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" SPEAK! SPEAK!"
By SIR JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS

" SPEAK! SPEAK!"
By SIR JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS, P.R.A, (1829-1896)
IN THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON

Millais was the most popular painter of his day, and at the present time his pictures still retain their popularity. His career was remarkable. His hand seemed to take to drawing naturally, for at the age of six he produced some sketches of soldiers which seemed impossible to be the work of such a child. He was the youngest pupil ever admitted to the Academy Schools, and when he was presented with the medals and prizes he had won he was so tiny that he was placed upon a stool to receive them, His first picture in the Academy was exhibited in 1846, and it is interesting to note that two of his pictures, " A Maid Offering a Basket of Fruit to a Cavalier" and " Charles I in the Studio of Van Dyck," which were painted when he was a youth, are exhibited in the Tate Gallery.

Through Holman Hunt, Millais became a member of the Pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood, whose principle it was to paint everything " from Nature and from Nature only," and it is told of him that he was seen near Oxford studying leaves on the branch of a tree through a magnifying glass to paint them in a background. His work at this time was much abused by the critics, but he found an ardent champion in Ruskin.

" Speak! Speak!" was exhibited at the Academy in 1895, and was purchased for the Chantrey Collection for 2,OOO pounds. The man has been reading the love letters which lie on the table by his bed, and, raising his eyes, he sees the spectre of a bride. She parts the curtains at the foot of the bed and looks into space with unearthly gaze while he stretches his hands towards her as if imploring her to speak.

From the book "Famous Paintings" Volume 2 printed in 1913.

Large files of this public domain print are available at Stock Photos at Songs of Praise
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Online "Name the Painting"

Works of Millais in the Tate Gallery
(7 pages)

John Everett Millais
links at ArtCyclopedia

Sir John Everett Millais
at Olga's Gallery

Sir John Everett Millais
at The Victorian Web

Sir John Everett Millais
biography at Olga's Gallery

Famous Paintings in this Series

James Archer My Great Grandmother	Bashkirtseff The Meeting	Bouguereau Charity	John Brett From the Dorsetshire Cliffs
Arnesby Brown The River Bank	Joseph Clark Mother's Darling	John Constable The Hay-Wain	Jean Baptiste Camille Corot The Fisherman's Hut
Jean Baptiste Camille Corot A Flood	Leonardo Da Vinci Monna Lisa	Edouard Detaille The Dream	Henri Fantin-Latour Flowers
Thomas Gainsborough Queen Charlotte	Thomas Gainsborough The Market Cart	Jean Baptiste Greuze The Head of a Girl	Jean Baptiste Greuze Fidelity
James Clark Hook Home With the Tide	Alfred William Hunt Windsor Castle	Josef Israels The Shipwrecked Mariner	B.W. Leader The Stream in Summer-time
Madame Vigee Le Brun Portrait of the Artist	Alphonse Legros A Canal With a Fisherman	Anton Mauve Watering Horses	J.L.E. Meissonier The Cavalier
Sir J.E. Millais Speak! Speak!	Sir J.E. Mallais My First Sermon	George Morland The Reckoning	George Morland The Inside of a Stable
Murillo The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin	Alfred Parsons When Nature Painted All Things Gay	Ralph Peacock The Sisters	Rembrandt Syndics of the Cloth Merchants' Guild
Guido Reni "Ecce Homo"	Sir Joshua Reynolds Portrait of Mrs. Richard Hoare With Her Infant Son	Briton Riviere The Temptation in the Wilderness	Dante Gabriel Rossetti Day Dreams
John Singer Sargent Miss Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth	Lady Stanley (Dorothy Tennant) His First Offence	Jan Steen Grace Before Meat	Marcus Stone On the Road from Waterloo to Paris
Constant Troyon Watering Cattle	H.S. Tuke "All Hands to the Pumps"	Velazquez King Philip IV. of Spain	S.E. Waller Sweethearts and Wives
Thomas Webster The Smile	Index Famous Paintings Volume 1 Art Gallery	Index Famous Paintings Volume 2 Art Gallery	Index Art Appreciation Lessons