Part 2

There was at this time a change coming over his art, a change which suggested that the stricter limits of Pre-Raphaelitism were a little too narrow for him now that his youthful enthusiasms were being replaced by the more tolerant ideas of mental maturity. But he was in no haste to abandon his earlier principles; he sought rather to find how they might be widened to cover artistic motives which scarcely came within the scope of the creed to which the Brotherhood had originally been pledged. So he alternated between the literalism of "The Black Brunswicker" (1860), "The White Cockade" (1862), "My First Sermon" (1863), "My Second Sermon" (1864), and "Asleep" and "Awake," which were shown in 1867 with that daintiest of all his earlier paintings, "The Minuet," and the sombre suggestion of such imaginative pictures as "The Enemy Sowing Tares," and the finely conceived "Eve of St. Agnes," of which the former was exhibited at the Academy in 1865, and the latter in 1863. It seemed as if he was trying to make up his mind as to the direction he was to take for the future, testing his powers in various ways, and studying himself to see how his wishes and his temperament could best be brought into accord.

But when in 1868 he broke into the new art world in which he was to reign supreme for nearly thirty years, his abandonment of the technical methods which he had adopted in 1849, and used ever since with comparatively little modification, was as decisive as it was surprising. In 1867 he was the careful, searching, and literal student of small details, precise in brushwork, and exactly realistic in his record of what he had microscopically examined. His "Asleep" and "Awake" were in his most matter-of-fact vein, almost pedantically accurate in statement of obvious facts; and even his charming "Minuet" was elaborated with a care that left nothing for the imagination to supply. In 1868, however, all this dwelling upon little things, all this studied minuteness of touch and literal presentation of what was obvious, had suddenly disappeared. All that remained to him of his Pre-Raphaelitism was the acuteness of vision which had served him so well for twenty years in his intimate examination of nature; everything else had gone, his minute actuality was replaced by large and generous suggestion, his restrained brushwork by the broadest and most emphatic handling, his realistic view by a kind of magnificent impressionism which expressed rightly enough the personal robustness of the man himself.

What made this change the more dramatic was the absence of any suggestion in his previous work that he was preparing for an executive departure of such a marked kind. A diversion into a new class of subjects, or an inclination towards a more serious type of sentiment, might perhaps have been looked for from the painter of "The Vale of Rest," "The Enemy Sowing Tares," and "The Eve of St. Agnes," but even in the larger manner of these pictures, there was little to imply that he desired to adopt a new mode of painting. But if the "Souvenir of Velazquez," "Stella," "The Pilgrims to St. Paul's," and "The Sisters," which he contributed to the 1868 Academy, are compared with what he had done before, the full significance of his action can be perceived.

The "Souvenir of Velazquez," indeed, is one of the most decisive pieces of fluent brushwork which has been produced by any modern painter of the British school. It is entirely convincing in its directness and in its summariness of executive suggestion, and as a masterly performance it is by no means unworthy to stand beside the works of that master to whom it was in some sort designed as a tribute. But it has a peculiarly English charm which Millais grafted with happy discretion on to the technical manner of the Spanish school, and as a study of childish grace it is almost inimitably persuasive. The little princesses whom Velazquez painted were too often robbed of their daintiness by the formality of the surroundings in which it was their misfortune to be placed, but the child in this picture by Millais has lost none of her freshness, and, with all her finery, is still a happy, young, little thing, ready for a romp as soon as the sitting is over. In the long series of fascinating studies of child-life which he painted with quite exquisite sympathy, this one claims a place of particular prominence on account of its beauty of characterisation, and its entire absence of affectation, quite as much as it does on account of its qualities as a consummate exercise in craftsmanship.

This was the canvas which he finally decided to hand over to the Academy as his diploma work. He had been promoted to the rank of Academician in 1863, and his intention then was to be represented in the Diploma Gallery by "The Enemy Sowing Tares," which he regarded as in every way a sound example of his powers. But his fellow-Academicians, for some not very intelligible reason, did not agree with him about the suitability of this picture, and it was, therefore, refused. So he sent them the "Souvenir of Velazquez" instead, a fortunate choice, for it brought permanently into a quasi-public gallery what is indisputably an achievement worthy of him at his best.

Once started on his new direction as a painter he went forward with unhesitating confidence in his ability to realise his intentions, and as the years passed by he added picture after picture to the already large company of his successes. His admirers, surprised as they were at first by his startling change of manner, did not hesitate to accept what he had to offer; indeed the splendid vigour of his work brought him an immediate increase of popularity, and he was thenceforth recognised at home and abroad as one of the most commanding figures in the whole array of British art, as a leader whose authority was not to be questioned.

In 1869 he exhibited his portrait of "Nina, Daughter of F. Lehmann, Esq.," "The Gambler's Wife," a "Portrait of Sir John Fowler," and "Vanessa," a companion picture to his "Stella;" and in 1870 "A Widow's Mite," "The Boyhood of Raleigh," and "The Knight Errant," with some other works of less importance. The portrait of Miss Lehmann is one of the pictures upon which his reputation most securely rests, admirable in its technical quality and its observation of character; and among the others "The Boyhood of Raleigh," and "The Knight Errant," are worthiest of attention because they are treated with great distinction, and have in large measure that interest which always results from judicious interpretation of a well-selected subject.

"The Boyhood of Raleigh," especially, is to be considered on account of its possession of a certain dramatic sentiment which might easily have been made theatrical by an artist less surely endowed with a sense of fitness. But it tells its story with charm and conviction, and there is in the action of the figures, and in the expressions on the faces, just the right degree of vitality needed to make clear the pictorial motive. "The Knight Errant" is, perhaps, less significant as a piece of invention, but it has a distinct place in the artist's list of achievements, because it affords one of the few instances of his treatment of the nude figure on a large scale. It proves plainly enough that his avoidance of subjects of this class was not due to any inability on his part to succeed as a flesh painter, for this figure is beautiful both in colour and handling; it is more probable that the classic formality and conventionality which public opinion in this country requires in the representation of the nude did not appeal to a man with his love of actuality and sincere regard for nature's facts. Indeed, from the standpoint of the decorative figure painter--of men like Leighton, or Albert Moore, for instance--the woman that Millais has represented is too frankly unidealised, too modern in type, and too realistically feminine.

But in this disregard of convention there is a kind of summing up of his beliefs as an artist. Though he had changed the outward aspect of his art he was still in spirit a Pre-Raphaelite, and a Pre-Raphaelite he remained to the end of his days. He depended more upon the keenness of vision natural to him, and assiduously cultivated by years of close observation, than upon what powers he may have had of abstract imagining; and he sought to only a limited extent to set down upon his canvas those mental images which satisfy men who look upon nature chiefly as a basis for decorative designs. The mental image with him was a direct reflection of fact, not an adaptation modified and formalised in accordance with recognised rules, not a fancy more or less remotely referable to reality; but he had certainly an ample equipment of that taste which enables the painter to discriminate between the realities which are too crude and obvious to be worth recording, and those which by their inherent beauty claim a permanent place in an artist's memory. He had, too, the judgment to see that the nude, treated as it would have to be to satisfy his æsthetic conscience, would be too plainly stated to be entirely acceptable.

He found a much more appropriate field for the exercise of his particular capacities by turning to landscape painting. Many of his earlier figure compositions had been given backgrounds which showed how well he could manage the complex details of masses of tangled vegetation, or the broad and simple lines of a piece of rural scenery; but in 1871 he attempted for the first time a landscape which was complete in itself and not merely incidental in a picture mainly concerned with human interest. This landscape, "Chill October," was at the Academy with his "Yes or No?" "Victory, O Lord," "A Somnambulist," and the "Portrait of George Grote," and it was welcomed by a host of admirers as a new revelation of his versatility. It has certainly qualities which justify the estimation in which it was and is still held; and though it lacks that imaginative insight into poetic subtleties which accounts for so much in the work of a master like Turner, it must always claim the respect of art lovers as a large, dignified, and sincere study of nature in one of her sadder moods. It is the reserve of the picture, its reticent realism, that chiefly makes it memorable, for it is neither imposing in subject nor striking in effect; but in its broad simplicity there is something rarely fascinating.

Other nature studies of the same character followed at brief intervals during the next few years; they added to the interest of the artist's practice, but they can scarcely be said to have equalled in importance the portraits and figure subjects which he completed at this stage of his career. Millais was, of course, far too great a master to have failed in any branch of artistic practice to which he seriously devoted himself, but the very capacities which made him so successful as a painter of the human subject prevented him from looking at open-air nature with the necessary degree of abstraction. The physical character of a piece of scenery, its details and individual peculiarities, he could record with absolute certainty, though the elusive subtleties of atmosphere, and the charming accidents of illumination, which mean so much in the poetic rendering of landscape, he dwelt upon hardly at all. In many of his landscapes the breadth and dignity, the accurate relation of part to part, the fascinating simplicity of manner, which are among the greater merits of "Chill October," can be praised without reservation or hesitation; but the touch of fantasy, of actual unreality, by which the inspired landscape painter seems to suggest more truly the real spirit of nature, he hardly ever attempted; and never, it may fairly be said, with complete success.

The years over which his activity as an exponent of pure landscape extended are, however, memorable because they saw the production of some of the most triumphant achievements of his maturer life. With his two landscapes, "Flowing to the Sea," and "Flowing to the River," he exhibited in 1872 his "Hearts are Trumps," a portrait group which has become a modern classic; and in 1873 another wonderful portrait, the three-quarter length of "Mrs. Bischoffsheim." But it was in 1874 that he showed what is in many ways the greatest of all his paintings, "The North-West Passage," a work which, if he had done nothing else of moment, would suffice to place him securely among the master painters of the world. The head of the old man, who is the central figure in the picture, is entirely magnificent, and there is much besides in this canvas which would have been beyond the reach of any one but an artist of almost abnormal power. This was followed in 1875 by his portrait of "Miss Eveleen Tennant," and in 1877 by the "Yeoman of the Guard," which runs "The North-West Passage" close in the race for supremacy.

At this time, indeed, his productiveness was extraordinary; subject pictures, portraits, and landscapes appeared in rapid succession, and in all of them he kept to a level of masterly practice which other men reach only occasionally and at rare intervals. Between 1873 and 1879 he painted eight landscapes, all important in scale and interesting in treatment, but after 1879 he produced no more for nearly ten years, when he began a fresh series. He was apparently too busy with portraits and figure subjects to give much time to out-of-door work, and to satisfy the demands made upon him by art collectors and sitters he must have had to work his hardest. Yet popularity did not make him careless, and his hard work diminished neither his freshness of outlook nor his freedom of expression. Conscientiousness as a craftsman was always one of his virtues, and the knowledge that he had a host of admirers ready to accept almost anything he would give them had certainly not the effect of inducing him to lower his standard.

In the long list of his paintings, which belong to the period beginning in 1879 and ending in 1888, several stand out with special prominence--for example, his portraits of "Mrs. Jopling," and "The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone," "Cherry Ripe," and "The Princess Elizabeth," all in 1879, "The Right Hon. John Bright" in 1880, "Cardinal Newman," "Alfred, Lord Tennyson," "Sir Henry Thompson," "Cinderella," and "Caller Herrin'," in 1881, "J. C. Hook, R.A.," and "The Captive," in 1882, "The Marquess of Salisbury" in 1883, "The Ruling Passion," and another portrait of Gladstone, in 1885, "Bubbles" in 1886, and "The Marquess of Hartington" in 1887. Some of these were shown at the Academy, but he was producing far more year by year than could be exhibited there, so he sent many important works to the Grosvenor Gallery, and most of his subject pictures to the galleries of the dealers by whom they were commissioned.

After 1888 there was some relaxation in his effort; in that year he had at the Academy only one picture, a landscape, "Murthly Moss," and only one portrait in each of the years 1889 and 1890, though he showed several works in other galleries. In 1892 his landscapes "Halcyon Weather," and "Blow, Blow, thou Winter Wind," were at the Academy, but after that year he worked no more out-of-doors. Of the canvases painted during the last three or four years of his life, the most memorable are his portrait of "John Hare" (1893), "Speak! Speak!" (1895), and "A Forerunner" (1896), all of which were at the Academy, and "Time the Reaper" which was at the New Gallery in 1895. "Speak! Speak!" was purchased by the Chantrey Fund trustees, and is now in the National Gallery of British Art with the other admirably chosen examples of his art which were given to the nation by Sir Henry Tate.

The crowning honour of his life came to him in February 1896, when he was elected President of the Royal Academy in succession to Lord Leighton--an honour which was particularly appropriate not only because of his eminence as an artist, but also because he had been intimately connected for nearly sixty years with the institution over which he was then called to preside. To this connection he referred in his speech at the Academy banquet in 1895, at which he took the chair in the place of Leighton whose illness prevented him from occupying his accustomed position. The words which Millais used on this occasion expressed generously and affectionately his sense of obligation to the Academy by which he had been trained in his boyhood, and from which he had received encouragement and support at the most critical period of his career, and declared with characteristic frankness that he owed to it a debt of gratitude which he never could repay.

To those, however, who know how loyal he was to the institution that he loved so well it would seem that the debt was, indeed, fully paid. Few men have done more to uphold the repute of the Academy, few have by the brilliancy of their powers and their charm of personality done it more credit. That Leighton was the ideal President can be readily admitted, but Millais, as his successor, would have carried on a great tradition with dignity and sympathy and with no diminution of his predecessor's generous tolerance and earnest sense of artistic responsibility. He would have kept the Academy on broad lines, and by his impatience of empty formalities he would have prevented it from losing touch with the movements in modern art.

But, unfortunately, he was destined to hold his honourable office for but a brief time. Even before Leighton's death he had been suffering from a throat trouble which not long after was pronounced to be cancer; and in the months that followed immediately on his election the disease made rapid progress. Not long after the opening of the 1896 Academy Exhibition his condition became so serious that an immediately fatal result was expected; but by an operation he obtained some temporary relief and his life was prolonged for a few weeks. This, however, was only a brief respite; he died on August 13, and was buried a week later in St. Paul's Cathedral, where little more than six months before he had followed his old friend's body to the grave.

To speak of his death as premature would be scarcely a misapplication of the word. Although Millais had completed his sixty-seventh year he was still in art a young man. His vigour had not waned, and there was no perceptible diminution of his artistic vitality even in those last works which he painted under the shadow of nearly impending death. To a man of his splendid physique and buoyant temperament age would have come slowly, and the inevitable degeneration of his powers would have not begun for many more years. The possibility of great achievement remained to him, and it would be true to say that his death robbed us of much which would have added greatly to the sum total of British art. Yet we may be grateful to fate for allowing him to develop the promise of his youth in the splendour of his maturer years; it is so often the lot of the precocious genius to die young with his mission but half fulfilled. If death had come to Millais as it did to Bonington or Fred Walker, our loss would have been sad indeed.

In discussing Millais as an artist the part which his personality played in making him what he was must by no means be overlooked. Something of the vitality and the virility of his art was due to the way in which he kept touch with the life about him, and interested himself in people and things. He was no recluse who fed in secret upon his own ideas, or narrowed his outlook by hedging himself round with prejudices and preferences for one special class of artistic material. Instead, he went out into the world and acquired his impressions of humanity in all directions and at first hand, finding much pleasure in association with his fellow-men. To his own human nature he gave free rein; he was a keen sportsman, a lover of children--of whose ways he had, as he proved in scores of pictures, a perfect understanding--and a man who was always happy in congenial society, and always welcome. He lived his life, in fact, largely, genially, and wholesomely, and he was as much unspoiled by the prosperity which came to him in his maturer years as he was unshaken by the opposition which he had to face in that brief period of his youth when, as he used to say himself, he was "so dreadfully bullied."