Kelsey Fuller's Blog Post 1

While exploring my research paper topic I happened upon a pen and ink illustration by John Everett Millais from 1853 titled Virtue and Vice. I was immediately struck by the potential relationship between this illustration and William Holman Hunt’s oil painting The Awakening Conscience, also from 1853. What little research there is regarding Virtue and Vice revolves mainly around the idea that the woman depicted as struggling between earning her living as a seamstress or entering the sex industry. Hunt’s The Awakening Consciousness, on the other hand, is well known to be a depiction of a kept mistress experiencing a spiritual revelation, although it is unclear whether her potential redemption will be realized. 

I found myself wondering whether Millais and Hunt had both experimented with the common theme of temptation, although in quite different manners. Hunt appears to be exploring the temptation of redemption while Millais presents a scene of the temptation of a fallen lifestyle. This juxtaposition is furthered by the contrasting settings of each image. Hunt’s oil painting gives the viewer a look into a gaudy, over-decorated apartment in typical Pre-Raphaelite detail. Millais on the other hand presents the sparse, drab interior of a struggling, poor seamstress completed only in pen and ink. Ironically, neither of the women depicted are happy with their lives and could arguably be coveting that of the other. 

While there does appear to be some sort of parallel theme between the two works, I was unable to find any significant academic founding for the claim. Unfortunately, I could not find any correspondence from Millais in regard to Vice and Virtue, most likely because it did not reach fruition past the pen and ink illustration. I would be curious to learn whether Millais was responding to Hunt’s work or if it was the other way around. Given what has been gleaned about Hunt’s temperament and ego from his journal I’m quite confident that Hunt would claim to be the inception point of Millais’ illustration.

Image was pulled from these websites: http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/sugar-salt-and-curdled-milk-millais-and-synthetic-subject; http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hunt-the-awakening-conscience-t02075

 

John Everett Millais, Virtue and Vice, 1853, pen and ink.

William Holman Hunt, The Awakening Conscience, 1853, oil paint on canvas.