An Uneasy Beauty: Pre-Raphaelites and the Feminine Ideal
Considering what lies beneath the beautiful surface of paintings rife with nostalgia for a time that never existed.
Ophelia, completed in 1852 by Sir John Everett Millais, is possibly the best known painting to be produced by the Pre-Raphaelite movement. It exemplifies their ongoing approach to represent nature as accurately as possible. They believed that artists who did not strive for realism in their representation of nature were disrespecting God’s creation. It also deals with typically Pre-Raphaelite subject matter, too: a story inspired by mythology, poetry, or in this case, literature — the tragic heroine of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The flowers that Millais includes are chosen for their symbolic meanings. The violets at Ophelia’s throat represent faithfulness, chastity, dying young and unrequited love. The pink rose at the hem of her skirts suggests the transient beauty of youth and fleeting exhilaration of first love. The white of the daisies represents unsullied innocence. Pansies derive their name from the French word pensée — the same word from which ‘pensive’ is derived. Nettles indicate pain, both physical and ‘of the heart’. The prominent poppy-like red flower has been identified as wild pheasant’s-eye, which represents unbearable…
