As you think of life as a blank canvas to paint on, imagine that you control the brush, putting a variety of colors over it with different strokes. By dissolving the brush hair in these pigments, which may be blood red, cheerful pink, or religious blue, you simply begin painting over the canvas, sometimes with broader strokes, other times with finer or smoother ones. It does not matter whether these brushstrokes and colors represent a smooth motion, a swirly circle, or a high wave as if arising from a sad ocean because, through your strokes and colors, you represent your life and incidents. Though sometimes it may be brittle, other times it may be happy, but remember as long as there is continuity of these brush strokes, your life is moving, and that is important above all. Or you could turn this around by seeing every shade and hue as the reminiscence of your past actions or surprises. The more you paint, the more beautiful the canvas becomes, which by all means, portrays that even the deepest shade or the longest sad night should not be considered the opposite. At last, when death comes by your door, you will be judged based on this fulfilled canvas, which acts as a report card of your life. As I became a little dissolved in life, the best I can do to explain death in a few words is by introducing you to the famous poet, John Donne, where in his sonnet “Death, Be Not Proud”, he described death as, “Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.” Similar to this, coming on visual interpretation, one of the best artworks that sweetly portrays death is the Ophelia painting. Today, we are here to learn more about the painting as it portrays the life colors while managing to depict death. So, let’s start!
Ophelia (Painting) | Fast Knowledge
Ophelia (Painting) by John Everett Millais, located in the Tate Gallery in London, depicts a woman floating down a soft stream with an expression of death. Painted during 1851-2, the composition takes its value from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and depicts the artist’s mastery of figural and expressional complexities alongside the details of nature.
General Information About Ophelia Painting.
1. Artist’s Statement.
“Man was not intended to live alone… marriage is the best cure for that wretched lingering over one’s work. I think I must feel more settled than you all. I would immensely like to see you all married like myself and anchored.”
2. Subject Matter.
Ophelia painting is the most beautiful picture of Sir John Everett Millais’s works, which has a wondrous blend of nature and woman, enchanting in the deftness of handling. If the artist had rendered this artwork with the same knowledge and breadth as certain backgrounds that he later painted, like in Cherry Ripe and Mrs. Myers Portrait, we can only dream of the depth and solemnity it would have possessed.
The painting shows one of the scenes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet when Hamlet’s lover drowns herself in a stream after being driven insane by grief after her father’s murder. The subject matter of this artwork includes a woman floating down a placid stream, singing her mad song. A haunting facial expression contrasts with the rich natural tones of her natural surroundings as she floats on her back in murky water with her arms outstretched. The Ophelia painting portrays the fantastic ability of the artist to apply paint while capturing light, texture, and natural details with perfection. We will learn the entire subject matter of the artwork with the symbolism in a later descriptive section.
3. Artist.
John Everett Millais, one of the greatest British painters who emerged as a bone-fide child prodigy, painted the artwork, Ophelia. As the founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, he was a part of the tight-knit group of artists, which included top-notch artists like Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt. Rebelling against the prevailing norms in academic art, John was one of the first avant-garde of British art. The Pre-Raphaelite artists usually drew their inspiration from artists such as Jan van Eyck and Albrecht Dürer, while rebelling against the academic art. As a painter of pictorial realism, Millais later became known for political works before dedicating himself exclusively to portraits and Scottish landscapes. Among Millais’ accomplishments is expanding his repertoire through newspaper illustrations and reproduction prints. In 1896, he was elected President of the Royal Academy for his brilliant career.
4. Date.
The painting of Ophelia was composed by the artist during 1851-2.
5. Provenance.
The subject of Ophelia painting was from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which the poet described Ophelia’s death as,
“There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come…
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
Ande, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes.”
John worked for around 11-12 hours a day to paint this composition, which he describes in his letter to his wife, Thomas Combe,
“My martyrdom is more trying than any I have hitherto experienced. The flies of Surrey are more muscular, and have a still greater propensity for probing human flesh … I am threatened with a notice to appear before a magistrate for trespassing in a field and destroying the hay … am also in danger of being blown by the wind into the water, and becoming intimate with the feelings of Ophelia when that Lady sank to muddy death, together with the (less likely) total disappearance, through the voracity of the flies … Certainly the painting of a picture under such circumstances would be a greater punishment to a murderer than hanging.”
We will learn the entire provenance of the painting in later sections, where I will even introduce you to the model of this artwork, which is the subject of the Ophelia.
6. Location.
Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais is on exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London.
7. Technique and Medium.
It has a medium of oil on canvas. With the conflation of realism and contemporary association, the painting of Ophelia shows a far more complex image than merely a faithful illustration of Shakespeare. On 7 June 1851, the artist brought two canvasses on a single stretcher with one directly to the other, sold as a double canvas. Now, this second canvas was the back of the painting so that it could be protected against all extremes. Both of them were primed with a glue solution and a ground. John simply used lead white paint as the ground and then painted a layer of zinc so that it shone a little more than usual. Possibly, Millais marked out the area to be painted each day with white paint at the start of each day. During this time, he would finish an area on the canvas that was still bare, while he was working on a ‘wet white ground.’ To make the most of the bright white ground, he would mix colors as little as possible, ensuring their purity, and applying paint in single layers.
| Artist | John Everett Millais |
| Year Painted | 1851-2 |
| Period | Pre-Raphaelitism |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 76.2 x 111.8 cm |
| Price | Unknown (the only known price is 300 guineas in 1851 when it was first sold) |
| Where is it housed? | Tate Gallery, London |
Now that you know quite a brief about the painting, let us learn about it in detail in the following sections.
Detailed Description of Ophelia by John Everett Millais.
About the Artist: John Everett Millais.
Born in Southampton on 8 June 1829, John’s father was John William, a moderately wealthy man, who had originated from Jersey. With parental support, John began his artistic training from an early age. In 1838, he moved to London and entered the Royal Academy School in 1840 as the youngest student. With the amazing talent he possessed, at first, he won medals for his drawing in 1843 and then for painting in 1847. The first painting he exhibited was Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru, which was executed in William Etty’s style. In 1848, John became the founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of artists and writers who wished to reform British art by combating Academic art. Now, during his association with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, John developed his artistic capabilities by painting close portraits as he observed character, expression, and nature.
It is by accident or force of circumstances that John turned into a Pre-Raphaelite painter. As a result of the discovery of the PRB monogram’s meaning, suspicions of a secret society were sparked, and the press campaign was launched in 1850-1, mostly directed towards Millais’s Christ in the House of His Parents (The Carpenter’s Shop) 1859-50. Ruskin responded by writing letters of support to The Times for the artists.
In 1852, Millais’ Huguenot became the first of almost 100 paintings to be engraved for the lucrative print market, and he was elected an Associate Royal Academician the following year. By then, the Brotherhood had disbanded. Millais fell in love with Ruskin’s wife while on holiday with Ruskin in Scotland in the summer of 1853. Following the annulment of Ruskin’s marriage in 1855, Millais married Effie. They had eight children throughout their forty-year marriage.
Starting with the Autumn Leaves of 1855-6, John produced a series of loosely painted paintings that were poetic and non-narrative. Although these works were part of the Pre-Raphaelitism in its earliest manifestation, their second phase began in 1857 under the leadership of Rossetti. In 1857 and 1859, Ruskin’s now hostile opinions influenced negative press campaigns against the painting. It was through his work in book illustration that Millais achieved fame and income during the financially difficult years of the late 1850s. Despite this, his extraordinary technical skills and well-mannered shallowness of temperament made him the ultimate Victorian sentiment painter. In surrendering to popular taste, he was elevated to the presidency of the Royal Academy.
As you understand the artist’s brief, let us finally move upon the historical provenance of the artwork.
Historical Background of the Painting.
Before we understand under what circumstances John composed this painting, let us first find a little more about Shakespeare’s Hamlet on which the painting is based.
The painting is based on the famous passage from Shakespeare’s most celebrated play, Gertrude’s speech at the end of Act 4 of Hamlet, describing the death of Ophelia,
“There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples…
There on the pendent boughs, her coronet weeds
Clambering to hand an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,
As one incapable of her own distress…
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.”
Ophelia painting depicts Ophelia drowning in the glassy stream in Act IV of Hamlet when Queen Gertrude announces her death off-stage. As a result of Hamlet’s cruel rejection and the murder of her father, Ophelia has been driven to madness. From July to October 1851, during which he painted at the Hogsmill River near Ewell in Surrey, Millais spent up to 11 hours a day at the river. As he gazed upon the trees and plants, he closely observed the forms and conditions of the waters and nature. At the base of the reeds on the left, blades of floating grass are caught, indicating the gentle flow of the stream.
In my previous section, I introduced a few words from the letter to the artist’s wife, Mrs Combe, by him on painting. To add on, after the artist found accommodation as he went to work on the painting, a week later, he wrote a letter to his wife saying,
“Our rooms are nearly four miles from Hunt’s spot and two from mine, so we arrived jaded and slightly above that temperature necessary to make cool commencement. I sit tailor-fashion under an umbrella throwing a shadow scarcely larger than a half-penny for eleven hours, with a child’s mug within reach to satisfy my thirst from the running stream beside me. I am threatened with a notice to appear before a magistrate for trespassing; am also in danger of being blown by the wind into the water and becoming intimate with the feelings of Ophelia when that lady sank to muddy death, together with the less likely total disappearance through the voracity of the flies of Surrey, which have a great propensity for probing human flesh. The painting of a picture under these circumstances is a greater punishment than death by hanging.”
Now, why Ophelia? So the story goes back to the nineteenth century when the subject Ophelia was one of the most favored literary figures, or should I call the preferred Shakespearean heroine for the British artists. A painting by Arthur Hughes, a member of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, depicting Ophelia seated on a river bank in 1852, had been exhibited by Richard Redgrave in 1842. With overblown gestures and expressions, Maclise’s Play Scene from Hamlet exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1842, retains the atmosphere of the play within a play and emphasizes the drama of the moment. Eugène Delacroix made three versions of Ophelia, where he awkwardly showed her in waters in 1838, 1844, and 1853. Now, unlike the interpretations by Redgrave and Hughes, where she is presented as wronged innocent, Delacroix emphasizes her in a seducing way as if abandoned by Hamlet, her figure wrapped in clothing reminiscent of bedsheets. Hence, there were many depictions of Ophelia in actual Shakespearean productions or theater-related representations. And this is the reason why John probably chose the particular subject to paint. Another quintessential thing to note is that John painted everything on the location, like the flowers, rivers, and greenery, but the figure of the lady was added later. The result of this is the non-negligence of every minute detail, particularly the geological detailing makes this painting stand apart in tens of Ophelia paintings.
Lastly, another significant thing to know is that the beautiful lady you are looking at in the painting is none other than Elizabeth Siddal, a prominent woman artist and model. In the bath, Elizabeth Siddal, the future wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, wore a splendid ancient dress that Millais paid 4 Euros for and modeled for Ophelia in a bath of water heated by lamps below. After the lamps went out, she caught a severe cold and her father threatened to sue Millais unless he paid her doctor’s bills. To accomplish the painting’s accuracy, Millais took four months just to complete the figure. William Michael Rossetti thought Ophelia painting was the most accurate representation of Lizzie (Elisabeth) Siddal. Ruskin wrote to the artist on seeing the painting during his first visit to the Royal Academy in 1852,
“I came home last night with only Ophelia in my mind and wrote to my son nearly as follows. Nothing can be truer to Shakespeare than Mr John’s Ohelia and there is a refinement in the whole figure- in the floating and sustaining dress- such as I never saw before expressed on canvas. In her most lovely countenance there is an Innocence disturbed by Insanity and a sort of Enjoyment strangely blended with lineament of woe.”
Now, I can’t summarise her life in a few words, which is why I have dedicated a separate article (linked above) on her, which will even give you a few more facts about this painting.
Understanding the Ophelia Painting Meaning
The Ophelia is from the Shakespeare literature. But if we dive a little more into the meaning, then I can best tell you through the sequence of three paintings- The Bridesmaid, Mariana, and Ophelia. The triplet series shows the hopeful yearning of an adolescent, the loneliness and sexual frustration of a grown woman, to the despair and suicide of the spurned lover. The composition depicts the lostness in her thoughts and madness after she was abandoned by her lover. Mariana and Ophelia are contemporary portraits that emphasize their individuality and realism, making the time setting ambiguous. In his most experimental work of the later 1850s, John would further develop this play on time, context, and meaning.
Subject Matter and Dominant Elements.
The subject matter of the Ophelia painting is a floating woman in the natural water stream. Before we take a closer look at the figure, let us first take a deeper look at the background of the painting.
The background of the artwork includes a field belonging to Effie’s friend Mr. Gadesden on the River Hogsmill at Ewell in Surrey. A great deal of botanical accuracy with the multitude of symbolic flora is portrayed by the artist to allude the Ophelia’s situation. As a touch of yellow, the artist initially used daffodils until Tennyson suggested he pair them with wild roses, implying false hope. As do the pansies, which refer to an earlier scene in the play, the willow alludes to forsaking love. Hamlet also refers to the violets around Ophelia’s neck as symbols of faithfulness. Nettles and daisies represent pain and innocence, respectively. Shakespeare did not mention the poppy as a death symbol, but John did. “For the bonny sweet Robin is all my joy,” she sings in the play. As in the play, the purple loosestrife alludes to the long purples, even though Shakespeare intended the purple orchid. Meadowsweet represents the futility of her death to the left of the loosestrife. Pheasant’s eyes and fritillaries flapping on the surface of the water symbolize Ophelia’s sorrow. The composition originally included a water rat, but John painted it out due to the scene’s melancholy mood. Aside from the self-explanatory forget-me-nots, the chiaroscuro outlines a skull, symbolizing both Ophelia’s death and Hamlet’s famous graveyard scene.
The expressions of the figure are such pleasant that they literally indicate her slow and decaying death. With her pale white skin and blush over her cheeks, Ophelia looks like an absolute masterpiece to portray if death can be such an enchanting event.
Formally Analyzing Ophelia Painting.
1. Line.
The painting combines the fusion of diagonal and horizontal lines to depict the subject with such clarity. Whether you look at the tree bark, the flowers Ophelia holds in her hand while drowning, or the simple grass over the shores of the water, everything moves diagonally with the horizontal stream of water. There is a tense environment despite the enhanced beauty in the composition, which is profused through the diagonal lines.
2. Color Analysis.
The artist used various colors in the composition like lead white, zinc white, ultramarine ash, vermilion, chromium oxide, zinc yellow, chrome yellow, cobalt blue, Prussian blue, burnt sienna, Naples yellow, madder lake, ivory black, and bone black. Besides, the John’s greens were mixed greens of chrome yellow and Prussian blue, possibly from a tube of green paint. As the artist painted on wet white ground, he laid the translucent colors so that the flesh of the figure is different, which is similar to the multiple fine brushstrokes used when painted in egg-tempera.
Conclusion and Opinions.
John painted the Ophelia drowning to portray her fate with compassion rather than contempt. With an enhanced use of realism and contemporary art practices, Ophelia painting is like the faithful illustration of the Shakespearean queen. The gentleness in her look, deadly expressions, and beautiful surroundings just evoke sympathy towards the poor Ophelia, which John has depicted very well. Truly a masterpiece, this painting is the best among the entire nineteenth-century artworks to represent pure emotions with death in such rich colors.
Resources.
- Tate Museum, London.
- Masters of British Painting, 1800-1950 by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
- The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais by J.G Millais.
- John Everett Millais by Christine Riding.
- Sir John Everett Millais by Russell Ash.
- John Everett Millais: A Biography by Gordon H Fleming.
- Featured Image: Ophelia painting by John Everett Millais; John Everett Millais, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Frequently Asked Questions.
Several artists painted Shakespeare’s inspired character, Ophelia. However, some of the prominent artists who exhibited their take on the subject are Eugène Delacroix, Arthur Hughes, Daniel Maclise, and John Everett Millais. Among them, the most famous depiction was of John Everett Millais during 1851-2.
Ophelia painting by Sir John Everett Millais is on public view in the Tate Gallery, London.
Ophelia painting by John Everett Millais was painted between 1851 and 1852. During this time, the artist spent about 11 hours a day observing nature and later precisely painted Elizabeth Siddal as Ophelia.
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