In 1848, Millais created this work based on various literary sources, producing mixed responses at the time. Criticism was aimed mainly at the artist's disregard for academic convention. However more recently, Julie F. Codell so accurately described Millais' Isabella as a work defined by physiognomy, where facial features and gestures can determine a person's inner, true character.
The foil to Isabella's delicacy, politeness and gentleness is her brother. Sitting opposite her and dressed in menacing red, his face is twisted and contorted in anger at the realisation of this love affair before his eyes. The body is strained and clenched, from the hands that grip the nutcracker to the snarling jaw and bared teeth. Isabella's brother in fact becomes more animalistic than even the calm greyhound that obediently sits at her feet. Most impressive by Millais, however, is his capturing of the straining muscles of Isabella's brother, as he reaches out his right leg to kick the dog. Stretching to his limits, even the chair is lifted off its back legs as he desperately attempts to inch closer. Millais has used the white tights to emphasise movement - the lifted left foot exposes the bulging calf muscle, whilst the material catches around the flat right knee and heel of the right foot that points with one final stretch towards Isabella. Whilst she remains a figure of composure, her dress elegantly folding around her thin body which bends pleasantly forward, her brother's pose is full of jarring angles, down to the point of his chin reflected in his foot. His scheming is already evident from his gestures and facial characteristics alone.
Millais continues his study of real people and objects around the table. The blood orange that Isabella and her lover share seems to be a warning of the bitter realities of love. The majolica plate below them contains a biblical scene of decapitation, perhaps Judith and Holofernes, which foreshadows the death of Isabella's lover and the subsequent tale of the Pot of Basil, another popular subject among Pre-Raphaelite artists. Millais has also depicted a wealth of textures with extreme realism, from the slightly frayed tablecloth to the thicker napkin that the gentleman at the centre of the table delicately wipes his face with. Or, the rich fur of the cape that drapes down the villain's back. Or even the wood on the bench which Isabella sits on, carved with the monogram of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Within the busyness of the scene, Millais still has time to celebrate his newly found artistic community at this relatively early stage in his career.
Whilst Isabella and her brother seem to command the painting, it is worth exploring the other figures around the table, who were all modelled on people from Millais' life. These include the portrait of Rossetti downing his wine at the back of the table. Almost ironically, the figure yet to be identified with a real person is the servant entering the scene, on the outside of this gathering and destined to remain anonymous. Millias has depicted young and old, male and female with equal skill. Everyone is identified by an action - eating, drinking, conversing. The only other figures, however, who seem to be aware of the love affair are both the servant and the elderly woman dressed in white and black. Whilst she looks to be holding her stomach, perhaps because she has overeaten, her gaze betrays her true thoughts as she slides her eyes towards Isabella's lover beside her. Perhaps her hand reaches over to his pinkish, velvety sleeve, to tug it back in a gesture of warning. However, he remains too distracted by Isabella to notice the happenings around him which of course, will eventually lead to unfortunate consequences.
Millais' painting is a story of people and characters, of actions and gazes. Although a tragic narrative lies beneath its surface, it is the real people that create the work of art before a viewer, which can be found in Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery today. Setting his friends and contemporaries against the backdrop of an Italianate villa, seemingly spotlit and sunlit from above, Millais has masterfully captured and created each character in the painting, so much so that it almost becomes a set of twelve portraits. Real and fiction combine as the tragic narrative unfolds through looks, stares, expressions and gesticulation.
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