The War Is Over

Order of release 1746 (1853) by the English painterJohn Everett Millais (1829–1896). Millais depicts here the wife of a rebel Scottish soldier arriving with an order of release for her husband who has been imprisoned after the Jacobite rising of 1745. Finally the war is over. It's kind of typical for Millais that heroism is much more with the civilians, the non-combatants.

Dreams Are Born

The Boyhood of Raleigh (1870) by John Everett Millais (1829–1896).

Millais depicts here Sir Walter Raleigh, the best known English explorer of the Elizabethan age. But he didn’t show him on board fighting the Spanish or pointing to distant horizons. Millais shows him as a boy listening fascinated the stories of an old sailor, maybe a pirate. The subjects of the painting are not the heroic deeds, but the way dreams were born.

Millais' eldest son Everett sat for the figure of Raleigh on the left, and his second son George for the other boy.

Pre-Raphaelite Joan of Arc

In the 19th century in France Joan of Arc converted into a national hero fighting for the liberty of her country, which means she became the ancestor, the great grandmother of all patriots. In other countries she became popular too, even in England the homeland of her former enemies. But there her militant and patriotic aspects never reached great importance. There artists were much more interested in the devoted young woman. To the romantics united in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood she seemed to have been a kind of female Percival on his quest for the Holy Grail.

Joan of Arc (1863) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

Joan of Arc (1865) by John Everett Millais (1829–1896)

Joan of Arc (early 20th century) by Annie Louisa Swynnerton (1844-1933)

It’s evident that in the focusing on the religious aspect these English romantics are abandoning the traditional history painting approaching instead the style of altarpieces.

The Black Brunswicker

The Black Brunswicker (1859-60) by John Everett Millais (1829–1896).

Millais shows here a member of that famous German mercenary corps that fought in British service against Napoleon. The young soldier parts from his lover before the battle of Waterloo. He is characterized by his black uniform and the prominent skull and crossbones on his hat. But I think these signs are serving also to indicate his almost certain fate, because the Brunswickers suffered terrible losses at Waterloo.

Neither the Brunswickers nor Millais could suspect that the well designed black uniform with the skull and the bones should become very popular in the German right-wing Freikorps movement after the First Worls War and become on this way the pattern for the uniform of the SS.

A different War Painting

The English painter Sir John Everett Millais, (1829–1896) one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood shows here a scene from the English Civil War. But Millais isn’t the typical battle painter. He’s more interested in the victims and in forgiveness.

The Proscribed Royalist 1651 (1853)

A Royalist who has been proscribed, is hiding in a tree while a Puritan woman is helping him. The date 1651 refers to the incident when Charles II hid in an oak.