John Everett Millais

John Everett Millais was a 19th century English painter who co-founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group that sought to bring back the extreme detail, intense color, and complex compositions of the 15th century. Millais exhibited talent early on; at age 11, he was the youngest student at the Royal Academy. His Pre-Raphaelite works are characterized by their dense detail and abundant plants and flowers surrounding the subject (see Ophelia (1851–52)). His later works abandon a characteristic style, and were largely bashed by the artistic community at the time. But Millais had found enough renown and success in his career—he was one of the wealthiest artists during his time—that he felt freedom to experiment with style and subject matter, regardless of criticism.