John Everett Millais - The Ransom [1860-62]

John Everett Millais - The Ransom [1860-62], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Standing on the right, a kidnapper firmly grasps the arm of a young girl while an armoured knight tries to hand over precious jewels. In this theatrical painting, John Everett Millais (Southampton, 1829 - London, 1896) depicted a sixteenth-century scene of a father paying ransom for his two daughters. 

The subject matter and technique are typical of the Pre-Raphaelite movement founded by Millais. Although he wanted to express a moral seriousness in his work, the drama is unconvincing: the figures are stiff and too large for the room they inhabit. The Ransom received criticism of this kind when it was exhibited, but no one could find fault with Millais's painting technique. The sharp, near-photographic rendering of objects, materials, and individuals display Millais's technical brilliance. 

Millais's painting was a group effort of sorts. His mother made and designed the costumes, his friend Mr. Miller posed for the head of the knight and he drew the body from a gigantic railway guard named Strong. The girls were painted from one model, Miss Helen Petrie, and Major McBean posed as one of the kidnappers. The artist, however, did not much care for the painting and referred to it as "the picture with the dreadful blue-and-white page in the corner." 

[Oil on canvas, 51 x 45 inches]

John Everett Millais - The North-West Passage [1874]

John Everett Millais - The North-West Passage [1874], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The north-west passage was the unnavigable sea route round North America which was thought to provide a passage to the East. In time, it became synonymous with failure, adversity and death, with men and ships battling against hopeless odds in a frozen wilderness. Millais (1829 – 1896) painted this picture in 1874 when another English expedition was setting off. Previous representations had explored the desolate beauty of the terrain with details such as wrecked ships to underline the futility of man’s ambition. Millais encapsulates the risks of such a voyage primarily through the old seaman, with his grim, distant look and clenched fist.

[Oil on canvas, 1765 x 2222 mm]

John Everett Millais - Christ in the House of His Parents (The Carpenter's Shop) [1849-50]

John Everett Millais - Christ in the House of His Parents (The Carpenter's Shop) [1849-50], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

Millais (1829 – 1896) based the setting on a real carpenter’s shop in Oxford Street, London. Symbols of the Crucifixion figure prominently: the wood, the nails, the cut in Christ’s hand and the blood on his foot. Millais was viciously attacked by the press for showing the holy family as ordinary. Charles Dickens described Christ as ‘a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-haired boy in a night-gown.’

[Oil on canvas, 864 x 1397 mm]

John Everett Millais - Ophelia [1851-52]

John Everett Millais - Ophelia [1851-52], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

This is the drowning Ophelia from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Picking flowers she slips and falls into a stream. Mad with grief after her father’s murder by Hamlet, her lover, she allows herself to die. The flowers she holds are symbolic: the poppy means death, daisies innocence and pansies love in vain. The painting was regarded in its day as one of the most accurate and elaborate studies of nature ever made. The background was painted from life by the Hogsmill river in Surrey. Elizabeth Siddal posed for Ophelia in a bath of water kept warm by lamps underneath.

[Oil on canvas, 762 x 1118 mm]

John Everett Millais - Hearts Are Trumps [1872]

John Everett Millais - Hearts Are Trumps [1872], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

In its style, which recalls the works of the eighteenth-century painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, and in its flattering depiction of the fashionable sitters, this picture expresses a gentle and nostalgic vision of family life. Elizabeth, Diana and Mary, daughters of Walter Armstrong of Scotland and London, were in their twenties when Millais painted them. Mary holds most of the trumps and looks towards the viewer. Delicately, the card game hints at sisterly competition in husband-finding.

[Oil on canvas, 1657 x 2197 mm]