by Stephanie Chatfield
John Everett Millais was a child genius, a co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and eventually, a darling of the Victorian art world. His career was one of bold beginnings, emotional intensity, and artistic evolution — blending technical brilliance with deep feeling.
Few artists charted a journey quite like Millais, who moved from radical upstart to establishment icon while leaving a lasting mark on British art.
A Precocious Start
Born in 1829 in Southampton, Millais was something of a prodigy. He became the youngest student ever admitted to the Royal Academy Schools at just eleven years old. But despite his academic training, Millais would soon become one of the leading rebels against the very traditions that had nurtured him.
In 1848, he co-founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The group wanted to bring truth, detail, and nature back into art, drawing inspiration from the early Italian Renaissance before Raphael. Their work was luminous, richly symbolic, and often controversial.
Ophelia
Millais’s most famous painting, Ophelia (1851–52), is an icon of Pre-Raphaelite art. Based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the work captures Ophelia floating downstream, the scene of her tragic death. The painting’s exquisite botanical detail — each flower carefully observed from life — and its haunting serenity made it both shocking and mesmerizing to Victorian audiences. Today, it’s one of the most beloved works in the Tate Britain collection.
From Rebel to Royal Favorite
As Millais matured, his style evolved. While his early work was marked by intricate detail and moral seriousness, his later paintings took on a more fluid, painterly style, better suited to grand portraits and dramatic narratives. Some critics saw this as a betrayal of his Pre-Raphaelite roots, but others viewed it as a natural progression for a supremely gifted artist.
Millais eventually became a favorite of high society. He painted portraits of luminaries such as Prime Minister William Gladstone and even the royal family. In 1885, he was made a baronet — the first artist to receive that honor — and in 1896, shortly before his death, he was elected President of the Royal Academy.
Beyond the Canvas
Millais was also an illustrator, creating works for books by Tennyson and stories by Anthony Trollope. His ability to convey narrative through imagery was unmatched, whether in the form of a sorrowful maiden, a storm-tossed sailor, or a child’s innocent gaze.
And yes — he was involved in one of Victorian England’s most famous love triangles. Millais fell in love with Effie Gray, the wife of his friend and art critic John Ruskin. After a scandalous annulment and years of drama, Millais and Effie married and had eight children together.
A Legacy in Layers
Millais’s career spans the idealism of Pre-Raphaelitism, the grandeur of late Victorian portraiture, and the shifting tastes of a rapidly changing age. His ability to evolve without losing the emotional core of his work is part of what makes his art still resonate today.
He gave us images of tragic beauty, tender humanity, and rich storytelling — paintings that draw us in and hold us there, spellbound.
More about the Pre-Raphaelites
- Birth of the Brotherhood
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The Romantic Rebel of the Pre-Raphaelites
- Pre-Raphaelite FAQs
- Pre-Raphaelite List of Immortals
- Pre-Raphaelite Luminosity
- The Diaries of William Allingham
- What is the ‘Pre-Raphaelite Woman?’
- William Holman Hunt: The Visionary of Pre-Raphaelite Symbolism
- Women of the Pre-Raphaelite Circle