Bowerswell House, Kinnoul, Kinnoull, Perth, Perthshire, Scotland, British Isles [Map]

The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais V1 Chapter 8. [October 1858] After this visit he went off shooting and fishing, as usual, for a couple of months, and on his return to Bowerswell [Map] he nearly finished the "Apple Blossoms," and commenced (in October) "The Vale of Rest."

Here my mother's note-book again proves helpful as an illustration of his life and work at this period; interesting, too, as a reflection of her own views on the only subject on which they were at variance. As a strict Presbyterian she greatly disliked his working on Sundays, as he often did when the painting fever was strong upon him; and her entries on this subject are at once quaint and characteristic. She writes: "Mr. Millais exhibited no pictures in 1858. He began a last picture of a Crusader's return, and stuck, after five months' hard labour. I was much averse to his painting every Sunday, and thought no good would come of it, as he took no rest, and hardly proper time for his meals. He made no progress, only getting into a greater mess; so when spring came we were thankful to pack up the picture and go to Scotland. Here he occupied himself on his ' Spring' apple blossoms picture, but did not set vigorously to work till the autumn. This winter [1858] he has achieved an immensity of work, and I attribute his success greatly to his never working on Sunday all this year. I will describe his pictures of this year in order, and begin with the Nuns ('The Vale of Rest '), which, like all his best works, was executed in a surprisingly short space of time.

"It had long been Millais' intention to paint a picture with nuns in it, the idea first occurring to him on our wedding tour in 1855. On descending the hill by Loch Awe, from Inverary, he was extremely struck with its beauty, and the coachman told us that on one of the islands there were the ruins of a monastery. We imagined to ourselves the beauty of the picturesque features of the Roman Catholic religion, and transported ourselves, in idea, back to the times before the Reformation had torn down, with bigoted zeal, all that was beautiful from antiquity, or sacred from the piety or remorse of the founders of old ecclesiastical buildings in this country. The abbots boated and fished in the loch, the vesper bell pealed forth the ' Ave Maria ' at sundown, and the organ notes of the Virgin's hymn were carried by the water and transformed into a sweeter melody, caught up on the hillside and dying away in the blue air. We pictured, too, white-robed nuns in boats, singing- on the water in the quiet summer evenings, and chanting holy songs, inspired by the loveliness of the world around them ....

"Millais said he was determined to paint nuns some day, and one night this autumn, being greatly impressed with the beauty of the sunset (it was the end ot October), he rushed for a large canvas, and began at once upon it, taking for background the wall of our garden at Bowerswell, with the tall oaks and poplar trees behind it. The sunsets were lovely for two or three nights, and he dashed the work in, softening it afterwards in the house, making it, I thought, even less purple and gold than when he saw it in the sky. The effect lasted so short a time that he had to paint like lightning.

"It was about the end of October, and he got on very rapidly with the trees and worked every afternoon, patiently and faithfully, at the poplar and oak trees of the background until November, when the leaves had nearly all fallen. He was seated very conveniently for his work just outside our front door, and, indeed, the principal part of the picture, excepting where the tombstones come, is taken from the terrace and shrubs at Bowerswell."

The background of "The Vale of Rest" remains very much to-day what it was when Millais painted it. A few of the old trees are gone, but there are the same green terraces, and the same sombre hedges; there, too, is the corner of the house which, under the artist's hands, appeared as an ivy-covered chapel. The grave itself he painted from one freshly made, in Kinnoull churchyard; and much amused he was by the impression he made while working there. Close by lived two queer old bachelors who, in Perth, went by the names of "Sin" and "Misery." They watched him intently as he painted away day by day amongst the tombs without even stopping for refreshment, and after the hrst day they came to the conclusion 'that he made his living by portraying the graves of deceased persons. So they goodnaturedly brought him a glass of wine and cake every day, and said what they could by way of consolation for the hardships of his lot.

The rest of the tale is thus told by my mother: — "The graveyard portion was painted some months later, in the very cold weather, and the wind often threatened to knock the frame over. The sexton kept him company, made a grave for him, and then, for comfort's sake, kept a good fire in the dead-house. There Millais smoked his pipe, ate his lunch, and warmed himself."

It is always interesting to hear from artists who have painted a successful picture, how and under what circumstances it was done. One man will tell you that his work was the inspiration of a moment, and the whole thing was dashed off in a few days, maybe a few hours — as was Landseer's " Sleeping Bloodhound." Another has, perhaps, spent months or years on some great work; it has been painted, repainted, altered a hundred times, and then not satisfied the painter. Again, an unsatisfactory pose of a figure has often driven a conscientious artist to the verge of insanity. And this was the case with the figure of the woman digging in "The Vale of Rest." I have heard my mother say she never had such a time in her life as when my father was painting that woman.

Everything was perfect in the picture except this wretched female, and nothing would induce her to go right. Every day for seven weeks he painted and repainted her, with the result that the figure was worse than ever, and he was almost distracted.

My mother then proceeded to hatch a plot with my grandmother to steal the picture! This was skilfully effected one day when he had left his work for a few hours. The two arch-plotters took it between them and carried it into a wine-cellar, where it was securely locked up.

When the painter returned to work and found his treasure gone he was, of course, in a dreadful state of mind, and on discovering the trick that had been played him, he tried every means to make them give it up to him; but this they steadfastly refused to do. Here then was a predicament! For some days he would settle to nothing, and the model, who received good payment, would insist on coming every day and sitting in the kitchen, saying that she was engaged till the picture was finished. The situation at last became comic — Millais furious, the conspirators placid, smiling, but firm, and the model immovable.

At last he was persuaded to set to work on some watercolour replicas of "The Huguenot" and "The Heretic," for Mr. Gambart, and as he became interested in them he gradually calmed down. When the picture was eventually returned to him, he saw at a glance where his mistake lay, and in a few hours put everything right.

My uncle William tells an amusing story about this, which is worth repeating in his own words: — "Millais, as everyone knows, had the greatest power in the realistic rendering of all objects that came under his brush, and the veriest tyro could not fail to recognise at a glance the things that he painted. I remember, however, a case in which the power was not recognised; in fact, the objects painted failed to convey the faintest notion of what they were intended to represent. An old Scotchman, after looking at 'The Vale of Rest' for some time, said to my brother in my hearing, 1 Well, the picture 's all well enough, but there 's something I don't like.' My brother, who was always ready to listen to any criticism, said, 'What don't you like? Speak out, don't be afraid!'

"'Well,' said he, 'I don't like the idea of water in a grave.' 'Water in a grave?' said my brother. 'Well, there it is, plain enough ' (pointing to a mattock),' pouring into the grave.' He had actually mistaken the sheen of a steel mattock for a jet of water, and the handle for a bridge across the grave. This was too good a story not to be passed round, and it was told on the occasion of the picture being privately exhibited at the Langham Chambers, just before being sent to the Royal Academy. There was a good assemblage of people, and amongst them, though unrecognised, the old gentleman himself. The story was told with great gusto by John Leech (in my presence), and a roar of laughter followed, coupled with the words, 'What an old ass he must have been!' Whereupon the old gentleman sprang up from the sofa and said, 'I'm the verra man myself It was honest of him, to say the least."

Mr. M. H. Spielmann, who has carefully studied Millais' works, says of it:— "This picture I have always felt to be one of the greatest and most impressive ever painted in England; one in which the sentiment is not mawkish, nor the tragedy melodramatic — a picture to look at with hushed voice and bowed head; in which the execution is not overwhelmed by the story; in which the story is emphasised by the composition; and in which the composition is worthy of the handling."

"This is the year Mr. Millais gave forth those terrible nuns in the graveyard": thus Mr. Punch characterised the year 1859.¹ Even Ruskin, denouncing the methods, and admitting (unjustly) the ugliness and "frightfulness " of the figures, was constrained to allow it nobility of horror, if horror it was, and the greatness of the touching sentiment. His charge of crudeness in the painting no longer holds good. Time — that grand Old Master to which Millais did homage in act and word — has done the work the artist intended him to do; and I venture to think that in the New Gallery of British Art there will be no more impressive, no more powerful work than that which shocked the Art world of 1859.

In 1862 Millais saw how he could improve the face of the nun that is seated at the head of the grave, so he had the picture in his studio for a week, and repainted the head from a Miss Lane.

Note 1. The Times was this year favourable, and acknowledged "The Vale of Rest" as a work of merit.