The Amorous Affair of the Pre-Raphaelite Painter

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nJack loved Effie and Effie lovednJack.

nWhich was a problem, as Effie wasnalready married.

John Everett Millais c. 1854

nJack was John Everett Millais, a precocious talent from Jerseynwho entered the Royal Academy School at the unprecedented age of eleven. Inn1848, with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt, he had founded thenPre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His first work in the Pre-Raphaelite style Lorenzonand Isabella had caused a sensation at the Royal Academy Exhibition ofn1849, the second work, in the following year, initiated an uproar.

J E Millais – Christ in the House of His Parents – 1849-50

nChrist innthe House of His Parents was exhibited at the Royal Academy and depicts anboy Christ who has caught his hand on a nail, cutting his palm with bloodndripping onto his bare foot, prefiguring the marks of the nails at thencrucifixion. His mother comforts him whilst Joseph examines the wound. John thenBaptist brings a bowl of water, referring to the future baptism in the RivernJordan. The ladder in the background is Jacob’s ladder and points to Christ’snlineage and Ascension, a triangular set-square symbolises the Trinity, a dovenon the ladder is the Holy Spirit, the sheep are the flock of the Good Shepherd.

nThe critics hated it. Charles Dickens, in Household Words (June 15^thn1850) describes the picture thus: –

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n“You behold the interior of ancarpenter’s shop. In the foreground of that carpenter’s shop is a hideous,nwry-necked, blubbering, red-headed boy, in a bed-gown, who appears to havenreceived a poke in the hand, from the stick of another boy with whom he hasnbeen playing in an adjacent gutter, and to be holding it up for thencontemplation of a kneeling woman, so horrible in her ugliness, that (supposingnit were possible for any human creature to exist for a moment with thatndislocated throat) she would stand out from the rest of the company as anMonster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest ginshop in England.”

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C Dickens – Household Words 1850

n The Builder, June 1^st 1850, was just as vicious, weighed in,ndecrying the depiction of

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n“…the youthful Saviour as a red-headed Jew boy,nand the sublime personage of the virgin a sore-heeled, ugly, every-daynsempstress.”

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nMillais had depicted the Holy Family as Palestinian workersnliving in a rough dwelling with dirt and wood shavings on the floor, rathernthan the idealised toga-wearing Caucasians preferred by the Victorians. In ancompanion piece, William Holman Hunt also used a ‘realistic’ technique in hisnportrayal of an imagined incident from early Christian history, A ConvertednBritish Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of thenDruids, and was also criticised for doing so.

W H Hunt – A ConvertednBritish Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of thenDruids 1850

nUnexpectedly, help arrivednwhen the distinguished art critic, John Ruskin, wrote letters to the papersnchampioning the Pre-Raphaelites and their intentions. Ruskin had advocated an‘return to nature’ in his influential four volume Modern Paintersn(1843-56), arguing that artists needed to make close observations of naturalnforms in their works, and his views were significant in the formation of thenfledgling Brotherhood.

John Ruskin

nRuskin became a friend and patron off the artists, andnalthough he did not particularly like Millais’s Christ in the House of HisnParents he was impressed by Millais’s abilities. In 1853, he invitednMillais to accompany him and his wife on a painting holiday to Scotland, wherenhe was to paint a portrait of the critic standing in the Scottish landscape.

J E Millais – Portrait of John Ruskin – 1854

nAtnGlenfinlas, Millais painted the background of the Ruskin portrait, with close,nalmost photographic, detail of the gneiss rock formation around a waterfall,nand he added the figure the following year in the studio. Ruskin was a keenngeologist and made studies of his own of the same rocks, which rival Millais inntheir attention to detail.

J Ruskin – Study of gneiss

nMillais had already used Mrs Ruskin as a model thenprevious year, in his Order of Release, and their close proximity in the ScottishnHighlands led to their falling in love.

J E Millais – The Order of Release – 1852

nRuskin had married Euphemia Gray, anfamily friend, in 1848, but it had not been a happy union – he was cold andnreserved, she was flirtatious and out-going. Effie, as she was known, left hernhusband for Millais and filed for divorce on the grounds that the marriage hadnnot been consummated.

J E Millais – Portrait of Effie Ruskin

nRuskin had used various excuses to explain his avoidancen– religion and hatred of children among them – before finally admitting thenreal reason,

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n“He did not make me his Wife was because he was disgusted withnmy person.”

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nThere have been various theories of just what it was that hadnso disgusted Ruskin, but disgusted he undoubtedly was and the marriage remainednunconsummated. Ruskin did not contest her claims but, alarmingly, wrote, “I cannprove my virility at once.” There was a great public scandal surrounding thencase; the marriage was annulled in July 1854.

nJack Millais married his Effienthe following year and it appears that Jack was not nearly as squeamish asnJohn, for they went on to produce eight children. In 1885, he was granted anbaronetcy, the first British artist to receive a hereditary title.