The visual analysis of the representation of women in Sir John Everett Millais’s Ophelia (1851)

By Sarah Zhang, 05/2017

Beginning in 1848, Pre-Raphaelites was comprised by three students of Royal Academy of Arts (RA) primarily and became one of the most famous art movements in Britain later. Due to the objection of excessive mannerism of academic art concept established by the founder of RA, Sir Joshua Reynolds, they intended to form a different standard for British art to revive parts of art back to the era before Raphael (Hilton, 1970). Therefore, Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt founded Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) which combined Victorian British art and 15th century Italian art in a revolutionary way to achieve their impacts on both society at that time and the history of art. This painting named Ophelia is painted by the Pre-Raphaelite artist in Victorian era, John Everett Millais. As one of the most important painters in PRB and the youngest student of RA unprecedentedly, Millais shows his sense of extreme details in nature and interests in literature. Ophelia is a typical representative of his characteristics. Additionally, the painting represented some details in literature as it is inspired by a character in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. As mentioned in the play, the painting portrayed the process of Ophelia’s drowning herself because of the death of her father and the betrayal of her lover Hamlet (Shakespeare, 2008). Although adapted from Hamlet, this essay has nothing to do with the association of painting and literature but about the representation of Ophelia as a woman in this painting who reflects the social and cultural conditions in Victorian Britain. The main purpose of this essay is to figure out how the madness of Ophelia became a special charm in Victorian Era, using Rolland Barthes’s theory of mythology. Analyses of studium and punctum are applied in revealing the myth as well.

From the perspective of compositions, there are three main aspects to see in Ophelia. Firstly, the painting insist on Pre-Raphaelites’ tradition of colour. This means that the painting is painted in relatively bright and intense colours rather than chiaroscuro advocated by Academy painting at that time (Treuherz, 1993). Secondly, the balance of image remain complicated and self-contradictory. On the one hand, this image looks stable because of its suitable spatial structure between all elements. On the other hand, every element in the painting seems quite delicate and has the possibility of breaking and falling at anytime. Finally, the details of line and brush are extremely meticulous which are vivid reproductions of reality and nature. In the image as a whole, the woman named Ophelia lies in a muddy brook, wearing a gorgeous veil laced with silver. Surroundings of the woman are a variety of plants: On the top of the image, there is a willow uprooted with a clump of shrubs. A cluster of aquatic plants is in the lower left corner and there are algues in the water under her body. As her body mentioned, there are a few details should be noticed as well. Her face is abnormal pale and expressionless. Both of her eyes and mouth are half-opened. Her shiny red hair spread out freely in the murky water. Her hands are floating on the water powerlessly. Her lower body and her waist have already sunk into the water. Colourful flowers decorate above her dress, wrist and neck. Those white blossoms, some of them are growing in the shrubs, and the others are floating on the water. Looking at such a bold masterpiece, people might wonder what are the most important reason why it is warmly welcomed in Victorian era when it was exhibited for the first time? What kind of feelings it arouse to make people like it? And what are the relationships between the painting itself and deeper social and cultural issues? Why people are so fascinated by the mad woman in the painting? To figure out these questions, second oder meanings of Ophelia in the painting and myths behind that became of vital importance.

At first glance, the face of Ophelia appeals large amounts of attentions from viewers because of its subtle expressions. Her vacant eyes could convey the desperation and dangerous madness of a heart-broken women the same as what people could imagine according to the literature work Hamlet. Then people could noticed that she leaves her thin lips half-opened probably because she completely relaxed facial muscles to get ready for death, or “she chanted snatches of old tunes” as described in the play. However, is this scene a representation of a woman’s death in reality? It is widely accepted that Millais romanticised the image of death and made the love in vain a poetry to arouse the sympathy and tenderness of viewers. Interestingly, in Foucault’s theory, death has no meaning because it could deconstruct everything and turn life into emptiness (Foucault, 1988). So why do viewers often find the image of Ophelia’s death emotional and even powerful? This could be traced back to the power of facial expression, or in other words, the Air mentioned in Rolland Barthes’s book Camera Lucida (1993). Just as Barthes said, the Air is meaningless itself but could be an important supplement of the identity of the person in an image. The women in this image, Ophelia, is portrayed as a good looking female from upper class who has delicate skin and well-groomed eyebrow. It is the process of interpellation which bond the individual identities with the ideologies of bourgeois society (Pearce, 1991). Although it is undeniable that Pre-raphaelites have some radical and influential opinions, what they are against is the rigid form of academic art rather than a completely revolution which could change the operation of society as a whole. In other words, Pre-raphaelites painting is not a anachronism and even success to some extent. That is why there are still a sense of decency and ritual which is conceived by the painter and the class he was serving behind this dying face. Through this face, Ophelia’s death is attached with beauty and tenderness rather than fear and ugliness. People could regard the reason why the painter represent it this way as contradictory. On the one hand, the contradictions themselves are reflections of Victorian era which exist as a historical agency (Pearce, 1991) such as death and beauty. On the other hand, it is a deliberately created illusion. Pre-raphaelites are inevitably related to the patriarchal power in society under the influence of their sponsors, which is believed by many scholars such as (Deborah and Griselda, 1984). As a social individual, the influence of cultural and political background is difficult to completely avoid for the painter as well. However, what is difficult to deny is that people could remind the tragic and poetic love when they see the face of Millais’s Ophelia. They could feel a special glamour of female when they see this kind of delicate eyes and half-opened mouth. It is not a fact of nature but have the same function of truth. In the mythology of Rolland Barthes, this kind of permanent contingency is called myth which is based on a historical intension (Barthes, 1993). As it distort death’s horror and connect it with beauty, the Air of Ophelia reveals a part of the myth of “madness” shaped by this painting which makes people naturally believe that such a morbid and mad face could be a type of beauty as well.

When people pull away their gaze, they would notice the floating and powerless hands of Ophelia which are located almost in the centre of the image. Her tender and glossy hands indicate her youth and her prominent identity which is a member of Danish royal family according to Hamlet. The peaceful water around her wrists tells people that she is obedient to death without any struggle. With her palms on both sides spread upwards, she is like surrendering to her tragic destiny and waiting for the approach of death. From the perspective of social background, people could regard the water around her body as the symbolic sign of feudal society’s entrapment of women towards which she has no resistance. This represents not only Ophelia’s Medieval era but also Victorian era in which women are suppressed as well. Moreover, based on the fact that women in Victorian era have huge inequality with men on social conditions, females at that time are often represented as subordinate or a symbol of sexuality (Nead, 1988). In other words, it is quite possible that her gesture is not only a submission to fate but also a suggestion of her vulnerable position in sexual relationship. This correspond to the female sexualization in Victorian era during which unprecedentedly large amounts of women became prostitutes out of the oppression from both economy and society (Aiken, 2012). However, as a smart and successful painter at that time, why Millais could predict that such a image would be warmly welcomed in the art market? Why the upper class would like a painting in the theme of such a pathetic woman? What is the sensitivity exactly that stimulated their emotions to make them admire it? Although to be precise, the intensions of the author could not be entirely revealed, but at least people could figure out some values and tastes Millais believed as an upper class man. This is what Barthes called Studium (Barthes, 1993) which makes viewers culturally involved in the image. For a high class Victorian man, rationality of their dominant behaviours could be found through the submission of women. Therefore, they could further strengthen their concept of excessive masculinity which is full of mission and superiority. For those honourable women, they could get a sense of tenderness and sympathy. What people should not overlook is that there is a conflict within the painting itself: it impose the destiny of a lower class woman to the identity of upper class. That is how the connection of high class women and the women in the painting built. Furthermore, there is an unconscious comparison with those women became prostitutes arouse from honourable women, which could stand out their purity, innocence and happiness. In other words, the reason why many people in upper class are strongly interested in it is because the madness conveyed through Ophelia’s hands offers pleasure to them, which is also a part of the myth of madness in the painting.

As the eyes moved around Ophelia’s hand, those flowers floating on the surface of water could appeal to the attentions of viewers. Among them, those two bright red poppies are particularly noteworthy. People would find that the poppy is not a part of the scene of Ophelia’s death if they have read the literature of Hamlet carefully. Perhaps someone might argue that the setting could be merely for the balance of colour. It is possible indeed. However, it would be more like a deliberately added object if people see it from the perspective of Victorians. Even nowadays, people could easily come up with death when they see poppies, not to mention in Victorian Era when people have high sensitivity of the language of flowers (Seaton, 1995). This is because poppy is an important ingredient of drug which is harmful and threatening to health. Especially in Victorian Era, opium was widely used in many aspects of life such as entertainment, anxiety relief and medical treatment (Castelow, 2015). Based on this background, people could get a new perspective to see the Air and the gesture of Ophelia. It could be understood as the emptiness, numbness and psychedelic feeling of a person who took drugs. All of these new interpretations are derived from the poppy in the painting which is punctum (Barthes, 1980) of the image. Punctum is neither implicit as myth nor intentional as studium while might give people most impressions in an image because it arouse some strong feelings in the subconscious. Poppy as punctum in this image could punctuate studium to satisfy upper class and work together to create the myth of madness.

Whether the beauty brought by her delicate face, the sympathy aroused by sexualised individuals or the stimulation of the poppy is inseparable from one word: madness. People have unimaginable fascination with some extreme, accurate and death related objects unconsciously according to Foucault’s theory because they all part of madness and could be the knowledge itself (Foucault, 1988). When people unload their defences in front of madness, they are actually facing some hidden necessities of the world which they might not realise before. However, people would not feel it is uncomfortable or deliberate and even could naturally feel its charm. That is the myth of the painting which brings people into connection with madness. In this painting, the woman named Ophelia is not only a woman but also a sign of Victorian era. All these significations mentioned above are parts of the myth itself. In conclusion, the painting Ophelia shows both laudation to the representative “myth of madness” at Victorian era and sympathies toward women reflected from Ophelia’s tragic destiny.

Reference list:

Aiken, Dianne (2012). ‘Victorian Prostitution’, British Literature

Barthes, Roland (1993). Mythologies. London: Vintage.

Barthes, Roland (1993). Camera lucida : reflections on photography. London: Sage.

Castelow, Ellen (2014). ‘Opium in Victorian Britain’, Historic UK. Available: http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Opium-in-Victorian-Britain/

Deborah, Cherry and Griselda Pollock (1984). ‘Patriarchal power and the Pre-Raphaelites’, Art History, 7(4): pp. 494.

Foucault, Michel (1988). Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason. London: Vintage.

Hilton, Timothy (1970). The Pre-Raphaelites. London : Thames & Hudson.

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Shakespeare, William (2008). Hamlet. Auckland, New Zealand : Floating Press.

Seaton, Beverly (1995). The language of flowers: a history. University of Virginia Press.

Treuherz, Julian (1993). ‘The Pre-Raphaelites’, Victorian painting, pp. 75–103. London : Thames and Hudson.