intentions, and as the years passed
by he added picture after picture to the
already large company of his successes.
His admirers, surprised as they were at
first by his startling change of manner, did
not hesitate to accept what he had to
offer; indeed the splendid vigour of his
work brought him an immediate increase
of popularity, and he was thenceforth recognised
at home and abroad as one of
the most commanding figures in the whole
array of British art, as a leader whose
authority was not to be questioned.

In 1869 he exhibited his portrait of
“Nina, Daughter of F. Lehmann, Esq.,”
“The Gambler’s Wife,” a “Portrait of Sir[Pg 52]
John Fowler,” and “Vanessa,” a companion
picture to his “Stella;” and in 1870 “A
Widow’s Mite,” “The Boyhood of Raleigh,”
and “The Knight Errant,” with some other
works of less importance. The portrait of
Miss Lehmann is one of the pictures upon
which his reputation most securely rests,
admirable in its technical quality and its
observation of character; and among the
others “The Boyhood of Raleigh,” and
“The Knight Errant,” are worthiest of attention
because they are treated with great
distinction, and have in large measure that
interest which always results from judicious
interpretation of a well-selected subject.

“The Boyhood of Raleigh,” especially,
is to be considered on account of its possession
of a certain dramatic sentiment[Pg 53]
which might easily have been made theatrical
by an artist less surely endowed
with a sense of fitness. But it tells its
story with charm and conviction, and there
is in the action of the figures, and in the
expressions on the faces, just the right
degree of vitality needed to make clear the
pictorial motive. “The Knight Errant”
is, perhaps, less significant as a piece of
invention, but it has a distinct place in
the artist’s list of achievements, because
it affords one of the few instances of his
treatment of the nude figure on a large
scale. It proves plainly enough that his
avoidance of subjects of this class was not
due to any inability on his part to succeed
as a flesh painter, for this figure is beautiful
both in colour and handling; it is more
probable that the classic formality and con[Pg 54]ventionality
which public opinion in this
country requires in the representation of
the nude did not appeal to a man with his
love of actuality and sincere regard for
nature’s facts. Indeed, from the standpoint
of the decorative figure painter—of men
like Leighton, or Albert Moore, for instance—the
woman that Millais has represented
is too frankly unidealised, too
modern in type, and too realistically feminine.

But in this disregard of convention there
is a kind of summing up of his beliefs as
an artist. Though he had changed the
outward aspect of his art he was still
in spirit a Pre-Raphaelite, and a Pre-Raphaelite
he remained to the end of
his days. He depended more upon the
keenness of vision natural to him, and[Pg 55]
assiduously cultivated by years of close
observation, than upon what powers he
may have had of abstract imagining; and
he sought to only a limited extent to set
down upon his canvas those mental images
which satisfy men who look upon nature
chiefly as a basis for decorative designs.
The mental image with him was a direct
reflection of fact, not an adaptation modified
and formalised in accordance with recognised
rules, not a fancy more or less
remotely referable to reality; but he had
certainly an ample equipment of that taste
which enables the painter to discriminate
between the realities which are too crude
and obvious to be worth recording, and
those which by their inherent beauty claim
a permanent place in an artist’s memory.
He had, too, the judgment to see that the[Pg 56]
nude, treated as it would have to be to
satisfy his æsthetic conscience, would be
too plainly stated to be entirely acceptable.

He found a much more appropriate field
for the exercise of his particular capacities
by turning to landscape painting. Many
of his earlier figure compositions had been
given backgrounds which showed how well
he could manage the complex details of
masses of tangled vegetation, or the broad
and simple lines of a piece of rural scenery;
but in 1871 he attempted for the first time
a landscape which was complete in itself
and not merely incidental in a picture
mainly concerned with human interest.
This landscape, “Chill October,” was at the
Academy with his “Yes or No?” “Victory,
O Lord,” “A Somnambulist,” and the[Pg 57]
“Portrait of George Grote,” and it was
welcomed by a host of admirers as a new
revelation of his versatility. It has certainly
qualities which justify the estimation
in which it was and is still held; and
though it lacks that imaginative insight
into poetic subtleties which accounts for
so much in the work of a master like
Turner, it must always claim the respect
of art lovers as a large, dignified, and sincere
study of nature in one of her sadder
moods. It is the reserve of the picture,
its reticent realism, that chiefly makes it
memorable, for it is neither imposing in
subject nor striking in effect; but in its
broad simplicity there is something rarely
fascinating.

Other nature studies of the same character
followed at brief intervals during the[Pg 58]
next few years; they added to the interest
of the artist’s practice, but they can
scarcely be said to have equalled in importance
the portraits and figure subjects
which he completed at this stage of his
career. Millais was, of course, far too great
a master to have failed in any branch of
artistic practice to which he seriously devoted
himself, but the very capacities which
made him so successful as a painter of the
human subject prevented him from looking
at open-air nature with the necessary
degree of abstraction. The physical character
of a piece of scenery, its details and
individual peculiarities, he could record with
absolute certainty, though the elusive subtleties
of atmosphere, and the charming accidents
of illumination, which mean so much
in the poetic rendering of landscape, he
[Pg 61]
dwelt upon hardly at all. In many of his
landscapes the breadth and dignity, the accurate
relation of part to part, the fascinating
simplicity of manner, which are among
the greater merits of “Chill October,” can
be praised without reservation or hesitation;
but the touch of fantasy, of actual
unreality, by which the inspired landscape
painter seems to suggest more truly the
real spirit of nature, he hardly ever attempted;
and never, it may fairly be said,
with complete success.

The years over which his activity as an
exponent of pure landscape extended are,
however, memorable because they saw the
production of some of the most triumphant
achievements of his maturer life. With his
two landscapes, “Flowing to the Sea,”
and “Flowing to the River,” he exhibited[Pg 62]
in 1872 his “Hearts are Trumps,” a portrait
group which has become a modern
classic; and in 1873 another wonderful portrait,
the three-quarter length of “Mrs.
Bischoffsheim.” But it was in 1874 that he
showed what is in many ways the greatest
of all his paintings, “The North-West
Passage,” a work which, if he had done
nothing else of moment, would suffice to
place him securely among the master
painters of the world. The head of the
old man, who is the central figure in the
picture, is entirely magnificent, and there
is much besides in this canvas which would
have been beyond the reach of any one but
an artist of almost abnormal power. This
was followed in 1875 by his portrait of
“Miss Eveleen Tennant,” and in 1877 by
the “Yeoman of the Guard,” which runs[Pg 63]
“The North-West Passage” close in the
race for supremacy.

At this time, indeed, his productiveness
was extraordinary; subject pictures, portraits,
and landscapes appeared in rapid
succession, and in all of them he kept to
a level of masterly practice which other
men reach only occasionally and at rare intervals.
Between 1873 and 1879 he painted
eight landscapes, all important in scale and
interesting in treatment, but after 1879 he
produced no more for nearly ten years,
when he began a fresh series. He was
apparently too busy with portraits and
figure subjects to give much time to out-of-door
work, and to satisfy the demands
made upon him by art collectors and
sitters he must have had to work his
hardest. Yet popularity did not make him[Pg 64]
careless, and his hard work diminished
neither his freshness of outlook nor his
freedom of expression. Conscientiousness
as a craftsman was always one of his
virtues, and the knowledge that he had
a host of admirers ready to accept almost
anything he would give them had certainly
not the effect of inducing him to
lower his standard.

In the long list of his paintings, which
belong to the period beginning in 1879 and
ending in 1888, several stand out with
special prominence—for example, his portraits
of “Mrs. Jopling,” and “The Right
Hon. W. E. Gladstone,” “Cherry Ripe,”
and “The Princess Elizabeth,” all in 1879,
“The Right Hon. John Bright” in 1880,
“Cardinal Newman,” “Alfred, Lord Tennyson,”
“Sir Henry Thompson,” “Cinder[Pg 65]ella,”
and “Caller Herrin’,” in 1881, “J. C.
Hook, R.A.,” and “The Captive,” in 1882,
“The Marquess of Salisbury” in 1883,
“The Ruling Passion,” and another portrait
of Gladstone, in 1885, “Bubbles” in
1886, and “The Marquess of Hartington”
in 1887. Some of these were shown at the
Academy, but he was producing far more
year by year than could be exhibited there,
so he sent many important works to the
Grosvenor Gallery, and most of his subject
pictures to the galleries of the dealers by
whom they were commissioned.

After 1888 there was some relaxation
in his effort; in that year he had at the
Academy only one picture, a landscape,
“Murthly Moss,” and only one portrait in
each of the years 1889 and 1890, though
he showed several works in other galleries.[Pg 66]
In 1892 his landscapes “Halcyon Weather,”
and “Blow, Blow, thou Winter Wind,” were
at the Academy, but after that year he
worked no more out-of-doors. Of the canvases
painted during the last three or four
years of his life, the most memorable
are his portrait of “John Hare” (1893),
“Speak! Speak!” (1895), and “A Forerunner”
(1896), all of which were at the
Academy, and “Time the Reaper” which
was at the New Gallery in 1895. “Speak!
Speak!” was purchased by the Chantrey
Fund trustees, and is now in the National
Gallery of British Art with the other admirably
chosen examples of his art which
were given to the nation by Sir Henry
Tate.

The crowning honour of his life came
to him in February 1896, when he was[Pg 67]
elected President of the Royal Academy in
succession to Lord Leighton—an honour
which was particularly appropriate not only
because of his eminence as an artist, but
also because he had been intimately connected
for nearly sixty years with the institution
over which he was then called
to preside. To this connection he referred
in his speech at the Academy banquet in
1895, at which he took the chair in the
place of Leighton whose illness prevented
him from occupying his accustomed position.
The words which Millais used on
this occasion expressed generously and
affectionately his sense of obligation to the
Academy by which he had been trained in
his boyhood, and from which he had received
encouragement and support at the
most critical period of his career, and de[Pg 68]clared
with characteristic frankness that
he owed to it a debt of gratitude which
he never could repay.

To those, however, who know how loyal
he was to the institution that he loved so
well it would seem that the debt was,
indeed, fully paid. Few men have done
more to uphold the repute of the Academy,
few have by the brilliancy of their powers
and their charm of personality done it
more credit. That Leighton was the ideal
President can be readily admitted, but
Millais, as his successor, would have carried
on a great tradition with dignity and sympathy
and with no diminution of his predecessor’s
generous tolerance and earnest
sense of artistic responsibility. He would
have kept the Academy on broad lines,
and by his impatience of empty formalities
[Pg 71]
he would have prevented it from losing
touch with the movements in modern
art.

But, unfortunately, he was destined to
hold his honourable office for but a brief
time. Even before Leighton’s death he
had been suffering from a throat trouble
which not long after was pronounced to be
cancer; and in the months that followed
immediately on his election the disease
made rapid progress. Not long after the
opening of the 1896 Academy Exhibition
his condition became so serious that an
immediately fatal result was expected; but
by an operation he obtained some temporary
relief and his life was prolonged for a
few weeks. This, however, was only a
brief respite; he died on August 13, and
was buried a week later in St. Paul’s[Pg 72]
Cathedral, where little more than six months
before he had followed his old friend’s
body to the grave.

To speak of his death as premature
would be scarcely a misapplication of the
word. Although Millais had completed his
sixty-seventh year he was still in art a
young man. His vigour had not waned, and
there was no perceptible diminution of his
artistic vitality even in those last works
which he painted under the shadow of
nearly impending death. To a man of his
splendid physique and buoyant temperament
age would have come slowly, and the
inevitable degeneration of his powers would
have not begun for many more years. The
possibility of great achievement remained
to him, and it would be true to say that
his death robbed us of much which would[Pg 73]
have added greatly to the sum total of
British art. Yet we may be grateful to fate
for allowing him to develop the promise of
his youth in the splendour of his maturer
years; it is so often the lot of the precocious
genius to die young with his mission
but half fulfilled. If death had come to
Millais as it did to Bonington or Fred
Walker, our loss would have been sad
indeed.

In discussing Millais as an artist the
part which his personality played in making
him what he was must by no means
be overlooked. Something of the vitality
and the virility of his art was due to the
way in which he kept touch with the life
about him, and interested himself in people
and things. He was no recluse who fed in
secret upon his own ideas, or narrowed[Pg 74]
his outlook by hedging himself round with
prejudices and preferences for one special
class of artistic material. Instead, he went
out into the world and acquired his impressions
of humanity in all directions and at
first hand, finding much pleasure in association
with his fellow-men. To his own
human nature he gave free rein; he was
a keen sportsman, a lover of children—of
whose ways he had, as he proved in scores
of pictures, a perfect understanding—and
a man who was always happy in congenial
society, and always welcome. He
lived his life, in fact, largely, genially, and
wholesomely, and he was as much unspoiled
by the prosperity which came to
him in his maturer years as he was unshaken
by the opposition which he had to
face in that brief period of his youth when,[Pg 75]
as he used to say himself, he was “so
dreadfully bullied.”

That this brief taste of unpopularity did
him good rather than harm can well be
imagined, for without making him bitter
it tested with some severity his tenacity
and his power to fight vigorously for what
he believed to be right—and such a test
has always its value as a means of developing
the finer qualities of a strong man,
or as a warning to the weak one of the
need for self-examination. Millais did not
require any incentive to self-examination,
because he knew well enough what he intended
to do when he deliberately set up
his own conviction against that of the men
who practically ruled British art, and he
did not enter upon the fight with any idea
of backing out if he found it was likely to[Pg 76]
go against him. But after the kind of
triumphal progress which he made through
the Academy schools, the discovery that
the wider public was not disposed to accept
him as infallible was possibly necessary to
prove to him that successes as a student
did not give him, as a matter of course, an
assured place among the chiefs of his profession.
He was taught roughly, and in a
way that roused both his fighting spirit and
his pride, that this position was to be won
only by sustained and strenuous effort; and
this lesson he never forgot. Its effects
persisted long after he had become a
popular favourite, and they helped, it can
be fairly believed, to strengthen his character
and to keep him from that easy contentment
with his own works which is the
first step towards degeneration. He did[Pg 77]
not degenerate after he had secured what
he had been striving for; although he had
silenced his critics, and had won them over
to his side, he continued to sit in severest
judgment upon himself, and to the last he
exacted from his own capacities the utmost
they could give him.[Pg 78]

The plates are printed by Bemrose & Sons, Ltd., Derby and London

The text at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh