The fact of the matter is, I am out of fashion

For nearly three months in 1859, John Everett Millais' paintings The Vale of Rest and Spring (Apple Blossoms) were displayed at the prestigious Royal Academy Exhibition, receiving often negative reviews. Especially The Vale of Rest —depicting two nuns in a cemetery, one digging a grave and the other staring directly at the viewer— was criticised for being strange and macabre and was even called "unforgivably ugly". Millais, a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, had been moving away from the movement since the mid-1850s, and both The Vale of Rest (Millais' own personal favourite) and Spring are regarded as transitional works. Although still largely painted in the Pre-Raphaelite style, they lack the clear narrative subject found in Millais' earlier paintings, focusing instead on mood and atmosphere. 

By the late 1850s, some art critics had started to oppose the direction Millais' work was taking. John Ruskin, a renowned critic, had been a staunch supporter of Millais and often defended him against other critics. In 1855, when Millais married Effie Gray (Ruskin's ex-wife) and began to distance himself from the Pre-Raphaelites, Ruskin became increasingly critical of his work. He wrote a scathing critique in the 1857 Academy Notes about Millais' painting A Dream of the Past: Sir Isumbras at the Ford, saying that "the change in his manner, from the years of "Ophelia" and "Mariana" to 1857, is not merely Fall—it is Catastrophe...".

When The Vale of Rest and Spring were exhibited at the Royal Academy, Millais believed it might be partly due to Ruskin’s influence that dealers were ignoring his work. In the following two letters to his wife Effie —the first written after the private view at the Academy, the other shortly after the exhibit's opening— Millais expressed his concern about the lack of interest in his paintings, seemingly convinced he was "out of fashion". Although his peers admired his work, Millais mostly worried about whether his paintings would sell, being a family man with several mouths to feed. (With Effie he eventually had eight children.)

Incidentally, Millais' mention of Ruskin's "last pamphlet" possibly refers to the latter's 1857 Academy Notes, as mentioned above.

April 29th. — I have just come from the private view. To tell you the truth, I think it likely I shall not sell one of the pictures. The clique has been most successful against me this year, and few people look at my work. Ruskin was there, looking at ‘The Nuns’; and Tom Taylor, who said nothing. Everywhere I hear of the infamous attempts to destroy me (the truth is these pictures are not vulgar enough for general appreciation). However, I must wait, for I don't know what the Press will say yet. Seeing that there is such a strong undercurrent against me, it is possible they may lift me up.

Gambart was there, and several dealers, but none spoke to me. They are not anxious to look into my eyes just now, and no wonder! Reade is sitting beside me as I write this.

The fact of the matter is, I am out of fashion. There will doubtless be a reaction, but the state of affairs in the Art world is at present too critical to admit of a good reward for all my labour. This is rather trying to me, I confess, after all my slavery, but it will account to you for my want of belief in the profession. You see, nobody knows anything about Art, so one is all at sea. The failures are most terrible in London just now, and things look very bad. What will become of Art, I don’t know. It will not be worth following, if I cannot sell pictures such as these. I am sorry I have no good news for you, dear, but the look out is anything but refreshing.

May 5th.— I returned here last night and opened three letters from you — all so kind and nice that they quite set me up. There have been no inquiries for any of my pictures; but now they are once more crowded — this time more than ever. You may, perhaps, laugh at it, but I have heard it said that the want of purchasers is a great deal due to Ruskin having in his last pamphlet said that I was falling off.

Hunt and Leech, as well as the Rossettis [the brothers Dante Gabriel and William] and their clique, have expressed their admiration of my work of late, and yesterday Marochetti was kind enough to express the same sentiments. Landseer, who was with him, asked my address, in case he should have to write me, indicating his desire to sell them for me. After such opinions from such men, what is outside criticism? Yet, in spite of myself and my own convictions, I feel humiliated.

It has become so much the fashion to abuse me in the Press, that my best friends now occasionally talk in the same way. I have lost all pleasure and hope in my profession.

William has gone to the Exhibition, and I made arrangements to go to Aldershot with Leech; but all this anxiety, however much I try to dispel it, destroys my peace of mind, and I have a bad headache. Everybody bothers me too about living in the North, and says I have cut all my original friends, and will inevitably lose their interest. I candidly confess I never had such a trying time in my life.

I would not care a farthing if I were a bachelor, but for your sake I cannot take such injustice calmly. It is a strange and unexpected end to all my labour, and I can only hope it will not affect you overmuch.

As mentioned, the paintings were poorly reviewed in the press and, much to Millais' dismay, they did not sell at the exhibition. However, Millais sold The Vale of Rest later to a dealer for £7,000, instead of the £10,000 he had hoped for. (Still, £7,000 was a significant amount at the time.) While Spring was not sold immediately either, the dealer Ernest Gambart (named in the first letter) bought it from Millais in 1860; after his failure to find a buyer, Gambart had the painting auctioned at Christie's in 1861.

Having already been an immensely successful artist during the height of the Pre-Raphaelite period, in later years Millais found renewed commercial success. With the adoption of a more commercial style, he would earn more money and eventually became one of the wealthiest artists of his time. 

Source letters: The life and letters of Sir John Everett Millais (1900), by John Guille Millais 

Via: Internet Archive

Images from top to bottom:

-John Everett Millais, photographed by J. P. Mayall, photo from Artists at Home, published in 1884

-The Vale of Rest, 1858- 1859

-Spring (Apple Blossoms), 1856-1859

-Collage: (left) Millais and Effie with their daughters Effie and Mary, 1865 // (right) John Ruskin in 1863 — NB. Ruskin and Effie Gray married in 1848, but their marriage was never consummated and was annulled in 1854. While Ruskin's criticism of Millais originated in an artistic disagreement, it would be hard to deny that personal feelings also played a role.

All images via: Wikimedia Commons