John Everett Millais and Hampshire
John Everett Millais born in Southampton, Hampshire in 1829.
Millais, with William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in September 1848 in his family home on Gower Street, off Bedford Square
His paintings include the most wonderful depictions of Shakespearian heroines such as Ophelia and Mariana and his art is considered to be
amongst the finest of British paintings although personally I feel that they are completely outshone by John William Waterhouse.
Millais was also a successful book illustrator and his illustrations are contained in the works
of Anthony Trollope and Tennyson amongst others.
Isabella painted by Millais in 1849
Ophelia painted by Millais in 1852
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There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
[Hamlet]
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Millais also painted 'Bubbles', originally entitled A Child's World, in 1886 which became
famous after being used in the
Pears Soap Advertisements. During Millais's lifetime it led to widespread debate about the relationship between art and advertising.
Millais died in 1896 and a statue of him was commissioned by the Prince of Wales
(later King Edward VII) which was placed at the front of the National Gallery of British Art
(now Tate Britain) in the garden on the east side in 1905.
In 2000 the statue was removed to the rear of the building.
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