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How do we move away from being a civilization that produces art that causes comments like, “my five year old could make this,” back to being one that creates beauty and inspires deep questions? We must reject modernity and embrace tradition. To embrace tradition, we must first learn about it..
Let’s study art history together.
Hearts Are Trumps
| Artist | John Everett Millais |
|---|---|
| Year | 1872 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 219.7 cm x 165.7 cm |
| Location | Tate Gallery, London |
To gain an understanding of what this painting is about, it helps to know it by both this title and its other and more official title: Portraits of Elizabeth, Diana, and Mary, Daughters of the Late Walter Armstrong, Esq.
Three sisters are competing outwardly at a game of cards. However, the real competition is for love (hence the title.) The scene is vibrant, beautiful, and highly detailed. The three sisters are all in some respects very similar. They’re dressed in the same way. They take up similar amounts of space in the work. The thing that differentiates them is their approach. The sister on the far left seems to be distracted. This is a tactic used by women, to draw in men, and has been a successful one since the dawn of time. The sister in the middle seems to not know what to do. This is another time tested strategy. Men love nothing more (usually) than an opportunity to explain something to a confused woman. However, the sister you probably noticed immediately is on the far right. She takes a more confident and aggressive approach.
And she’s looking right at you, the viewer. The sisters are competing for you. Who do you choose?
(more on the painting, via thehistoryofart.org)
by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 14, 2023Hearts are Trumps was painted in 1872 by Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896), a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and active in the Aesthetic movement.
The size is h.1,657 x w.2,197mm., the medium is oil paint on canvas and the artwork is owned by the Tate Britain art museum in London, to whom it was presented in 1945 by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest. Painstaking five months’ conservation work was carried out in 2012, thoroughly restoring the artist’s intended pictorial depth, vigorous colours and broad, expressive and almost impressionistic brushwork to the very flat and dirty painting found at the outset of the project. Impressed by Millais’ similar painting, “Sisters”, the year before, “Hearts are Trumps” was commissioned by the rich merchant and art collector, Walter Armstrong.
This painting is resplendent, leisured, tasteful and yet simultaneously rather intriguing. It features Armstrong’s three pretty (perhaps their looks and surroundings have been somewhat flattered by the artist) young daughters, Elizabeth, Diana and Mary in luxurious and fashionable dresses, undoubtedly in an attempt to raise the social standing of the family to that of nineteenth-century nobility. The title of this delightful and delicate scene and the card game depicted subtly suggest some competition between the ladies, all in their twenties, as to who will marry first, a very important consideration for women of their social stratum, particularly in Victorian England.
Mary gazes directly and confidently at the spectator, perhaps a potential suitor, as she appears to be holding more of the trumps, and fittingly she married first in 1876 becoming Mrs. Ponsonby Blennerhasset. Her sisters followed suit (no pun intended!) later. Sadly, their poor father eventually declared bankruptcy and was forced to sell his art collection! The viewer is pulled into the scene with the dark oriental screen pushing the sisters forward and the table open-faced as if to invite him to join the game. Millais’ composition and style emulate some of the works of the celebrated Sir Joshua Reynolds (see “The Ladies Waldegrave” of 1781), and even of the seventeenth-century Spanish master, Diego Velázquez. However, the former displays a brilliance of technique that is distinctly more ‘modern’ than that of his eminent predecessors. In 1878, “Hearts are Trumps” was exhibited at the prestigious Paris Exposition Internationale where Millais was awarded a Medaille d’Honneur.
