Reprinted for the first time since 1889, this is the first biography and considered appraisal of one of England's most prodigiously talented painters. Written by a leading critic and friend of Millais, it gives a fascinating and intimate picture of the Victorian art world. It is preceded by Millais' only published writings on art, the 'Thoughts on our art of today', and is introduced by Jason Rosenfeld, co-curator of the recent Millais retrospective at Tate Britain. 33 pages of colour illustrations cover the span of Millais' career Sir John Everett Millais, P. R. A. (1829-1896), was the most precociously talented artist England has ever produced. His astonishing facility gained him entry as the Royal Academy's youngest ever pupil he was known to the end of his days to friends as 'The Child'. When only nineteen he founded with six other painters the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which revolutionised the English art world with a visionary intensity of both subject matter and style. Millais was its most creative member; as Jason Rosenfeld says in the introduction to this volume, 'the sheer quality and distinctness of each of Millais' paintings of the 1850s is unmatched by any Western artist of the period'. Yet there is much more to Millais' career than Pre-Raphaelitism. Some of the most emotive narrative paintings of the Victorian era, its greatest portraits, and especially some of its most beautiful, if neglected, landscapes, came from his brush as also some of its most notoriously successful paintings, like Bubbles, the 'fancy picture' that was made into an advertisement for Pears' Soap. This volume includes not only Millais' only published work of art criticism, the pithy 'Thoughts on our art of today', but also the first extended biography and appraisal of his work, by the important critic M. H. Speelmann. This hugely engaging Sketch gives both a warm and personal picture of the man and a level-headed evaluation of the qualities and defects of his work as they appeared to contemporaries. Neither essay has been in print for over a century. Jason Rosenfeld is Associate Professor of Art History, Marymount Manhattan College. 33 colour illustrations
