The Blind Girl

John Everett Millais

Date: 1856 

Materials: Oil on canvas

Blind to nature

Poverty and homelessness amongst children and the disabled  were a great social problem in Millais' time.

Here, together with the young girl, we witness the beauty of nature which is denied the older blind girl.

The alert expression and position of the hands of the blind girl show her effort to compensate through the other senses.

Accurate view

The background is an accurate view of Winchelsea in Sussex, though the painting  was completed in Perth, Scotland in 1855, where Millais settled after his marriage to Effie (formerly married to Ruskin).

Although 'The Blind Girl' is painted with typical attention to detail, Millais is considered by some to be less successful than Ford Madox Brown in capturing the effect of the fall of light on figures in the open air.

Scamped execution

'The Blind Girl' was criticized in 1857 when it won the Liverpool Academy's prize of £50. William Michael Rossetti said it was called "Crude" (referring to the squalor of the figures) and Brown said Millais had "scamped the execution" meaning that some parts of the work were richly detailed, whereas other parts were not. This was almost certainly Millais's intention. 

Painted in sunlight

"I had a cloth over my forhead [sic] and this was a little relief but several times I was as sick as possible." Effie, suffering some discomfort as she sat in full sunlight  

"A most pathetic thought, treated in a spirit which may be called religious." William Michael Rossetti 

"Altogether the finest subject, a glorious one, a religious picture." Ford Madox Brown on first seeing the picture.