Ophelia, painted by Pre-Raphaelite John Mille in 1852, has become the artist's most popular artwork. In the Tate Gallery, where it is kept, visitors line up in a long queue, and on the way out willingly buy postcards with its reproduction. In general, "Ophelia" has the status of an unqualified and world-famous masterpiece, which is known even to people who had no idea about the work of the Pre-Raphaelites and have little interest in painting.
Ophelia
But what is so special about it, why it received worldwide recognition and why during the exhibition in Japan, the organizers were afraid to print reproductions of this painting on advertising booklets and strongly discouraged young girls to go to the hall where it is exhibited, we will tell in this article.
John Mille. Rosalind in the woods
At the age of 19, a young rebel from painting, John Mille founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and two years later he painted the famous Ophelia. It was colossal artwork. Every day for five months from morning to evening he painted a landscape on the banks of the river Hogsmill. Mille steadfastly endured all the hardships of artwork on the plenere - pesky insects, summer heat and November freezing cold. But the result was worth it - he managed with scientific accuracy and unprecedented meticulousness to depict many different plants: weeping willow, burdock, nettles, verbena, pansies, poppies, violets, daisies, cornflowers and others. It was as if he had photographed a piece of the river landscape with an expensive professional camera, and eventually when the painting was displayed for public viewing, botanists took their students there to familiarize themselves with the rich river flora of England.
Ophelia. A fragment of a landscape
But it was the inordinate precision that became one of the principles proclaimed by the Pre-Raphaelites. Before that, no one had painted in this way, thelandscape was depicted conventionally, as God would have it, without giving much importance to all sorts of "unpretentious flowers", so that Mille's painting became truly revolutionary.
John Mille. Birnam Valley
Finally, in November, the landscape was finished, leaving to paint the image of Ophelia herself, for which Mille left space in the center of the canvas.
Mille might not have minded painting a model in a cold November stream, but where would one be found? Finally, he managed to arrange for Elizabeth Siddal, a hat seller and a true Pre-Raphaelite muse, to pose in a bathtub.
Ophelia. Fragment of a painting
To keep the girl warm, the water was heated with oil lamps, but one day they went out, the oil ran out, and Mille just found a real inspiration and interrupted the artwork he did not want to interrupt. He persuaded Elisabetta to lie down and be patient a little longer, but the girl fell ill with pneumonia, her father came to deal with the artist, and he had to pay for expensive treatment. However, by that time the painting was already ready and bought for a lot of money, so Mille easily paid off.
A girl cutting off a lock of hair (Only a braid...).
And this is how we now imagine the poor lover of Hamlet from William Shakespeare's tragedy, who, mad with grief, decides to commit suicide. But at that moment she is especially beautiful, and therefore during the exhibition of the painting in Japan, in order to avoid all sorts of excesses - especially impressionable Japanese girls could well follow her example, reproductions of the painting were not printed on advertising booklets, and in the hall tried not to let too sensitive young ladies.
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