John Everett Millais

Millais is still regarded as one of the most popular British painters of all time, and his exhibitions attract large crowds. His style and subjects underwent significant changes over his career, generally adapting to the spirit of the age, prompting some critics to accuse Millais of being more interested in money than in art. This is an unfair claim — Millais only gave the public what it needed. One thing never changed in Millais’ paintings, and that is his sensitivity to detail. Whether the flowers on the bank of Ophelia’s watery grave or the broken flowerpot in Bubbles, his brushstrokes were always impeccable. One of the most incredible examples of this is probably an early painting, Ferdinand Lured by Ariel (1849–50), in which twenty kinds of grass have been counted.

From the page of Bubbles