Millais Painting
The death of Margaret Wilson was depicted in 1862 by the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais in an illustration (shown above) for the magazine Once A Week. The magazine also reproduced the verses describing her death which are inscribed on her grave in Wigtown.
Some years later Millais revisited the subject in his painting The Martyr of Solway (1871) (shown at the left), which hangs in the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. Although the painting today shows Margaret wearing an open-neck blouse, when conservators x-rayed the piece, they found that the figure had once been a nude looking sharply to the right.
In fact the head and torso had originally formed part of Millais' 1870 painting The Knight Errant, which portrayed a naked rape victim tied to a tree. A medieval knight is depicted cutting her free, having killed her attacker. The painting received negative reviews, leading Millais to cut away the head and torso section and add a fresh piece of canvas to paint it anew, with the woman's head turned distinctly away to the left. The original figure section was added to a new canvas for the 1871 Martyr painting and was repainted with chains and the more modest blouse.
Read more about this topic: Margaret Wilson (Scottish Martyr)
Famous quotes containing the word painting:
“Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called “silent poetry,” and poetry “speaking painting.” The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)