PRE-RAPHAELITE ARTISTS TRANSPOSING SHAKESPEARE’S … › ldmd › LDMD-05 › Lit › Lit 05 37.pdf · painting. Text and image are mixed by Hughes in a manner that expresses a

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Section: Literature

PRE-RAPHAELITE ARTISTS TRANSPOSING SHAKESPEARE’S OPHELIA

Lavinia Hulea Lecturer, PhD, University of Petroșani

Abstract: In the context of the preference manifested by the Victorian painters for Shakespeareřs

work, the character of Ophelia gradually became a highly exploited subject, which resulted in a

series of paintings that were hosted by the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, almost on a regular basis. Despite concomitant or subsequent paintings that treated the tragic figure of Ophelia,

Millaisřs version, which has been accredited to represent the scene where the young woman,

maddened by the death of her father, Polonius, murdered by Hamlet, her lover, drowned herself in

a stream, was quite unusual, at the time, and is considered to have singularly expressed the themes of love, death, youth and beauty as pervasive of both the art and life.The literary source

text that Hughes had in mind when he embarked on painting his Ophelia is the same as the one

referred to by Millais (act IV, scene 7). Yet, the conversion of the source text engages changes that substantiate an artistic product which hardly asserts an identity resemblance to Millaisřs

painting. Text and image are mixed by Hughes in a manner that expresses a conversion of the

character that is obviously different from the work of the Pre-Raphaelite founder.

Keywords: Pre-Raphaelites, transposition, reversed-ekphrasis, source text, target text

Ophelia (1851-2) by John Everett Millais

Millaisřs version of Ophelia, which has been accredited to represent the scene

where the young woman, maddened by the death of her father, Polonius, murdered by

Hamlet, her lover, drowned herself in a stream, was quite unusual, at the time, and is

considered to have singularly expressed the themes of love, death, youth and beauty as

pervasive of both the art and life.

While the sequence of Shakespeareřs play, to which Millais is supposed to refer,

might impose certain restrictions regarding its staging, which would require a highly

elaborated set, it, nonetheless, appears to be more suited for visual art renderings that

transpose both the character of Ophelia and the natural imagery contained by the

fragment. Although in Hamlet, the heroine is attributed a less important part, being

mentioned in five scenes out of twenty, the painter appears to have heightened her status

through an interpretation, which pertains to the characterřs iconicity.



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John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851-2, Tate, London, United Kingdom

Millaisřs transposition of the Shakespearean text, carried out through the process

of reversed ekphrasis, involves the literary source text, which is transposed into the visual

target text, owing to a trichotomous process that comprises: the linear readingof the

source text, performed by the painter before the making of the visual art work,

theconversionof the literary text, carried out as a destabilizationof the literary source text;

and thesubstantiation of the conversion, which, not only involves new and subjective

temporal and spatial casts, but also implies the concomitant operation, owing to which the

painting is ingrained with pictoriality, representing the scarcely definable quality that

turns a non-artistic product into a work of art; pictoriality also gives the measure of the

effectiveness of the process of reversed ekphrasis, while pointing to the stylistic identity

of the visual target text and its raking within the category of art.

The paintersř reading of a literary text they intend to transpose into visual art

works may, at times, come out owing to autobiographies, personal correspondence or

public self-references that are indicative of the creation process; moreover, other indirect,

circumstantial data frequently put forward the intertextual evidence of the target text.

The circumstances revealing the manner according to which Millais brought the

character of Ophelia into being point out Millais spending almost four exhausting months,

between July and October 1851, painting the landscape on the bank of the River

Hogsmill, at Ewell, in Surrey. The artist confessed that he used to wake up at 6 in the

morning, in order to start working at around 8 ořclock and would return home only by 7

p.m., complaining about a series of issues he had to face while painting outdoors:

ŖMy martyrdom is more trying than I have hitherto experienced. The flies of

Surrey are more muscular, and have a still greater propensity for probing human flesh… I

am threatened with a notice to appear before a magistrate for trespassing in a field and

destroying the hay…am also in danger of being blown by the wind into the water, and



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becoming intimate with the feelings of Ophelia when that Lady sank to muddy death,

together with the (less likely) total disappearance, through the voracity of the flies…

certainly the painting of a picture under such circumstances would be a greater

punishment to a murderer than hanging…ŗ (Millais, 1899: 119-20)

The figure of Elizabeth Siddal was added to the picture only in December, when

the artist brought the painting to London.

As far as the stage of conversionis concerned, I should notice that Millaisřs

paintingdisplays an apparently faithful rendition of the Shakespearean text as it sets out to

recreate imaginatively the lines where Gertrude informs Laertes of Opheliařs death, with

the young woman picking flowers and supposedly falling into the river and finally

drowning while singing:

ŖQueen:

…; - your sisterřs drownřd, Laertes.

Laertes:

Drownřd! O, where?

Queen:

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;

There with fantastic garlands did she come

Of crow Ŕ flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do dead menřs fingers call them:

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:

Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,

As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and induřd

Unto that element: but long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pullř d the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.ŗ

(Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, act IV, scene 7: 200)

Nonetheless, it is important to observe that Opheliařs drowning is rendered by

the playřs text indirectly, through Gertrudeřs words before the court and, when uttering

them, the queen appears to share someone elseřs account of the events and attributes the

drowning to accidental causes (produced by an Ŗenvious sliverŗ). Meanwhile, the next

scene displaying the discussion between the men digging Opheliařs grave, may suggest

that the young woman might have indeed committed suicide, despite her being buried as a

person having died out of an ordinary death:

Ŗ1 Clown:

Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she willfully

seeks her own salvation?

2 Clown:

I tell thee she is; and therefore make her grave straight: the

crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.

1 Clown:



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How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

2 Clown:

Why, Řtis found so.

1 Clown:

It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies

the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an

act hath three branches: it is to act, to do, and to perform:

argal, she drowned herself wittingly.

…

Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the

man; good: if the man go to this water and drowns himself, it is,

will he, nill he, he goes, -mark you that; but if the water come

to him and drown him, he drowns not himself; argal, he that is

not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.ŗ

(Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, act V, scene 1: 2000)

In the case of Millaisřs Ophelia, conversion occurs through a destabilisationof

the source text. Theclaim that the reversed ekphrastic process does not involve a

reframingof the source text is grounded on a reasoning which supports the idea that

Millaisřs visual target text converts, in fact, an absent scene, the moment of Opheliařs

drowning, which is turned into a purely subjective and mental construction operated by

the painter, who, in the absence of the playwrightřs direct rendition of the characterřs

death, builds up a particular, physical, yet intuitive, appearance of Ophelia. Shakespeareřs

Ophelia is, in truth, Millaisřs Ophelia, despite the amount of landscape detail, which is

rigorously transcribed from Shakespeareřs text. Millais observes closely the intricate

scenery of a scene that does not exist in the play, but is only mediated through an indirect

description (Gertrudeřs), which does not bear the authorřs validation. The conversion

reveals here a problematic functioning that might question the effectiveness of a

separation between reframing and destabilisation. If, on the one hand, the abundant details

may induce the level of reframing, on the other one, the moment chosen by the painter,

indirectly presented by the literary text, strongly claims for the level of destabilization,

which forcefully replaces the gap in the play (the drowning scene).

As far as the stage of the substantiation of the conversion is concerned, it includes

the painterřs handling of pictoriality, which should not be analyzed as a separate phase of

the process of reversed ekphrasis; instead, it has to be perceived as a quality that pervades

the whole process, beginning with the moment the painter engages in interpreting the

source text; it spreads through the spatial and temporal pattern of the painting, the

accuracy of the details, the drawing and the use of colour, inscribing the target text within

a stylistic pattern, and finally within the category of art.

In accordance with the above considerations, a most striking element in Millaisřs

conversion of the literary text is a flourishing of minute natural detail: the willow that

grows Ŗaslantŗ the brook, the branches entangling with a nettle, a robin that rests on a

branch, which might be a reminder of the Ŗbonny Sweet Robinŗ in Opheliařs song, two

scenes before (act 4, scene 5). The bank of the river is dotted with dog roses, while

another one rests by Opheliařs cheek; a pink rose by the hem of the heroineřs dress may

suggest a connection with the appellation Laertes had given to Ophelia, when calling her

the Ŗrose of May.ŗ

It may be assumed that the painter intended to establish subtle links between the

vegetal realm and the human one through emphasizing its conversion in terms of

symbolic signs capable of transmitting meanings charged with connotations. Part of the



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flowers included in the painting are mentioned by the source text, while others were

introduced for their symbolic allusion: the upper right-hand corner of the canvas displays

purple loosestrife that might suggest the Ŗlong purplesŗ of Gertrudeřs speech, while

daisies are known as the embodiment of innocence. Opheliařs neck is encircled by violets

that could be interpreted as the ones that Ŗwithered all when my father diedŗ and are

carriers of connotations of both death and of chastity and faithfulness.

Besides the above mentioned vegetal elements, Millais also painted a series of

flowers, which the literary source text does not contain: forget-me-nots, introduced

halfway up the figure, on the right and bottom left, whose name are deeply suggestive, the

poppy, which may stand for a symbol of death. This complex vegetal imagery together

with the heroineřs clothes, which also exhibit a sophisticated flower pattern, may be

encompassed within the context of the Pre-Raphaelite rendering of women figures that are

often considered passive and fragile.

Various meanings are given to the robin in the willow tree, which is supposed to

stand for a line of the song Ophelia sings while losing her mind, in Act IV, Scene 5 (ŖFor

bonny sweet Robin is all my joyŗ), to suggest the characterřs parting spirit or to have been

chosen by the artist Ŗfor its red breast. Red is traditionally the colour of martyrdom

(deriving from the Catholic Church), bearing connotations of spilled blood and thus death.

These associations are made more dramatic because it is difficult to spot the bird in the

undergrowth, save for its red breast which provides a startling colour note of scarlet

amidst all the brown. In the summer, robins, male and female, are fighting for territory

and finding mates. Perhaps Millaisřs use of the lone robin is a reference to Opheliařs

abandonment by Hamlet, which leads to her death?ŗ (Virag, 2014: 1)

The colours of the natural environment, of the human figure, and of Opheliařs

dress observe the characteristics of the Pre-Raphaelite painting making use of bright

colours painted on a wet white ground and the imprint of naturalness pairs the imminent

and final absorption of the human element by nature. Water rendering appears to imprint a

smooth movement to the character that immerses in a floral and vegetal environment,

which is wild and calm at the same time, as the passing-away occurs quietly, with no

signs of violence.

Millaisřs Ophelia seems euphoric at the very moment of her drowning, her lips

slightly parted, while still singing, and her eyes void of conscious expression; her hands,

in a gesture that does not transmit the fear of death, may express the embracing of death

as a new afterlife. The conversion, unlike the literary text, seems to have purified the

character: no mud touches Opheliařs dress and no dirt can be seen on her fingernails.

Although there are various accounts of the manner the figure of Elizabeth Siddal

impersonating Ophelia was introduced into the painting (the model had been posing for

almost four months, in a bath full of water, which had to be warmed owing to several

lamps that were placed beneath the bathtub; nevertheless, she caught a severe cold on one

occasion, when the lamps did not function and the painter was threatened with legal suit

by Elizabethřs father, in case he did not pay for her treatment), the picture does not appear

to have in view the description of a specific woman, and mainly represents the rendition

of women as tragic heroines.

Ultimately, the fate of the Shakespearean character has come to be compared

with that of the woman who posed for Ophelia, Elizabeth Siddal, whose early death and

involvement in romantic love paralleled the life of the fictional heroine.

Ophelia (1852) by Arthur Hughes



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According to a commentary appeared in The Art Journal (1865: 332), Arthur

Hughes was considered to deserve the place which Ruskin attributed to him when

speaking of the painter as a main representative of the Pre-Raphaelite school. And the

author of the article goes further in citing Ruskinřs considerations, mentioning that, while

various Ŗwriters and amateursŗ attached no value to the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites,

nonetheless, the artists proved their serious thinking in noteworthy, brilliant renderings,

displaying a style that should become better known.

The style referred to, which appears to range amidst the two extreme poles

nominated as ŖPre-Raffaelitism naturalŗ and ŖPre-Raffaelitism unnaturalŗ, is seen as

relying on audienceřs capabilities of better understanding an art that rather stresses the

naturalistic vein than purely ideal art: Ŗbut the ill-drawn, thin, attenuated figure, having no

form of comeliness nor personal beauty, excites only the surprise or ridicule of the many,

whatever meaning the artist intends it to convey.ŗ

The article subsequently stresses Hughesř capacity of having given a balanced

painting, Ophelia, whose artistic merits not only match its title, but turns it into a pleasant

work of art where Ŗevery blade of grass, every leaf and flower, are given with the most

exquisite delicacy and the most scrupulous fidelity, and yet there appears no overstrained

elaboration, while the colour of all is very rich and brilliant, both in the gradations of

green verdure, and in the twilight sky, now deepening in the horizon into the intensest

purple.ŗ

Arthur Hughes was 19 years old when he painted Ophelia,which had been

exhibited in the same year (1852) and by the same art establishment, the Royal Academy,

as Huntřs Ophelia; yet, it appears that, except for the positive considerations in The Art

Journal, at the time, the painting was neither over talked about nor acclaimed.

Arthur Hughes, Ophelia, 1852, Manchester City Art Gallery, United Kingdom

The literary source text, from Shakespeareřs Hamlet, that Hughes had in mind

when he embarked on painting, is the same as the one referred to by Millais (act IV, scene

7), and Queen Gertrudeřs speech in the play, rendering Opheliařs death, is partially

written on the frame. Yet, although the conversion of the source text occurs through

destabilization, owing to the fact that it refers to a scene, which is only indirectly



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displayed in the play, mediated by Gertrude, and unconfirmed by the playwright himself,

as in the case of Millaisřs Ophelia, it engages changes that substantiate an artistic product,

which hardly asserts an identity resemblance to Millaisřs painting. Text and image are

mixed by Hughes in a manner that expresses a conversion of the character that is

obviously different from the work of the Pre-Raphaelite founder (John Everett Millais).

In order to substantiatehis conversion and infuse the target with pictoriality, the

painter resorted to a series of pattern devices that account for the spatial and temporal cast

displayed by the image. Accordingly, the top left part of the frame containing the lines:

Ŗ[...] There/ with fantastic garlands/ did she come. Of crow-flowers/ nettles, /daisiesŗ,

channels the viewerřs sight to a visual point of interest, consisting in the crow-flowers,

possibly a symbol of childhood, whose vivid yellow establishes an unnatural, because

death-inducing, contrast with the darkened water. Hughes has been reproached that he

deliberately left aside the lines: ŖThat liberal shepherds give a grosser name, / But our

cold maids do dead menřs fingers call themŗ (Showalter, 1987: 90), which do not appear

on the paintingřs frame and, accordingly, induce an interpretation of Ophelia as a Ŗtiny

waiflike creature Ŕ a sort of Tinker-Bell Ophelia Ŕ in a filmy white gown, perched on a

tree trunk by the stream. The overall effect is softened, sexless, and hazy, although the

straw in her hair resembles a crown of thorns.ŗ

Gertrudeřs lines refer to the purple loosestrife flowers or the Ŗlong purplesŗ,

which do appear inscribed on the top right part of the frame; Hughesř omission of the

lines cited previously may be interpreted as a manner of avoiding possible sexual

connotations that would alter the implied vision of a sexually-innocent Ophelia. The

painterřs manipulation of the source text during the reversed ekphrasis process, occurring

as a destabilisation, performs significant changes, which become the carriers of new

meanings activated by the stage of conversionřs substantiation.

The painter placed his character on the trunk of a tree, watching the stream,

surrounded by overgrown plants; as a background, an open field with some trees and an

uncertain sunset. The water in front of Ophelia is barely perceptible behind the wild

vegetation and a bat appears to fly towards the viewer while the overall shading of the

picture, carefully designed, creates the illusion of depth. Opheliařs figure may be

interpreted as bearing the imprint of an alienated soul, as she sits at the edge of the brook,

with a crown of reeds in her hair, glaring at the flowers she drops in the water. Her skin is

disturbingly pale, contrasting with the red lips and the dark, shadowy circles round her

eyes, even more heightened by the white gown she wears.

The visual representations of Shakespeareřs Ophelia are not the invention of the

nineteenth-century artists; before them, Shakespeareřs works had been focused upon by a

series of illustrators, and the engraver and publisher, John Boydell, set out to produce an

illustrated edition of his plays, as well as a folio of prints, whose sources had been the

illustrations or paintings of the epochřs artists which included: George Romney, Benjamin

West, Angelica Kauffman, Richard Westall, Thomas Stothard, Henry Fuseli, Robert

Smirke, John Opie, Francesco Bartolozzi, Thomas Kirk, Henry Thomson, Josiah Boydell,

and William Hamilton. Letřs also notice that Richard Westallřs (1765 Ŕ 1836) Ophelia,

engraved by J. Parker, for Boydellřs illustrated edition of Shakespeare, rendering the

heroine marching inevitably towards the water, displayed a pose that might relate to

subsequent Pre-Raphaelite works. Despite such facts, the Pre-Raphaelite artists, who set

out to paint Shakespearean characters Ŕ Ophelia, for instance - not only recreated them

according to new visual terms, but, in doing this, they materialized their own image of

women as icons.



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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Art Journal. 1865. ŖTalbot and the Countess of Auvergneŗ. Hathi Trust Digital

Library, version of a copy in the University of Michigan Library.

http://www.hathitrust.org/.

Millais, John Everett. 1984. The Pre-Raphaelites. Tate Gallery. London.

Millais, John, Guille. 1899. The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais. 2 vols.

Methuen & Co., London. https://archive.org/stream/lifelettersofsir01millais.

Mitchell, William, John, Thomas. 1994. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and

Visual Representation. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Mitchell, William, John, Thomas. 1986. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology.

University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Prettejohn, Elisabeth. 2007. The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites. Tate Publishing,

London.

Prettejohn, Elisabeth. 1999. After the Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Aestheticism in

Victorian England. ManchesterUniversity Press, Manchester.

Ruskin, John. 1851. ŖThe Pre-Raphaelitesŗ, in Suppliment to The Times.

Exhibition of the RoyalAcademy: First Notice. London. www.rossettiarchive.org

Ruskin, John. 1851. ŖThe Pre-Raphaelitesŗ, in Suppliment to The Times.

Exhibition of the RoyalAcademy: Second Notice.London. www.rossettiarchive.org

Ruskin, John. 1851. ŖNoteŗ in The Times, 30 May, London.

www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_critic/LT30may5.

Ruskin, John. 1904. ŖAcademy notes 1855 Ŕ 1888ŗ, in Library Edition

of the Works of John Ruskin. Edited by E.T.Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, George

Allen, London, Longmans, Gree, and Co., New York.

http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/depts/ruskinlib/Academy.

Shakespeare, William. 2000. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Collins

edition, London. www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/2ws2610.pdf.

Showalter, Elaine. 1987. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English

Culture 1830-1980. Virago Press, London.

Virag, Rebecca. 2014. ŖWork in Focus: Millaisřs Ophelia 1851-52ŗ,

London. www.tate.org.uk.

http://www.hathitrust.org/

https://archive.org/stream/lifelettersofsir01millais

http://www.rossettiarchive.org/

http://www.rossettiarchive.org/

http://www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_critic/LT30may5

http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/depts/ruskinlib/Academy

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/2ws2610.pdf

http://www.tate.org.uk/

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PRE-RAPHAELITE ARTISTS TRANSPOSING SHAKESPEARE’S … › ldmd › LDMD-05 › Lit › Lit 05 37.pdf · painting. Text and image are mixed by Hughes in a manner that expresses a