''Mariana'' is an 1851
oil-on-
panel painting by
John Everett Millais. The image depicts the solitary Mariana from
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's ''
Measure for Measure
''Measure for Measure'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604 and first performed in 1604. It was published in the First Folio of 1623.
The play centers on the despotic and puritan Angelo (Measure for ...
'', as retold in
Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's ...
's 1830 poem "
Mariana". The painting is regarded as an example of Millais's "precision, attention to detail, and stellar ability as a colorist".
[King, Sally.]
"Aweary" and Waiting: John Everett Millais's Mariana
. English 156 / History of Art 152, Brown University, 2007. Retrieved 21 October 2007. It has been held by
Tate Britain since 1999.
Background
In Shakespeare's ''
Measure for Measure
''Measure for Measure'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604 and first performed in 1604. It was published in the First Folio of 1623.
The play centers on the despotic and puritan Angelo (Measure for ...
'', written between 1601 and 1606, Mariana is about to be married but is rejected by her fiancé Angelo when her dowry is lost in the shipwreck that also killed her brother. She retreats to a solitary existence in a moated house. Five years later, Angelo is tricked into consummating their betrothal. Tennyson retold the tale in his 1830 poem "
Mariana", and returned to it in his 1832 poem "Mariana in the South".
Millais was a founding member of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of English artists who came together in 1848 with the goal of renewing British painting. They found in the art of the early Italian Renaissance—before
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...
—a sincerity of purpose and clarity of form that they sought to emulate. The Pre-Raphaelites frequently used allegorical images to create a narrative to teach a moral virtue or virtues and sometimes used contemporary literature as inspiration for their paintings, which often include numerous details that allow the viewer to "read" the painting.
Millais used Tennyson's poetry to create a narrative for his painting of ''Mariana'', and he wanted to allow the viewer familiar with Tennyson's poetry to read the entire poem through the painting. It was first exhibited at the
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...
in 1851 – the year after Tennyson was appointed as
Poet Laureate – with a display caption that contained lines 9 to 12 from Tennyson's poem "Mariana" (1830):
She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,'
I would that I were dead!'
Millais's painting may have been painted as a companion piece to
William Holman Hunt's 1850 painting ''
Claudio and Isabella'', which also depicts a scene from ''Measure for Measure''.
Description
The painting depicts a woman in a long blue dress, standing up from the embroidery laid out before her to stretch her back. Her upholstered stool and the table are set before a Gothic window with stained glass, through which can be seen a garden with leaves that are turning from green to autumnal brown. Some leaves have fallen on the embroidery and more onto the bare wooden floorboards beside a small mouse. In the background, a small triptych, a silver casket, and candles are set out as a devotional altar on a piece of furniture covered with white cloth beside the curtain of a bed.
The work is painted on a
mahogany panel, primed with a white ground, and measures . It may have been painted
wet-on-wet
Wet-on-wet, or ''alla prima'' (Italian, meaning ''at first attempt''), direct painting or au premier coup, is a painting technique in which layers of wet paint are applied to previously administered layers of wet paint. Used mostly in oil pain ...
on a second ground, with graphite
underdrawing. The paint is thinly applied in some areas to enhance the reflective effect of the white ground, but thickly applied in others. The woman's blue dress is painted with two blue pigments,
Prussian blue and
ultramarine.
The painting is packed with details that help the viewer to read the narrative of the work from Tennyson's poetry. The autumn leaves indicate a story about waiting and the passage of time. The woman's arched back makes it seem like she has been sitting too long and she must stand up to stretch before she sits back at her work, but her posture also emphasises her bust and hips. The roll of completed embroidery on the table gives the viewer a clue as to how long Mariana has been working on it.
The altar in the background may be a reference to Mariana's fervent prayers to the
Virgin Mary
Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...
in "Mariana in the South". The stained glass in the window shows an
Annunciation
The Annunciation (; ; also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord; ) is, according to the Gospel of Luke, the announcement made by the archangel Gabriel to Ma ...
scene, with the
Angel Gabriel and the
Virgin Mary
Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...
, based on a window at the east end of the
chapel
A chapel (from , a diminutive of ''cappa'', meaning "little cape") is a Christianity, Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their o ...
of
Merton College, Oxford
Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 126 ...
, and also an invented coat of arms with a
snowdrop and the Latin motto "In coelo quies" ("In Heaven there is rest"), possibly a reference to the feast of
St Agnes' Eve and John Keats's poem ''
The Eve of St Agnes''.
Many of the details in the painting relate directly to Tennyson's poetry. For example, the little mouse in the bottom right corner is a detail directly from the poem: "the mouse behind the mouldering wainscots shriek'd or from the crevice peer'd about". An anecdote reports that the mouse was drawn from life – or rather death, as it was killed by Millais after it scurried across the floor and hid behind some furniture so he could immortalise it.
Together, Millais's painting and Tennyson's poem create an intriguing storyline for the reader to follow.
However, Millais's painting departs from Tennyson's narrative in some respects. The Mariana depicted by Millais is placed in a scene filled with vibrant colours; she is not the forlorn woman described by Tennyson, unwilling to live an independent life, confined to a dilapidated retreat, with a "mouldering wainscots".
In turn, Millais's painting inspired
Elizabeth Gaskell's 1853 novel, ''
Ruth''. Tennyson's Mariana and Gaskell's main character Ruth are both sensitive to the sounds around them and constantly look out of their windows in an image that represents their imprisonment within their homes. The image of Mariana used by Tennyson and the later works is equally of a weary woman.
Reception
The painting was first exhibited in 1851, the year after Millais's painting ''
Christ In The House Of His Parents'' had been heavily criticised by art critics and the public.
In 1851, Ruskin wrote in defence of the PRB that it "lays in our England the foundations of a school of art nobler than the world has seen for 300 years". He wrote on 9 May that " there is not a single study of drapery in the whole Academy, be it in large works or small, which for perfect truth, power, and finish, could be compared for an instant with … with the white draperies on the table in Mr. Millais' "Mariana" … And further: that as studies both of drapery and of every minor detail, there has been nothing in art so earnest or so complete as these pictures since the days of Albert Durer."
The painting was accepted in lieu of £4.2m of
inheritance tax
International tax law distinguishes between an estate tax and an inheritance tax. An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and pro ...
payable on the estate of
Roger Makins, 1st Baron Sherfield, who died in 1996. It was allocated to the Tate Gallery in 1999, when it was described as "arguably the greatest Pre-Raphaelite painting"
Lloyd-Webber outraged at pre-Raphaelite collection's export"
''The Art Newspaper'', Martin Bailey, 1 September 1998
The Makin Collection of Victorian paintings and drawings, which includes works by artists such as Millais, Holman Hunt, Rossetti, and Burne-Jones, was inherited by his son Christopher Makins and transferred to his residence in Washington, DC. The collection was begun by Henry Francis Makins (1841–1914), a friend of Millais, and enlarged by Roger, his grandson.
The Victoria & Albert Museum holds an 1850 study in pen and ink on paper.
See also
* List of paintings by John Everett Millais
Notes
References
''Mariana'' 1851
Tate Gallery.
* ''Millais: An Exhibition Organized by the Walker Art Gallery Liverpool and the Royal Academy of Arts London'', January–April 1967. London: William Clowes and Sons, 1967.
''Mariana'', John Everett Millais (1829–1896), Tate Britain
ArtUK
Mariana in the Moated Grange
Victoria & Albert Museum
''Mariana'', John Everett Millais, 1851
Google Arts & Culture
The Victorian Web
Sir John Everett Millais, ''Mariana''
Dr. Rebecca Jeffrey Easby, Smarthistory, 9 August 2015
''Mariana'' by John Everett Millais, 1851
British Library
"Millais for Tate: Nation given masterpieces in lieu of tax
The Guardian, 28 August 1999
The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Culture
Cambridge University Press, 2010, , p.203-205
Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England
Michael Alexander, Yale University Press, 2007, , p.160-161
The Victorian Web
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mariana
1851 paintings
British art
Paintings in the Tate galleries
Paintings by John Everett Millais
Works based on Measure for Measure
Works based on literary characters
Paintings based on works by William Shakespeare
Paintings based on works by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Mice and rats in art
Paintings of women