Statement seems a bit broad. I don't think that
it's the accuracy of rendering (in any case not
so simple a thing to define) that makes his work
seem so mawkish (which I think is what you mean
by "artificial" here). A few blocks from me are
the Cloisters and its Unicorn Tapestries. The
rendering of vegetation is extraordinary. I doubt
that the first (or second or third) thing that
comes to mind for most viewers is a sense of
artificiality--rather, one's response is
overwhelmedness, ecstasy. The same might be said
of the vegetation in Boccaccio's Primavera. The
sense, I think, is that we believe the artist is
presenting an experience much like our own,
whereas Millais is standing apart, manipulating us.
Maybe sentimentality could be defined as the
formulaic presentation of sentiment with an end
in mind, even if the intended recipient is the artist her/him/it/self.
Mark
At 06:27 PM 10/25/2007, you wrote:
>Matthew Reynolds in the current tls online notes, inter alia:
>
>
>It is a paradox of Pre-Raphaelite art that the more accurately natural forms
>are rendered in oils the more artificial they appear. Millais was the
>painter who most noticed this peculiarity and turned it to advantage. In
>³Mariana², leaves from the detailed autumn trees outside have come into the
>interior, perhaps through the window or a door out of shot, or perhaps
>gathered by Mariana to serve as models for the leaf-and-flower embroidery
>with which she is passing the time (this piece of womanıs work shows that
>Millais was responding to ³The Lady of Shalott², with its weaving, as well
>as to the other poems by Tennyson that were his main sources, ³Mariana² and
>³Mariana in the South²).
>etc
>
>
>On 26/10/07 3:40 AM, "Roger Day" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > consider John Everett Millais, the founder of the pre-Raphaelite
> > Brotherhood, and 'Bubbles'. Or any pre-Raphaelite painting.
> > Sentimentality seems to drip from their pores yet stay just the right
> > side of kitsch.
> >
> > Roger
> >
>
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