My prior Art posts can be found HERE.
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.
An Idyll of 1745
| Artist | John Everett Millais |
|---|---|
| Year | 1884 |
| Type | Oil on canvas, genre painting |
| Dimensions | 140 cm × 191 cm (55 in × 75 in) |
| Location | Lady Lever Art Gallery, Merseyside |
This painting tells a story, but one that is not immediately obvious to a modern audience.
On the left side of the scene is a British Army drummer boy, playing a fife. On the right, three Scottish girls are watching. This is significant because the painting depicts a fictional scene from the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745… wherein the British fought a lot of the Scottish (Highlanders in particular) over who is to be the rightful monarch of England.
(via wiki)
The Jacobite rising of 1745 was an attempt to regain the British throne for the exiled House of Stuart. The last in a series of Jacobite risings that began in March 1689, it proved to be the end of Jacobitism as a major factor in British politics.
The uprising was formally launched by Charles Edward Stuart on 19 August 1745 at Glenfinnan in the Scottish Highlands, with the rebels capturing Edinburgh and winning the Battle of Prestonpans in September. In early November, the largely Scottish Jacobite army invaded England, expecting to be joined by English sympathisers and a French landing in Southern England. This failed to materialise, and after reaching Derby on 4 December, their leaders voted in favour of retreat.
Although supported by the vast majority of the Scots who formed Charles’ army, the decision caused an irretrievable split within the Jacobite senior command. Despite winning a narrow victory at Falkirk Muir in January 1746, defeat at Culloden in April ended the rebellion. Charles escaped to France, but was unable to win support for another attempt, and died in Rome in 1788.
As you might imagine, this fight left a rift between the peoples of the United Kingdom and a would to unity that was long in healing (and perhaps one that is still not entirely healed.) Princess Diana could trace some of her personal descent through the bloodlines of the House of Stuart. Therefore, Prince William – when he eventually ascends to the throne – will be perhaps represent some closure to this chapter of history.
During the Victorian era, there was a lot of art painted about the Rebellion and this is one of those pieces. Is it a subtle plea to unity? Is it something else? You can judge, perhaps, by the expressions on the faces of those in the picture.
(more on the painting, via wiki)
An Idyll of 1745 is an 1884 oil painting by the English artist John Everett Millais. It depicts a fictional scene from the Jacobite rising of 1745. During an interlude in the conflict, a drummer boy from an infantry regiment of the British Army plays a fife, watched by three Scottish girls. A number of paintings of Jacobite-themed paintings were produced in the Victorian era including Charlie Is My Darling by Millais.
The three artists models for the girls were the sisters Hetty Pettigrew, Lily and Rose Pettigrew. Today the painting is in the Lady Lever Art Gallery having been acquired in 1922 when the work was transferred to the gallery by Lord Leverhulme from his own private collection.
When I see this painting, I see girls who are afraid. When I see the face of the British soldier standing behind the fife playing boy, I see something sinister lurking there. Why would a Victorian artist paint a scene like this? Is this rubbing in a victory to the losers of a fight? Is this supposed to make a British audience uncomfortable with their own history? Is it merely an attempt at historical accuracy and no more?
