Ophelia's Travels

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Friends and Foes:
Illustrated London News, 1852

"The crowds which assemble daily round Mr. Millais' two pictures, the "Huguenot" (478) and the "Ophelia" (556), come many of them to scoff, but stop not a few of them to scrutinise and to admire; and certainly when they quit them, and look around, they find all the other pictures in the neighbourhood "killed" in comparison-not by trick or glare of chiaroscuro, but by the intensity of genuine colouring of these modem antiques. The "Ophelia," sprawling on her back in the water, though equally wonderful as a specimen of depth of co louring and minute study, is objectionable simply on the score of the absurdity of the situation. Everybody knows that if a person falls into the water backwards, the head has a tendency to sink first, that it would sink the faster if the heels were buoyed up by the clothes, or otherwise. Shakespeare says that Ophelia's "clothes spread wide," meaning around her, which would have the effect of supporting the head and shoulders for a time; but Mr. Millais has not supported the head; whilst the hands are also out of the water. The absence of the slightest ripple on the water into which the hapless heroine has just intruded her presence, and the calm chirruping of the robin-redbreast on the tree from which she has fallen, are amongst the conceits of this school which common sense cannot approve of."

The Exhibition of the Royal Academy,' Illustrated London News, 8 May 1852, pp.368-369.

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