John Everett Millais

by Jason Rosenfeld

Overview

John Everett Millais was one of the most successful and acclaimed British painters of the nineteenth century. A founder member of the radical Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an acclaimed society portraitist, and an ambitious painter of historical themes, Millais ended his days as a Baronet and President of the Royal Academy. In this widely illustrated, thoughtful account of Millais's career, Jason Rosenfeld brings together biography, art history and an insightful and detailed analysis of individual paintings. Opening with a focused study of his much acclaimed, and now iconic Pre-Raphaelite paintings, in the second half of the book the author presents a fascinating reconsideration of the artist's often over looked later career.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780714839776
Publisher:	Phaidon Press
Publication date:	08/27/2012
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	10.20(w) x 11.70(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 18 Years

Editorial Reviews

10/15/2013
This new monograph by art historian Rosenfeld (Marymount Manhattan Coll., cocurator, "Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde," at Tate Britain) focuses on a career overview of the well-known 19th-century English painter. John Everett Millais (1829–96) was one of the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group that transformed the landscape of English Victorian painting through its close observation of natural forms and reworking of narrative themes. Previously, the widely held view was that Millais started out as an innovative artist, then succumbed to the lure of financial success and became a more traditional, conventional society painter. Rosenfeld disputes this interpretation and argues that Millais was indeed an innovative artist who used the symbolic associations of the aesthetic movement in his later works and employed a looser, bravura brushstroke that would in turn influence well-known artists such as John Singer Sargent. VERDICT This thorough, scholarly book has many beautiful color reproductions and is recommended for readers who are interested in 19th-century English art.—Sandra Rothenberg, Framingham State Coll. Lib., MA

Library Journal