An English painter and one of the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848).
The initial formation of the P.R.B. occured at Millais' home on 83 Gower Street in London. There in the fall of 1848 some of England's "young knights of art" including, Dante Rossetti, William Rossetti, William Holman-Hunt and Millais were looking at engravings by Carlo Lasinio illustrating the frescoes found at the Campo Santo in Pisa, Italy. The found the form of this art inspiring and in great contrast to the prevailing aesthetic preached in the art schools of London.
Millais was something of a prodigy having gone to art school at the age of 11. He met William Holman-Hunt at the Royal Academy school of art and through Hunt, Millais met Dante and William Rossetti. Millais had already achieved some success as a painter before his association with the P.R.B. His involvement with the Brotherhood would help him apply his considerable skill in painting to a more liberated sense of form and perspective and use of color.
Millais' first "Pre-Raphaelite" work, was "Lorenzo and Isabella". Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1849 it is derived from Keats' Isabella, or The Pot of Basil. The story is a sad tale of love lost and decapitated. The brothers will kill Lorenzo to put a stop to his affair with their sister. They have grander and more pecuniary desires for her. Isabella discovers Lorenzo's body in a shallow grave but she isn't strong enough to carry it back home so she cuts off the head. She places the head in a bowl and disguises it by planting basil in the vessel. Millais' painting depicts a meal Lorenzo is having with Isabella and her brothers before the murder.
Many of the characters appearing in the painting were friends of the painter including Dante and William Rossetti (William is Lorenzo, while Dante is in the back on the right drinking). This use of friends as models in their work is a distinctive feature of the Pre-Raphaelites.
