Hayes Common, by William Henry Millais (1828-1899). 1852-53. Oil on canvas. 22 x 33 7/8 inches (55.9 x 86 cm). Collection of the Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven, Connecticut, accession no. B1975.1.17. Image courtesy of Yale Center for British Art, identified as being in the public domain.
This painting was not accepted for the Royal Academy in 1853 although his Beddington Park, Surrey was. D. G. Rossetti lamented the rejection of Hayes Common in a letter to William Bell Scott of 7 May 1853: "A very remarkable landscape by W. Millais, brother of John, is rejected" (Rossetti, letter 53.29, 254). Earlier that same year Rossetti had praised William's landscapes in a letter of 1 January 1853 to Thomas Woolner: "And here is William Millais, who has just done some landscapes worthy of almost anyone except his brother" (Rossetti, letter 53.1, 222). The previous year William's The Rookery, Worcester Park Farm, Surrey had been accepted at the Royal Academy, where William Michael Rossetti commented on this and other Pre-Raphaelite landscapes included in this exhibition: "In landscape art, as well as in subjects, Pre-Raphaelitism is visibly making its way; exemplified here by the scrupulous literality of Mr. Collins's [C. A. Collins] May, in the Regent's Park – an excellent little slice of nature – park nature – in its way; by Mr. Inchbold's [J. W. Inchbold] very nice Study of a tree-stump and scattered autumn leaves… [and] by The Rookery, Worcester Park Farm, Surrey of Mr. W.H. Millais – whose easy and complete management of a small subject, and truth of aspect, promise first-rate things when practice shall have developed the artist's powers, and among them that of representing solidity of form" (593).
Hayes Common proved to be one of the most ambitious of Millais's works done at a time when he was still painting in oils before he turned to working almost exclusively in watercolour. The painting was begun in the summer of 1852 when William was staying with his brother John at the George Inn, near Bromley, then a market town in Kent just southeast of London. J. G. Millais recalled this particular time period when his father was working on the background for The Proscribed Royalist:
Having found a suitable background in a little wood near Hayes, in Kent, he commenced the picture in June, 1852, and from this date till the end of the year his home seems to have been alternately at Waddon, Gower Street, and the little "George Inn" at Bromley, kept by Mr. Vidler. Most of this time seems to have been spent at the inn, which was within easy reach of the scene he had selected; near also to the big trees on Coney Hall Hill, where still stands the giant oak that he painted in the foreground of the picture, and is now known as the "Millais Oak." [165]
Two details from the painting. Left: The ferns and the lower part of the tree-trunk, showing the texture of the bark. Right: The little girl, possibly added by John Everett Millais.
The brothers were painting in close proximity to each other at that time which may lend support to the speculation that John may have added the figure of the girl to William's painting (Cummer Gallery, 10). Both the Millais brothers included the large oak tree, seen to the left in William's painting, in their compositions. In J. E. Millais's The Proscribed Royalist of 1852-53 the tree had been incorporated into the far right of the composition. This ancient oak was located on Hayes Common, formerly the wasteland of the Manor of Baston, which gained legal protection against enclosure in 1869. What remains of Hayes Common is now closely connected with West Wickham Common, a woodland area that still exists as a nature reserve in the London Borough of Bromley.
Allen Staley felt William's painting did not resemble the work of his brother, despite being painted in comparable Pre-Raphaelite detail, but stays within the conventions of an earlier Victorian landscape tradition: "But the view is more spacious and the composition and imagery are more like older artists such as Richard Redgrave or W. H. Witherington than John Everett Millais of the 1850s" (150). The magnificent oak tree is reminiscent of the one portrayed in Samuel Palmer's watercolour Oak Trees, Lullingstone Park, Kent of 1828, now in the National Gallery of Canada.
The two works produced by the Millais brothers at this time are a good reflection of both their various talents and ambitions. As J. G. Millais remarked about his father and uncle and their personalities:
His brother William was exceedingly clever, but without the same application and industry. As a young man he possessed a remarkably fine tenor voice… [He] sang because he loved it, and painted for the same reason, becoming ultimately well known as a water-colour landscape artist. His unselfish admiration for my father knew no bounds; he was always helping and taking care of his younger and more delicate brother, and did much by his cheery optimism and consummate tact to alleviate the hard knocks and petty worries that assailed the young painter whilst struggling to make a name. [8-9]
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Bibliography
Artists of Victoria's England. Jacksonville, Florida: Cummer Gallery of Art, 1965, cat. 41, 10.
Cormack, Malcolm. Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for British Art, 1985, 160-161.
Hayes Common. Yale Cetre for British Art. YCBA. Web. 12 November 2024.
Millais, John Guille. The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1899.
Payne, Christiana. Silent Witnesses: Trees in British Art, 1760-1870. Bristol: Sansom & Co., Bristol, fig. 88, 164.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Formative Years I. 1835-1854. Edited by William E. Fredeman. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002, letters 53.1, 222 and 53.29, 254.
Staley, Allen. The Pre-Raphaelite Landscape. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973, 150.
Created 12 November 2024