Ophelia (Millais)

Ophelia (Millais)
John Everett Millais · Public domain · source
Title	Ophelia
Artist	Sir John Everett Millais
Year	1851–52
Medium	Oil on canvas
Height	76.2 cm
Width	111.8 cm
Location	Tate Britain, London

Ophelia (Millais) is an oil painting by Sir John Everett Millais created between 1851 and 1852 depicting the Shakespearean character Ophelia. The work became a landmark of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and influenced debates in Victorian art circles such as those involving the Royal Academy of Arts and the British critics John Ruskin and William Holman Hunt. Millais’s meticulous technique, botanical accuracy, and theatrical subject linked the painting to cultural currents spanning William Shakespeare, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Charles Dickens, and the wider European art world including Édouard Manet, Gustave Courbet, and J. M. W. Turner.

Background and Conception

Millais conceived Ophelia amid the mid-19th century milieu shaped by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founded by John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Holman Hunt. Influences cited for the subject include William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, theatrical stagings by Charles Kean and Samuel Phelps, and literary criticism from figures like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Hazlitt. The painting’s genesis intersected with the artistic debates at the Royal Academy of Arts, polemics in periodicals such as The Athenaeum, and patronage networks involving collectors like John Ruskin and institutions such as the National Gallery. Millais’s working relationships connected him to contemporaries including Ford Madox Brown, Elizabeth Siddal, John Tenniel, and international correspondents like Giacomo Meyerbeer and Hans Christian Andersen who shaped Victorian taste.

Composition and Technique

Millais executed Ophelia using a finely worked oil technique informed by the Pre-Raphaelite commitment to truth to nature promoted by John Ruskin. The composition employs a horizontal format reminiscent of landscape works by J. M. W. Turner and compositional devices found in Albrecht Dürer and Giovanni Bellini. Millais painted the landscape on location beside the Hogsmill River before completing the figure in the studio, combining plein-air observation with academic studio practice familiar to students of the Royal Academy. Technical aspects include the use of layered glazing, careful underdrawing comparable to Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s discipline, and a palette that shows affinities with Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood contemporaries and later realists such as Gustave Courbet.

Subject and Iconography

The painting portrays Ophelia from Hamlet, specifically the drowning scene that has been interpreted through lenses provided by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, and Victorian moralists. Iconographic elements—flowers such as the poppy, pansy, violet, and daisy—refer to Elizabethan emblem books used by John Gerard and echo botanical interests associated with William Turner (botanist) and Joseph Paxton. The riverbank setting evokes English locales like the Hogsmill River and literary landscapes associated with Stratford-upon-Avon and Greenwich. Millais entwines Shakespearean tragic narrative with visualallusions to painters including Sandro Botticelli, Titian, Raphael, and contemporary dramatists such as Thomas Kyd and Ben Jonson through costume, pose, and symbolic flora.

Reception and Criticism

Ophelia provoked immediate critical attention across periodicals including The Times, The Illustrated London News, and The Athenaeum, and it was debated by commentators such as John Ruskin, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Charles Dickens. Praised by supporters in the Pre-Raphaelite circle including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown, the work also faced satirical attacks from caricaturists like A. H. Doyle and reviewers associated with the Royal Academy of Arts establishment. International responses connected the painting to exhibitions in Paris, where critics compared Millais to figures such as Édouard Manet and Gustave Courbet, while later modernists including Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse reflected on Millais’s realism and color.

Provenance and Exhibition History

After completion Millais’s Ophelia was exhibited in venues that included rooms frequented by members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and later displayed in public exhibitions influenced by curators from the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery. Ownership passed through collectors and institutions linked to figures such as John Ruskin, private patrons in the Victorian bourgeoisie, and public bodies that shaped museum collecting policies established by the National Trust and later trustees associated with Tate Britain. The painting toured international venues in cities like New York, Paris, and Berlin and was included in retrospectives that juxtaposed Millais with artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, and Edward Burne-Jones.

Conservation and Restoration

Conservation histories of Ophelia have involved professionals from institutions including Tate Britain, conservation scientists from university departments such as University College London and Courtauld Institute of Art, and technical advisors who referenced methods employed by laboratories at the National Gallery. Interventions addressed craquelure, varnish discolouration, and support treatment following protocols used in major campaigns for works by J. M. W. Turner, John Constable, and Thomas Gainsborough. Modern analyses applied techniques developed alongside specialists at Natural History Museum, London and imaging modalities popularized in conservation circles involving X-radiography and infrared reflectography.

Category:Paintings by John Everett Millais Category:1852 paintings Category:Paintings based on Hamlet