Mariana (Millais): Difference between revisions

Content deleted Content added
→‎Sources: if this is an exhibition catalogue then it should be italicized (I'm not sure if it is or not, but looks like a publisher is listed)
some more
Line 15:
}}
 
'''''Mariana''''' is an 1851 [[Oil painting|oil]]-on-[[panel painting|panel]] painting by [[John Everett Millais]]. The image is based ondepicts the solitary Mariana from [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Measure for Measure]]'', written between 1601 and 1606. In the play, Mariana was to be married, but was rejected when her dowry was lost in a shipwreck. Her story wasas retold in "[[Mariana (poem)|Mariana]]", a poem published in 1830 by [[Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson|Tennyson]],'s whichpoem provided"[[Mariana additional inspiration for Millais's painting(poem)|Mariana]]". The painting is regarded as an example of Millais's "precision, attention to detail, and stellar ability as a colorist".<ref name="SallyK">King, Sally. "[http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/millais/paintings/king1.html "Aweary" and Waiting: John Everett Millais's Mariana]". English 156 / History of Art 152, Brown University, 2007. Retrieved 21 October 2007.</ref> It has been held by [[Tate Britain]] since 1999.
 
==Background==
Millais was a founding member of the [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]], a group of English artists who came together in 1848 with the goal of renewing British painting. They found in the art of the early Italian Renaissance—before [[Raphael]]—a sincerity of purpose and clarity of form that they sought to emulate.<ref>Treuherz, J. (2003). ''Pre-Raphaelitism''. Grove Art Online.</ref>
In Shakespeare's ''[[Measure for Measure]]'', written between 1601 and 1606, Mariana was a woman who was about to be married, but she was rejected by her fiancé Angelo when her dowry was lost in the shipwreck that also killed her brother. She retreated to a solitary existence in a moated house. Five years later, Angelo was tricked into consummating their betrothal. Tennyson retold the tale in his 1830 poem "[[Mariana (poem)|Mariana]]", and returned to it in his 1832 poem "Mariana in the South".
[[File:William Hunt Claudio and Isabella Shakespeare Measure for Measure.jpg|thumb|upright|''Mariana'' may have been painted as a companion piece to ''Claudio and Isabella'' (1850) by [[William Holman Hunt]]<ref name=Tate>{{cite web|last=Fowle|first=Frances|title=Sir John Everett Millais, Bt ''Mariana'' 1851|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-mariana-t07553/text-summary|publisher=The Tate|accessdate=22 January 2013|date=December 2000}}</ref>]] Pre-Raphaelites frequently used allegorical images to create a narrative to teach a moral virtue or virtues. Sometimes they used contemporary literature as inspiration for their paintings, which often include numerous details that allow the viewer to "read" the painting. Millais used Tennyson's poetry to create a narrative for his painting of ''Mariana'' and he wanted to allow the viewer familiar with Tennyson's poetry to read the entire poem through the painting.
 
Millais was a founding member of the [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]], a group of English artists who came together in 1848 with the goal of renewing British painting. They found in the art of the early Italian Renaissance—before [[Raphael]]—a sincerity of purpose and clarity of form that they sought to emulate.<ref>Treuherz, J. (2003). ''Pre-Raphaelitism''. Grove Art Online.</ref> The Pre-Raphaelites frequently used allegorical images to create a narrative to teach a moral virtue or virtues, and sometimes used contemporary literature as inspiration for their paintings, which often include numerous details that allow the viewer to "read" the painting.
When it was first exhibited at the [[Royal Academy]] in 1851, the display caption contained lines from Tennyson's "Mariana" (1830):
 
Millais used Tennyson's poetry to create a narrative for his painting of ''Mariana'' and he wanted to allow the viewer familiar with Tennyson's poetry to read the entire poem through the painting. It was first exhibited at the [[Royal Academy]] in 1851 – the year after Tennyson was appointed as [[Poet Laureate]] – with a display caption that contained lines 9 to 12 from Tennyson's poem "Mariana" (1830):
<poem>
    She only said, 'My life is dreary,
Line 29 ⟶ 30:
</poem>
 
Millais's painting may have been painted as a companion piece to [[William Holman Hunt]]'s 1850 painting ''[[Claudio and Isabella]]'', which also depicts a scene from ''Measure for Measure''.<ref name=Tate>{{cite web|last=Fowle|first=Frances|title=Sir John Everett Millais, Bt ''Mariana'' 1851|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-mariana-t07553/text-summary|publisher=The Tate|accessdate=22 January 2013|date=December 2000}}</ref>
The painting is packed with details that help the viewer to read the narrative of the work along with Tennyson's poetry. Everything from the rolled embroidery that Mariana has been working on and the leaves outside of the window point the reader in the direction of the narrative which is about a young woman rejected by her fiancé because her dowry was lost at sea. It is about waiting and the passage of time, which Millais shows by the arched-back pose of the woman. The pose makes it seem like she has been sitting too long and she must stand up to stretch before she sits again. The rolled embroidery on the table gives the viewer a clue as to how long Mariana has been working on it.
 
[[File:William Hunt Claudio and Isabella Shakespeare Measure for Measure.jpg|thumb|upright|[[William Holman Hunt]], ''Claudio and Isabella'' (1850), Tate Britain]]
In the painting, Millais included many details that relate directly to Tennyson's poetry. One example is the curtain. In the poem, Tennyson wrote: "When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, and glanced athwart the glooming flats".<ref name="Poems and Plays">{{cite book|last1=Tennyson|first1=Alfred|title=Poems and Plays|date=1965|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=London}}</ref> Although there is not a curtain in Millais's painting, this line is similar to the scene that is presented outside of the window. The viewer perceives an ominous feeling, just like the dark storm that Tennyson alludes to in the line above. The little mouse that is on the floor towards the bottom right corner is a detail that Millais took from Tennyson's poem: "the mouse behind the mouldering wainscots shriek'd or from the crevice peer'd about". Together, Millais's painting and Tennyson's poem create an intriguing storyline for the reader to follow.<ref name="Poems and Plays"/>
 
The composition and details of the painting were influenced by Van Eyck's 1434 painting ''[[The Arnolfini Marriage]]''.
{{external media | width = 210px | align = right | video1 = [http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/millais-mariana.html Millais's ''Mariana''], [[Smarthistory]]<ref name="smarth">{{cite web | title =Millais's Mariana | publisher =[[Smarthistory]] at [[Khan Academy]] | url =http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/millais-mariana.html | accessdate =22 January 2013 }}</ref> }}
 
==ReferencesDescription==
The painting depicts a woman in a long blue dress, standing up from the embroidery laid out before her to stretch her back. Her upholstered stool and the table are set before a Gothic window with stained glass, through which can be seen a garden with leaves are turning from green to autumnal brown. Some leaves have fallen on the embroidery, and more onto the bare wooden floorboards beside a small mouse. In the background, a small triptych, a silver casket and candles have been set out as a devotional altar on a piece of furniture covered with white cloth beside the curtain of a bed.
 
The work is painted on a [[mahogany]] panel, primed with a white ground, and measures {{cvt|49.5|x|59.7|cm|in}}. It may have been painted [[wet-on-wet]] on a second ground, with graphite [[underdrawing]]. The paint is thinly applied in some areas to enhance the reflective effect of the white ground, but thickly applied in others. The woman's blue dress is painted with two blue pigments, [[Prussian blue]] and [[ultramarine]].
 
The painting is packed with details that help the viewer to read the narrative of the work along withfrom Tennyson's poetry. EverythingThe from the rolled embroidery that Mariana has been working on and theautumn leaves outside of the window point the reader in the direction of the narrative which is aboutindicate a young woman rejected by her fiancé because her dowry was lost at sea. It isstory about waiting and the passage of time,. which MillaisThe showswoman's byarched the arched-back pose of the woman. The pose makes it seem like she has been sitting too long and she must stand up to stretch before she sits againback at her work, but her posture also emphasises her bust and hips. The rolledroll of completed embroidery on the table gives the viewer a clue as to how long Mariana has been working on it.
 
The altar in the background may be a reference to Mariana's fervent prayers to the [[Virgin Mary]] in "Mariana in the South". The stained glass in the window shows an [[Annunciation]] scene, with the [[Angel Gabriel]] and the [[Virgin Mary]], based on a window at the east end of the [[Merton College Chapel|chapel]] of [[Merton College, Oxford]], and also an invented coat of arms with a [[snowdrop]] and the Latin motto "In coelo quies" ("In Heaven there is rest"), possibly a reference to the feast of [[St Agnes' Eve]] and John Keats's poem ''[[The Eve of St Agnes]]''.
 
Many of the details in the painting relate directly to Tennyson's poetry. For example, the little mouse in the bottom right corner is a detail directly from the poem: "the mouse behind the mouldering wainscots shriek'd or from the crevice peer'd about". An anecdote reports that the mouse was drawn from life – or rather death, as it was killed by Millais after it scurried across the floor and hid behind some furniture so he could immortalise it.
 
Together, Millais's painting and Tennyson's poem create an intriguing storyline for the reader to follow.<ref name="Poems and Plays">{{cite book|last1=Tennyson|first1=Alfred|title=Poems and Plays|date=1965|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=London}}</ref> However, Millais's painting departs from Tennyson's narrative in some respects. The Mariana depicted by Millais is placed in a scene filled with vibrant colours; she is not the forlorn woman described by Tennyson, unwilling to live an independent life, confined to a dilapidated retreat, with a " mouldering wainscots".
 
In turn, Millais's painting was an inspiration for [[Elizabeth Gaskell]]'s 1853 novel, ''[[Ruth (novel)|Ruth]]''. Tennyson's Mariana and Gaskell's main character Ruth are both sensitive to the sounds around them and are constantly looking out of their window in image that represents their imprisonment within their homes. The image of Mariana used by Tennyson and the later works are equally of a woman who is weary.
 
==Reception==
The painting was first exhibited in 1851, the year after Millais' painting ''[[Christ In The House Of His Parents]]'' had been heavily criticised by art critics and the public.
 
In 1851, Ruskin wrote in defence of the PRB that that it "lays in our England the foundations of a school of art nobler than the world has seen for 300 years". He wrote on 9 May that " there is not a single study of drapery in the whole Academy, be it in large works or small, which for perfect truth, power, and finish, could be compared for an instant with … with the white draperies on the table in Mr. Millais' "Mariana" … And further: that as studies both of drapery and of every minor detail, there has been nothing in art so earnest or so complete as these pictures since the days of Albert Durer."<ref>[http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/n.gb1.1851.may.rad.html Exhibition of the Royal Academy"], ''The Times'', 3 May 1851, p.8, Rossetti Archive </ref>
 
The painting was accepted in lieu of £4.2m of [[inheritance tax]] payable on the estate of [[Roger Makins, 1st Baron Sherfield]], who died in 1996. It was allocated to the Tate Gallery in 1999, when it was described as "arguably the greatest Pre-Raphaelite painting"<ref>[https://www.theartnewspaper.com/archive/lloyd-webber-pre-raphaelite-export-exhortation Lloyd-Webber outraged at pre-Raphaelite collection's export"], ''The Art Newspaper'', Martin Bailey, 1 September 1998</ref>
 
The Makin Collection of Victorian paintings and drawings, which includes works by artists such as Millais, Holman Hunt, Rossetti and Burne-Jones, was inherited by his son [[Christopher Makins, 2nd Baron Sherfield|Christopher Makins]] and transferred to his residence in Washington DC. The collection had been begun by Henry Francis Makins (1841-1914), who was a friend of Millais, and enlarged by Roger, his grandson.
 
The [[Victoria & Albert Museum]] holds an 1850 study, in pen and ink on paper.
 
==Notes==
{{reflist|1}}
 
==SourcesReferences==
{{external media | width = 210px | align = right | video1 = [http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/millais-mariana.html Millais's ''Mariana''], [[Smarthistory]]<ref name="smarth">{{cite web | title =Millais's Mariana | publisher =[[Smarthistory]] at [[Khan Academy]] | url =http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/millais-mariana.html | accessdate =22 January 2013 }}</ref> }}
*[httphttps://www.tate.org.uk/servletart/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=26762artworks/millais-mariana-t07553 ''Mariana'' 1851]. Tate Gallery display caption, July 2007.
* ''Millais: An Exhibition Organized by the Walker Art Gallery Liverpool and the Royal Academy of Arts London'', January–April 1967. London: William Clowes and Sons, 1967.
 
* [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/mariana-117772 ''Mariana'', John Everett Millais (1829–1896), Tate Britain], ArtUK
* [https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O16495/mariana-in-the-moated-grange-drawing-john-everett-millais/ Mariana in the Moated Grange], Victoria & Albert Museum
* [https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/mariana/6wGvnPEiyH8RFA ''Mariana'', John Everett Millais, 1851], Google Arts & Culture
* [http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/millais/paintings/mariana.html ''Mariana'', Sir John Everett Millais, Bt (1829-1896), 1850-51], The Victorian Web
* [https://smarthistory.org/millais-mariana/ Sir John Everett Millais, ''Mariana''], Dr. Rebecca Jeffrey Easby, Smarthistory, 9 August 2015
* [https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/mariana-by-john-everett-millais-1851 ''Mariana'' by John Everett Millais, 1851], British Library
* [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/aug/28/fiachragibbons "Millais for Tate: Nation given masterpieces in lieu of tax], The Guardian, 28 August 1999
 
* [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KgYpTflChYgC&pg=PA203 The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Culture], Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 0521886996, p.203-205
* [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZW0-GwTpQ1EC&pg=PA160 Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England], Michael Alexander, Yale University Press, 2007, ISBN 0300110618, p.160-161
 
* [http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/millais/leng3.html Millais's "Mariana": Literary Painting, the Pre-Raphaelite Gothic, and the Iconology of the Marian Artist], The Victorian Web
 
{{John Everett Millais}}