John Everett Millais: The Complete Story
John Everett Millais was a child prodigy who helped launch the Pre-Raphaelite movement at 19, painted one of the most famous images in British art, the drowning Ophelia, and then scandalised and conquered Victorian society in equal measure. He went from rebel to the richest, most decorated artist in the land.
His life has everything: a teenage revolution against the art establishment, a notorious love triangle, and a late career so commercial that one painting became a soap advert.
Born: Southampton, 1829
Known for: Ophelia, founding the Pre-Raphaelites, Victorian fame
Died: London, 1896
The teenage rebel
Millais was the youngest student ever admitted to the Royal Academy schools. At 19 he and two friends founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, rejecting the dark, formulaic art they were taught in favour of bright colour, sharp detail and truth to nature. See what is Pre-Raphaelite art.
His early Christ in the House of His Parents, showing the holy family as ordinary, dirty footed workers, outraged critics, Charles Dickens among them, for daring to make the sacred look real.
Ophelia
In 1851 to 1852 he painted Shakespeare's Ophelia drowning among riverbank flowers, each plant rendered with botanical precision. His model lay for hours in a bath kept warm by lamps that went out, and she caught a serious chill.
It is now one of the most loved paintings in Britain. The full story of the picture is a feature in its own right, separate from this overview.
The scandal and the soap
Millais married Effie Gray, the wife of the famous critic John Ruskin, after her marriage to Ruskin was annulled as never consummated. The affair gripped Victorian society and is still retold today.
In later life he turned to softer, sentimental subjects that sold enormously. His painting of a child blowing a bubble was bought by a soap company and turned into one of the era's most famous advertisements. Purists groaned, but he became a wealthy baronet and head of the Royal Academy.
The questions readers ask about Millais
What is John Everett Millais famous for?
Co founding the Pre-Raphaelites and painting Ophelia.
Was his work realistic?
Yes, obsessively so in his early years. See what is Realism art.
Did a painting become an advert?
Yes, his Bubbles was used to sell Pears soap.
Why Millais still pulls a crowd
Millais lived the whole arc of Victorian art, from teenage radical to establishment grandee, and left behind one unforgettable image of beauty and death. Ophelia alone draws crowds to Tate Britain every day.
A final detail. The flowers around Ophelia are not random. Each one, the willow, the nettle, the daisy, the poppy, carries a meaning from Shakespeare or Victorian flower language, turning the riverbank into a coded message about love, pain and death.