Dew-drenched Furze by Sir John Everett Millais Bt PRA (1829-96)

Dew-drenched Furze

Sir John Everett Millais (1829-96)

1889-90

oil painting

173.2 x 123 cm.

Tate Britain

Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

"It was a plucky venture, this grappling with a scene such as had probably never been painted before, and might possibly prove to be unpaintable," wrote Millais's son (213). This lovely poetic vision, as the artist looks down an avenue of trees toward the glow of the early morning sun, is also one of the most technically accomplished of Millais's Scottish landscapes. [Commentary continues below.]

Black-and-white illustration (Millais, facing p. 294)

Image download and text by Jacqueline Banerjee

You may use both these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the source and (2) either link your document to this URL or cite it in a print document. Click on the images to enlarge them.]

When Millais set off for the north in the autumn of 1889, he went for the sport, and had no intention at all of painting. But one early November morning, his resolution faltered: "the long grass bearded with dew lay at his feet, and all around were firs, bracken, and gorse bushes, festooned with silver webs, that showed a myriad diamonds glittering in the sun. It was a fairyland that met his eye, whichever way he looked, and under its spell the soul of the painter was moved to immediate action" (Millais 210-13). His son continues:

The view was taken from a spot near the old sawmill road leading from the factor's house at Murthly to Gellie's farm, and the wild moorland around Murthly Moss. This road passes straight through "the big wood" — a great cover of Scotch firs and larches many hundreds of acres in extent, and our favourite shooting-ground for capercailzie and roe. A little path runs from the head keeper's house parallel to the main road, and only a very short distance away, and between these Millais found a suitable clearing from which he could see exactly what he wanted to paint.... confident in his own powers, and sustained by the indomitable spirit that had enabled him to bring to a successful issue many a task of apparently equal difficulty, he went on bravely with his work, malgré the discouraging look of the picture in its earlier stages and the adverse comments of the family, who, all in turn, favoured the artist with their opinions as the work progressed. But he himself never faltered in his belief in the paintable character of the subject, or in his ability to convey to others the charm of its manifold beauties. Only a few days before the work was finished was this apparent to the critics of his household, whose strictures then gave place to paeans of praise. [213]

Millais's son goes on to describe the immense difficulty of painting the cock pheasant in the lower right foreground here (see enlarged image), a procedure which eventually involved using a captive bird as a model. He himself spent two days trying to paint it, he says, but in the end his father had to paint over it, "making it quite a different creature" (214). The effort was wasted, as far as modern viewers are concerned: the bird was removed during cleaning, before an exhibition in 1967 (see Warner 76).

Related Material

Sir John Everett Millais's Landscapes: The Pursuit of Truth and Beauty in Nature

Bibliography

Millais, John Guille. The Life and Letters of John Everett Millais, President of the Royal Academy. 2 vols. Vo. II. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1899. Internet Archive. Web. 6 April 2014.

Warner, Malcolm, with contributions by Charles Brock and Anne Helmreich. The Victorians: British painting, 1837-1901. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1996.

Last modified 6 April 2014