Effie and the Romantics
Dec. 5th, 2011 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessEffie: the Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais, Suzanne Fagence Cooper (2010)
After watching The Romantics I was intrigued enough to find out just how inaccurate it was (spoiler: very!) which meant hunting down biographies. This was the first one the library forwarded to me; it's short, but very well done, focusing mostly on the life of Effie Gray. A side chapter tells the tragic story of Effie's sister, Sophy Gray, who developed anorexia and musicophilia and eventually died of depression and starvation. Cooper also outlines the stories of Effie's four daughters, and Ruskin and Millais of course move in and out of center stage.
Effie did not plan to be a figure of controversy and scandal. She grew up with warm, loving parents, although the family stability and joy suffered a severe blow when three children died in the same year, when Effie, the oldest daughter, was only 13. Other children in the family died at a young age as well, quite possibly part of the reason why Effie was to suffer insomnia and other nervous complaints throughout her life, and her younger sister was to die from depression and anorexia. Despite this, Effie excelled in school, and charmed the young John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time.
Cooper mostly sidesteps the "was Ruskin a pedophile" question, although she notes that Ruskin was initially enchanted by Effie when she was only twelve, and by the age of 19 – nineteen – he was already wistful about her lost girlish beauty. Given that his other romantic interests were 15 and 10 respectfully when he fell for them, questions are reasonable.
But Cooper offers another suggestion of why Ruskin never consummated his five year marriage with his wife. She blames the poor timing of the wedding night, suggesting that it might have happened during Effie's time of the month. The problem with this – and why Cooper is careful to offer this only as a suggestion – is that we have no other suggestions that Ruskin had any particular issues with blood, or was unaware that this is sort of a standard thing with women. And no one suggested that Effie was bleeding all the time; even Cooper thinks more that Ruskin could not get past that initial sight. Of course, this suggestion – that Ruskin could not deal with a wife who had very evidently passed puberty – only leads fuel to the pedophile idea.
In any case, whatever his reasons, Ruskin never did sleep with his wife, as their statements and a medical examination (used for the annulment proceedings, which, icky) later proved. Effie faced the torture of living almost daily (they separated frequently) with a man that did not want her physically, and since she was fairly flirtatious she knew quite well that other men did want her. This also meant that with Ruskin she could not have the children she terribly wanted. To add to the problem, Ruskin was – by Effie's account – emotionally and verbally abusive. By Ruskin's account, and that of his parents, upset that their daughter-in-law came from and still frequently visited a house with painful emotional associations for them, and not thrilled with the money they heaped on a daughter-in-law they saw as a spendthrift – Effie, not Ruskin, was the abusive one, and Effie, indeed, was insane.
Insanity in a wife in Victorian times was no joke for anyone. (Thackeray placed his wife in various institutions, dooming both of them to solitude and her at least to chastity.) Effie realized that she needed to escape, and as if she did not have enough complications already, she found herself falling in love with the very hot young artist John Everett Millais. (The book includes a picture of Millais by William Holman Hunt which explains exactly what Effie was thinking and feeling.) Millais painted a splendid portrait of Ruskin and (gasp. Prepare for like, MAJOR SCANDAL everyone) used Effie in a picture that SHOWED BARE FEET AND LEGS. (The bare feet and legs actually belonged to another model in an example of just how far back that Hollywood tradition goes.) Scandal! (I have to admit, when I initially saw this picture at the Tate, I missed the legs entirely and just wanted to know if that poor dog had to stand on his legs the ENTIRE time that picture was made. I was even terrified of dogs at the time, but it was a concern. Would you believe that nobody at the Tate could answer this question? And they call themselves art experts. Anyway.)
A woman friend informed Effie that an unconsummated marriage was not a marriage, and that she had grounds for an annulment. (Divorce was more difficult and Effie did not have grounds.) So a desperate Effie plunged ahead with the annulment and scandal – and married Millais, and was promptly almost continuously pregnant for years, proving that the sexual reluctance had definitely not been on her side. After several years of financial hardship, Millais' paintings and illustrations eventually earned them enough money to enter the ranks of the well off – and even the minor nobility, when Millais was awarded a baronetcy.
From here, Cooper does an admirable job of defending Effie from one of the worst charges against her (well, one of the worst contemporary charges against her – in her own time the worst charge was that she was an unnatural woman with two husbands who could therefore not attend events with the queen): that after Millais married her, his work went completely downhill and became terribly and embarrassingly sentimental and commercial. (In the process she incidentally notes two more historical errors with Desperate Romantics.) She can't exactly fight back against the sentimental charge, but she can and does point out that the changes in Millais' painting style cannot exactly be blamed on Effie (the timing doesn't quite work) or the need for money.
Cooper also throws in a few entertaining details here and there (women paid less to enter the Great Exhibition of 1851, but once there, had to pay a penny to use the new fangled water closets, which men could use for free) and insights on the difficulties of writing about women even in the relatively well documented Victorian period; we know very little, for instance, about Effie's friend and frequent companion Charlotte Ker, whose letters have not survived. In a marked contrast to the last biography I looked at, Cooper is careful to separate speculation from fact. And she takes the time to record one of the most romantic moments in John Everett Millais' life: on his deathbed, with one of Queen Victoria's daughters as a visitor, he took the opportunity to beg once again to have his wife's social status repaired with an acknowledgement from the queen – the social status she had lost through marrying him.
It was not always an easy life, or a happy one, but it was a fascinating one, with moments of exquisite beauty, a life well worth reading.
After watching The Romantics I was intrigued enough to find out just how inaccurate it was (spoiler: very!) which meant hunting down biographies. This was the first one the library forwarded to me; it's short, but very well done, focusing mostly on the life of Effie Gray. A side chapter tells the tragic story of Effie's sister, Sophy Gray, who developed anorexia and musicophilia and eventually died of depression and starvation. Cooper also outlines the stories of Effie's four daughters, and Ruskin and Millais of course move in and out of center stage.
Effie did not plan to be a figure of controversy and scandal. She grew up with warm, loving parents, although the family stability and joy suffered a severe blow when three children died in the same year, when Effie, the oldest daughter, was only 13. Other children in the family died at a young age as well, quite possibly part of the reason why Effie was to suffer insomnia and other nervous complaints throughout her life, and her younger sister was to die from depression and anorexia. Despite this, Effie excelled in school, and charmed the young John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time.
Cooper mostly sidesteps the "was Ruskin a pedophile" question, although she notes that Ruskin was initially enchanted by Effie when she was only twelve, and by the age of 19 – nineteen – he was already wistful about her lost girlish beauty. Given that his other romantic interests were 15 and 10 respectfully when he fell for them, questions are reasonable.
But Cooper offers another suggestion of why Ruskin never consummated his five year marriage with his wife. She blames the poor timing of the wedding night, suggesting that it might have happened during Effie's time of the month. The problem with this – and why Cooper is careful to offer this only as a suggestion – is that we have no other suggestions that Ruskin had any particular issues with blood, or was unaware that this is sort of a standard thing with women. And no one suggested that Effie was bleeding all the time; even Cooper thinks more that Ruskin could not get past that initial sight. Of course, this suggestion – that Ruskin could not deal with a wife who had very evidently passed puberty – only leads fuel to the pedophile idea.
In any case, whatever his reasons, Ruskin never did sleep with his wife, as their statements and a medical examination (used for the annulment proceedings, which, icky) later proved. Effie faced the torture of living almost daily (they separated frequently) with a man that did not want her physically, and since she was fairly flirtatious she knew quite well that other men did want her. This also meant that with Ruskin she could not have the children she terribly wanted. To add to the problem, Ruskin was – by Effie's account – emotionally and verbally abusive. By Ruskin's account, and that of his parents, upset that their daughter-in-law came from and still frequently visited a house with painful emotional associations for them, and not thrilled with the money they heaped on a daughter-in-law they saw as a spendthrift – Effie, not Ruskin, was the abusive one, and Effie, indeed, was insane.
Insanity in a wife in Victorian times was no joke for anyone. (Thackeray placed his wife in various institutions, dooming both of them to solitude and her at least to chastity.) Effie realized that she needed to escape, and as if she did not have enough complications already, she found herself falling in love with the very hot young artist John Everett Millais. (The book includes a picture of Millais by William Holman Hunt which explains exactly what Effie was thinking and feeling.) Millais painted a splendid portrait of Ruskin and (gasp. Prepare for like, MAJOR SCANDAL everyone) used Effie in a picture that SHOWED BARE FEET AND LEGS. (The bare feet and legs actually belonged to another model in an example of just how far back that Hollywood tradition goes.) Scandal! (I have to admit, when I initially saw this picture at the Tate, I missed the legs entirely and just wanted to know if that poor dog had to stand on his legs the ENTIRE time that picture was made. I was even terrified of dogs at the time, but it was a concern. Would you believe that nobody at the Tate could answer this question? And they call themselves art experts. Anyway.)
A woman friend informed Effie that an unconsummated marriage was not a marriage, and that she had grounds for an annulment. (Divorce was more difficult and Effie did not have grounds.) So a desperate Effie plunged ahead with the annulment and scandal – and married Millais, and was promptly almost continuously pregnant for years, proving that the sexual reluctance had definitely not been on her side. After several years of financial hardship, Millais' paintings and illustrations eventually earned them enough money to enter the ranks of the well off – and even the minor nobility, when Millais was awarded a baronetcy.
From here, Cooper does an admirable job of defending Effie from one of the worst charges against her (well, one of the worst contemporary charges against her – in her own time the worst charge was that she was an unnatural woman with two husbands who could therefore not attend events with the queen): that after Millais married her, his work went completely downhill and became terribly and embarrassingly sentimental and commercial. (In the process she incidentally notes two more historical errors with Desperate Romantics.) She can't exactly fight back against the sentimental charge, but she can and does point out that the changes in Millais' painting style cannot exactly be blamed on Effie (the timing doesn't quite work) or the need for money.
Cooper also throws in a few entertaining details here and there (women paid less to enter the Great Exhibition of 1851, but once there, had to pay a penny to use the new fangled water closets, which men could use for free) and insights on the difficulties of writing about women even in the relatively well documented Victorian period; we know very little, for instance, about Effie's friend and frequent companion Charlotte Ker, whose letters have not survived. In a marked contrast to the last biography I looked at, Cooper is careful to separate speculation from fact. And she takes the time to record one of the most romantic moments in John Everett Millais' life: on his deathbed, with one of Queen Victoria's daughters as a visitor, he took the opportunity to beg once again to have his wife's social status repaired with an acknowledgement from the queen – the social status she had lost through marrying him.
It was not always an easy life, or a happy one, but it was a fascinating one, with moments of exquisite beauty, a life well worth reading.