The Order of Release by John Everett Millais (Interpretation and Analysis)

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The Order of Release
Source: Wikimedia Commons
I’ve decided that this is going to be the unofficial week of John Everett Millais on this blog. As a painter and as a person, I find Millais to be particularly interesting.

Throughout his long and storied career, Millais explored and experimented with different approaches and types of painting. However, he is probably most famous as a Pre-Raphaelite artist. Later in his career, other artists and art critics would say that he abandoned his Pre-Raphaelite convictions for financial success as a more commercial painter. In my opinion, however, this change in his style was occasioned by growing maturity and a desire to expand his artistic horizons.

The Order of Release was one of Millais’ early masterpieces, painted during his early career when he was still closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement. The Pre-Raphaelites espoused realism and tended to gravitate towards serious subjects, which were often imbued with rich symbolism. Although many Pre-Raphaelite paintings tended to be inspired by the Medieval age, literature, or religion, Millais eventually began to venture into painting more modern subjects.

The Order of Release depicts an imagined scene from the Jacobite rising of 1745. During this conflict, Charles Stuart (the grandson of King James II, who was himself deposed) attempted to invade England and depose King George II. Many Scots backed his claim, but their armies were eventually defeated at the Battle of Culloden. The painting depicts one such defeated Scottish soldier being released from an English prison.

The piece captures the exact moment of his reunion with his family. Here, we see the soldier embracing his wife as she hands the titular “order of release” to the prison guard. Millais’ future wife, Effie Gray, modeled for the face of the wife in the painting; and it seems that she was a source of particular inspiration for Millais. Compositionally, The Order of Release revolves around the figure of the wife. She is depicted as a pillar of strength for her family; her husband, child, and even the family’s dog all lean on her. Yet, she is also the most detached figure in the painting. While her husband seems to be overcome by emotion, the wife’s expression is alert and conscious as she hands over the order of release. For some reason or another, she seems to be unconnected with all the action around her.

The tension and contrast in this little family is what makes the painting interesting. Viewers could easily be tempted to imagine a backstory for the figures and to picture the trials and tribulations they have undergone. Yet, It is important to remember that, by the time Millais created the painting, the rebellion was one hundred years in the past. From such a great distance, it is easy to narrativize and romanticize fraught and traumatic events. Despite, Millais refuses to make The Order of Release an easy painting to view. It is not simply a happy family reunion; it contains layers of symbolism and emotional complexity that take time and thought to decipher.
 
It is said that the painting was so popular when it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy that police officers had to be placed in front of The Order of Release to keep the crowds moving. It certainly captured the public imagination in 1853, and it has lost little of its emotional power today.

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