Friday, 25 February 2011

• Fine Art Friday:Millais

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  The Boyhood of Raleigh,  1870                  by Sir John Everett Millais  1829-1896
  Oil on canvas, 1206 x 1422mm                                      The Tate Gallery,  London
  

  How to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child book author, Anthoy Esolen, mentions this famous painting in one of his three chapters addressing the ideal hero and how, if we parents are not attentive, we may very well kill the fire of adventure so necessary for strong leadership (soldiership).

  Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1871, The Boyhood of Raleigh came to epitomize the culture of heroic imperialism in late Victorian Britain and in British popular culture up to the mid-twentieth century.  Imperialism, huh?  Why that's a different rabbit trail

  Esolen references this painting as it appears in an American History textbook, The Making of Our Country by John C. Winston (1921).  The implication is that current history texts contain neither appropiately inspirational narrative nor especially worthy illustrations. 

  Artist Millais depicts an episode from the childhood of the famous sixteenth-century explorer Sir Walter Raleigh. It remains one of his most popular pictures. The young Raleigh and his brother are listening with rapt attention to the tales of ‘wonders on sea and land’ told by a ‘sunburnt, stalwart Genoese sailor’.

  Millais is thus showing us a national hero in-the-making. The toy ship in the lower left suggests Raleigh’s future adventures at sea. Millais painted the background to the picture on the Devon coast near Exeter, not far from where Raleigh had been born.

  Note the boys attire.

  Which makes me want to remind my book club buddies of Esolen's disdainful reference to the attitude of today's average boy which is typified in his facial expressions and how he wears his pants. (pg 154)

   

  FWIW, here's a link to a list of heroes about whom aspiring knights might have read during the Middle Ages.

   

  One more thing.....

  When I think about Sir Walter Raleigh, I think also about his wife.  And so, my library contains this biography, My Just Desire, about her.  She sounds remarkable.

   

  Currently My Just Desire: The Life of Bess Ralegh, Wife to Sir Walter By Anna Beer see related

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