Introduction
John Everett Millais is one of the famous representatives of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He is known for his bright realistic pictures. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood rebelled against strict classical poses proclaimed by Renaissance and they aimed at providing the most realistic pictures with all details, complexity, and color (Landow, 2007). This brotherhood is considered to be the first experimental community in the history of art.
The Blind Girl – the triumph of realism
One of the most famous John Everett Millais’s pictures is The Blind Girl (Millais, n.d.). This picture is my favorite one because of its color, composition, and idea. The most interesting in Millais’s technique is his use of models and sketches while many other artists usually use the images from their minds. The artist uses the background scenery to highlight the main idea of the work. He represents the beauty of nature with such miracles as rainbows on the one hand and he portrays the unfairness of the world reflecting in the girl’s blindness on the other hand.
This painting combines the feelings of melancholy and joy as well. The beauty of nature with its bright colors evokes a lot of positive feelings while the blindness of the girl makes the observer feel sad. Despite her misfortune, she tries to enjoy her life playing the musical instrument that is depicted lying on her knees. More than that, she is responsible for her little companion. Millais uses the contrast between the brightness of nature and the darkness of the girl’s blindness. We may observe the contrast of colors namely the background saturated with the brightest colors and two girls whose appearances seem to be colorless compared to the background. The artist refers to such realistic techniques as shadows depicting the girls’ clothes. The shadows used by the artist help him to picture their clothes as worn-out and unpretentious compared to the freshness and brightness of nature.
The use of shadows, colors, and details highlights the contrast between beauty and tragedy
The beauty of nature is even exaggerated in Millais’s The Blind Girl. He represents a supernatural phenomenon namely two rainbows in the background. This technique is used to highlight the contrast and depict the main idea of the picture. The contrast used by Millais points out the tragedy of the girl. Viewers may enjoy the beauty of nature with its colors, rainbows, crows, goats but the girl cannot. The artist uses details to highlight his main idea. The butterfly on the girl’s shawl seems to make her tragedy worse. She cannot delight the beauty surrounding her, the beauty that is so close to her. The girl is not even aware of the fact that the butterfly is on her shawl but the viewer may observe it. These tiny details evoke certain emotions looking at this picture.
The main idea of the picture is that every person should appreciate the availability of delighting nature. All things surrounding us are valuable and beautiful and we should enjoy them. As for me, this picture evokes melancholy that there are so many people who do not have such a great availability to delight in the surrounding world. It is a great tragedy and Millais uses realistic techniques to demonstrate it. This artwork testifies to Millais’s workmanship of using details, colors, shadows, and this picture is a real masterpiece. The Blind Girl is a beautiful picture with a great tragedy.
Reference
Landow, G. (2007). Pre-Raphaelites: Introduction. Web.
Millais, J. (n.d.). The Blind Girl. Web.