Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896)




Sir John Everett Millais was an English painter born in Southampton and educated in art at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. When he was 17 years old, Millais exhibited a painting at the Academy and it was then considered to be the best history painting shown that year.

In 1848 Millais and two other English painters formed a brotherhood of artists known as the Pre-Raphaelites, artists whose manner recalls the early Flemish and Italian masters. All Millais paintings from the Pre-Raphaelite era were painted with great attention to detail and often depicted the beauty and complexity of nature. In paintings such as Ophelia, Millais painted a dense and elaborate natural scene, an approach now called a pictorial eco-system.

Millais moved on to create many portraits of British personalities, famous in his time. Millais paintings prove that he was a careful artist who paid strict attention to detail, unusual composition and clarity of style. In his later work, Millais is criticized for succumbing to the Victorian taste for sentiment and anecdotal art.

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