John Everett Millais Quotes about Art

John Everett Millais was a famous English painter and illustrator associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood art movement. He is best known for his landscapes and portraits which include the iconic “Ophelia” painting. Famous John Everett Millais artworks include “Mariana”, “A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew’s Day”, “The Order of Release”, “Christ in the House of His Parents”, “The Return of the Dove to the Ark”, “A Dream of the Past: Sir Isumbras at the Ford”, “Peace Concluded”, “Cherry Ripe”, “The Eve of Saint Agnes”, “John Henry Newman”, “The Two Princes Edward and Richard in the Tower”, “John Ruskin” and “Ophelia”.

Mini biography: Born John Everett Millais on the 8th of June, 1829 in Southampton, Hampshire, England. His mother was Emily Mary Evermy and his father was John William Millais. Millais married Euphemia Gray (Effie) in 1855. She was previously the wife of the prominent art critic John Ruskin. They had eight children together: Everett, George, Effie, Mary, Alice, Geoffrey, John, and Sophie. The artist died on the 13th of August, 1896 in Kensington, London, England at the age of 67. John Everett Millais is buried at the Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain.

List of Famous John Everett Millais Art Quotes

Work should always look as though it had been done with ease, however elaborate; what we see should appear to have been done without effort, whatever may be the agonies beneath the surface. John Everett Millais

I am emphatically of opinion that the best art of modern times is as good as any of its kind that has gone before, and furthermore, that the best art of England can hold its own against the world. It is manifestly impossible to make just comparisons between the widely divergent styles of the Ancient and Modern Masters, or to attempt to strike a balance between, say, Rubens and Hogarth; but to say that the old alone is good betrays great lack of judgment, and is an ingratitude to the living. John Everett Millais

The great artists all painted in bright colors, such as it is the fashion nowadays for men to decry as crude and vulgar, never suspecting that what they applaud in those works is merely the result of what they condemn in their contemporaries. John Everett Millais

There is among us a band of young men, who, though English, persist in painting with a broken French accent, all of them much alike, and seemingly content to lose their identity in their imitation of French masters, whom they are constitutionally, absolutely, and in the nature of things, unable to copy with justice either to themselves or to their models. Imitation, however, is pardonable in young men—and only in young men —and sooner or later their ability will inevitably lead them to assert their individuality, if they have any. John Everett Millais

It will be remembered that Rembrandt, in his first period, was very careful and minute in detail, and there is evidence of stippling in his flesh painting; but when he grew older and in the fulness of his power, all appearance of such manipulation and minuteness vanished in the breath and facility of his brush, though the advantage of his early manner remained. The latter manner is, of course,; much the finer and really the more finished of the two. John Everett Millais

The Elgin Marbles are allowed by common consent to be the perfection of art. But how much of our feeling of reverence is inspired by Time? John Everett Millais

So fine is some of the work our modern sculptors have given us, that I firmly believe that were it dug up from under oyster shells in Rome or out of Athenian sands with the cachet of partial dismemberment about it, all Europe would fall straightway into ecstasy and give forth their plaintive wail—’We can do nothing like that now.’ Verily the great handicapper and chief offending of modern art is its unavoidable modernity. John Everett Millais

That is mere imitation, and I could place my hand on half a dozen men who could do as much. Not that I underrate imitative painting for a moment—it is a necessary part of an artist’s business, and a high achievement in itself, this representing, on the flat, of the color, texture, and chiaroscuro of a solid object in such a way as to deceive the eye. But it is hardly necessary to say that nowadays art demands much more than that. John Everett Millais

I believe that however admirably he may paint in a certain method, or however perfectly he may render a certain class of subject, the artist should not be content to adhere to a speciality of manner or method. A fine style is good, but it is not everything—it is not absolutely necessary. John Everett Millais

John Everett Millais Self-Portrait Painting

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Related or similar popular artists and creatives include: John Ruskin, Gustave Courbet, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and other Famous UK Artists.