| Thomas Carlyle | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | John Everett Millais |
| Year | 1877 |
| Catalogue | NPG 968 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Subject | Thomas Carlyle |
| Dimensions | 46 in. x 34 3/4 in. (1168 mm x 883 mm) |
| Location | National Portrait Gallery, London |
Thomas Carlyle is an unfinished portrait of the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher of the same name painted by English Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais in 1877.
Millais, who was said to boast of making £30,000 a year, taking four months' holiday, used to tell a story of Carlyle during those sittings. After he 'had had him twice', Carlyle turned round upon him on the 'great and glorious' staircase of his house and asked,—'Millais, did painting do all that?'
'Yes, painting did it all.'
'Well, there must be more fools in this world than I had thought!'
D. A. Wilson and D. W. MacArthur,Carlyle in Old Age (1866–1881) [1]
The earliest mention of the portrait comes from Carlyle's friend William Allingham, who recorded in his Diary on 11 April 1877: "Millais is to paint him." [2] The first two sittings occurred on 26 and 28 May of that year. On 29 May, Carlyle wrote to his brother that "Millais seems to be in a state of almost frenzy about finishing with the extremest perfection his surprising and difficult task; evidently a worthy man." [3] James Anthony Froude, who commissioned it, documented its progress: [4]
In the second sitting I observed what seemed a miracle. The passionate vehement face of middle life had long disappeared. Something of the Annandale peasant had stolen back over the proud air of conscious intellectual power. The scorn, the fierceness was gone, and tenderness and mild sorrow had passed into its place. And yet under Millais's hands the old Carlyle stood again upon the canvas as I had not seen him for thirty years. The inner secret of the features had been evidently caught. There was a likeness which no sculptor, no photographer, had yet equalled or approached. Afterwards, I knew not how, it seemed to fade away.
As Froude alluded, Millais did not finish the portrait. James Caw recalled in 1928: "It used to be said, so an artist friend of Millais told me, that the cooling of the painter's ardour was due to the disparaging remarks of a lady who came with Carlyle to Millais's studio to see the picture." [5] It may have been one Mrs. Anstruther, a friend of Carlyle's who visited Millais' home to see the portrait, telling him that it was "merely the mask; no soul, no spirit behind. I said it looked modern, and that in fact I did not like it." [6] In a memorandum dated 30 November 1894, National Portrait Gallery trustee George Scharf recalled a story told to him by George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle: [7] "A lady, unknown, came with Millais while he was painting Carlyle & looking at the picture said why you have not painted him as a philosopher or sage but as a rough - shire peasant. Millais laid down his palette and never touched the work afterwards."
It was left in the possession of Millais until it was purchased on 16 May 1885 by Millais' friend, Reginald Cholmondeley, who sold it to the National Portrait Gallery in 1894. [8]
Carlyle commented, "The picture does not please many, nor, in fact, myself altogether, but it is surely strikingly like in every feature, and the fundamental condition was that Millais should paint what he was able to see." [1] Alfred Lyttleton, upon meeting Carlyle, said that "His face was far finer than his pictures had led me to hope. Pathos was the most abiding characteristic." To which John Ruskin replied, in reference to the portrait, "Millais may represent the pathos of a moment, not of a life-time." [9] Millais wrote to Scharf on 2 September 1894 after its purchase, "I rather think it a goodish portrait." [7] In 1904, G. K. Chesterton compared it unfavourably to an earlier portrait by George Frederic Watts, in which Carlyle said he had been "made to look like a mad labourer." [10] For Chesterton, "Watts' Carlyle is immeasurably more subtle and true than the Carlyle of Millais, which simply represents him as a shaggy, handsome, magnificent old man." [11]
On 17 July 1914, the portrait was slashed by American militant suffragette Anne Hunt in protest of Emmeline Pankhurst's arrest (Pankhurst herself was a great admirer of Thomas Carlyle). [12] Director Sir Charles John Holmes left a written account. [13]
On the day of the attack, students were not required to pay an entry fee. That morning, Attendant David Wilson recognised Anne Hunt, whom he had seen the previous day. He suspected that she was American "from the closeness from which she then examined the pictures." Wilson's suspicions were aroused because "no American would have paid the 6d entrance fee twice over." From his post, unable to follow her, he heard glass shatter. While two female students were copying portraits, Hunt struck Carlyle's portrait at least three times. One student, followed by an attendant, rushed to restrain her. Boston Evening Transcript reported that "the attendants had the greatest difficulty in preventing Miss Hunt from doing further damage. She struggled desperately, but eventually was secured and handed over to the police. She was bleeding profusely from cuts on her hands caused by the breaking of the glass." [14] [15] The damaged canvas remained on public view for the rest of the day, until Mr F. Haines, a restorer, noticed the work at five o'clock, and it was removed. The frame and broken glass were re-hung on the wall.
The press called Hunt a "Hatchet Fiend," "Wild Woman" and "Fury With a Chopper." A member of the public wrote to offer a replacement portrait of Carlyle. The Deputy Chairman of the Trustees reflected that despite efforts to safeguard the Collection, "we really are at the mercy of women who are determined." At her trial, Hunt declared, "This picture will be of added value and of great historical importance because it has been honoured by the attention of a Militant." She was sentenced to six months but only served six days. [16]
The portrait along with a photograph of the damage was displayed as part of the National Portrait Gallery's Votes for Women display, which ran from 29 January to 13 May 2018 in commemoration of the Representation of the People Act centennial. [17]
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy Schools. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded at his family home in London, at 83 Gower Street. Millais became the most famous exponent of the style, his painting Christ in the House of His Parents (1849–50) generating considerable controversy, and he produced a picture that could serve as the embodiment of the historical and naturalist focus of the group, Ophelia, in 1851–52.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner who formed a seven-member "Brotherhood" modelled in part on the Nazarene movement. The Brotherhood was only ever a loose association and their principles were shared by other artists of the time, including Ford Madox Brown, Arthur Hughes and Marie Spartali Stillman. Later followers of the principles of the Brotherhood included Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and John William Waterhouse.
Thomas Carlyle was a British essayist, historian, and philosopher from the Scottish Lowlands. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature, and philosophy.
Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator, and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Rossetti inspired the next generation of artists and writers, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones in particular. His work also influenced the European Symbolists and was a major precursor of the Aesthetic movement.
James Anthony Froude was an English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fraser's Magazine. From his upbringing amidst the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement, Froude intended to become a clergyman, but doubts about the doctrines of the Anglican church, published in his scandalous 1849 novel The Nemesis of Faith, drove him to abandon his religious career. Froude turned to writing history, becoming one of the best-known historians of his time for his History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada.
Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with the government, she broke with the suffragette leadership of her mother and sister, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. She was inspired by the Russian Revolution and consulted Lenin, but defied Moscow in endorsing a syndicalist programme of workers' control and by criticising the emerging Soviet dictatorship.
Frederic George Stephens was a British art critic, and one of the two 'non-artistic' members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London that houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world that was dedicated to portraits.
Arthur Hughes was an English painter and illustrator associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Bryan Organ is a British artist considered one of the leading and most innovative English portrait painters of the 20th century. His paintings have included portraits of prominent public figures and of members of the British royal family. Organ is also known for landscape paintings, such as St Pancras Station,, and lithographic studies of animals (Tate). London's National Portrait Gallery holds a total of sixteen of his portraits of which six were commissioned by the Gallery's Trustees.
John Ruskin is a portrait of the leading Victorian art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900). It was painted by the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais (1829–1896) during 1853–54. John Ruskin was an early advocate of the Pre-Raphaelite group of artists and part of their success was due to his efforts.
Lowes Cato Dickinson was an English portrait painter and Christian socialist. He taught drawing with John Ruskin and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He was a founder of the Working Men's College in London.
Samuel Laurence was a British portrait painter.
James Fraser (1804-1841) was a Scottish publisher, now known particularly for his association with Thomas Carlyle.
Lillian Forrester was a British suffragette who led an attack on the Manchester Art Gallery.
Ethel Wright later Ethel Bradley was a British portrait painter, illustrator and model. Wright has several paintings in British national collections and her most famous work is a portrait of the suffragette leader Christabel Pankhurst, which is in the National Portrait Gallery.
Evelyn Manesta was a British suffragette. There are few details about her birth or death but she is known for being identified as dangerous after attacking Manchester Art Gallery.
Margaret Skirving Gibb (1877–1954) was a Scottish suffragette and chess player. She was involved in several suffragette activities including slashing a portrait of one of the founders of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 1914.
Reminiscences is a book by historian and social critic Thomas Carlyle, posthumously published in 1881, which contains two lengthy memoirs of the author's wife, Jane Welsh Carlyle, and friend Edward Irving, together with shorter essays on his father and some of the literary friends of his youth. The book's emphasis primarily rests on Carlyle's relationship with the subjects. The book was begun in 1832 but mainly written in the year following Jane Carlyle's death, in April 1866. Many of its first readers were shocked by the impression it gave of a harsh, gloomy, censorious personality and of a man racked by remorse over his failings as a husband; it did Carlyle's reputation as the sage and prophet of the Victorian era lasting harm. Nevertheless, it is characterized by great vividness and accuracy of detail, and by a comparatively direct, conversational style, and has been called an autobiographical masterpiece.
A statue of Thomas Carlyle by Joseph Edgar Boehm stands in Chelsea Embankment Gardens in London. Erected in 1881 and unveiled in 1882, it stands close to 24 Cheyne Row where Carlyle lived for the last 47 years of his life. The statue became a Grade II listed building on 15 April 1969.
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