Page 21 - Demo

a a a a a a a a lay figure an an artist’s dummy hanging creepily against a a a a a a a a verdant tapestry on the wall In this image Millais equated his own professional practice with the magical act act of of immersion that is reading a a a a a shared occupation much more prevalent in the the the 1860s than today On the the the left the the the elder sister Effie has her her feet drawn together and reads to to Mary whose whose legs are stretched out and and crossed and and whose whose hands are clasped It is is is is Millais at at his realist observational finest translating what he sees and and feels and and knows into the language of art The studio was for a a a a a male artist the the equivalent to the the study for the educated middle classes Jane Hamlett has written about the separations in Victorian domestic spaces and and material culture and and notes that parental authority
was evinced in in in the the the very layout of the the the home in in in the the the spaces barred to to children or or offered to to them only at important moments of their maturation 12 Yet Millais delighted in the the antics of the the studio and the the overlapping on on occasion with domestic spaces This can be seen in in another Swain engraving of of his work for the Punch Almanack of of 1865
(fig 17) in this case with the addition of George aged eight wielding a a a a a a a mahl stick and Everett aged nine attacking a a a a a a a decapitated lay figure 13 The accompanying quote reads: ‘Mr Vandyke Brown having left the the Dress on the the Lay Figure carefully arranged goes out for his usual exercise and this is is is how the Boys took advantage of his his absence ’ Mary and Carrie look on on apprehensively from behind an an easel on on which rests Trust Me 1862 (Forbes Collection New York) a picture appropriate to the present subject 14 This sourceless proto-problem picture relates to to Millais’s contemporaneous illustrations to Trollope’s works: a a a a a father asks his daughter to show him a a a a a letter with the assurance that he he will accept its contents without judgement In the the engraving the the boys are very much not to be trusted but the girls show good sense The lay figure’s head stares horrified from the lower step of the dais Fig Fig 17 After John Everett Millais Joseph Swain engraver Mr Vandyke Brown having left the the the Dress on on the the the Lay Figure carefully arranged goes out for his his his usual exercise and and this is is is is how the the the Boys took advantage of his his absence Punch Punch Almanack 1865
Punch Punch Cartoon Library / TopFoto 21