Изабелла

In 1848 a handful of young London art students formed a secret brotherhood and swore to paint the world with fanatical honesty, against everything the Royal Academy taught. This was the first picture they showed the public, in 1849, and Millais was only 19. The story comes from a Keats poem about a girl whose brothers murder the man she loves. Millais crowds them all around a dinner table and fills it with clues to what is coming. One brutal brother kicks out at her greyhound, his leg shooting straight across the front of the scene. A spilled dish of salt sits near his plate. On the balcony rail, a passion flower hints at the suffering ahead. Every colour is pushed hard and lit flat, with almost no shadow, exactly as the brotherhood intended.