" 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