Before meeting Effie, John had been fascinated with a young girl “fresh from convent school”. As she grew up, he appreciated her wit and beauty. When John met Effie for the first time, she was twelve, and he was fond of her. She enjoyed riding and dancing and far from the delicate Victorian femininity. Indeed, as a well-educated girl, she was fluent in French, a quick learner and played the piano. Euphemia didn’t fit in the Victorian standard of a fragile woman.
She regained control of her life, refusing to bear a physically and emotionally abusive relationship. Effie had been not only a witness of events, but this woman gave her contribution to change the idea of Victoria femininity. She wrote several letters to her parents with rapid handwriting, giving a glimpse of sixteen years of Victorian life. Effie was a determined woman with an independent spirit. Since her youth, Euphemia was attentive to her clothes, taking care of every detail. Mr Ruskin was not concerned at all, having lost interest in his wife. After a period of rest in her parent’s house, Effie married the painter John Everett Millais.Įffie was a beautiful Scottish girl with auburn hair, entertaining and elegant with many admirers even after her marriage with John Ruskin. After six years of a distressing relationship, the Ecclesiastical Courts decided to annul the marriage, because Effie and Mr Ruskin never consummate their relationship. In case a woman was leaving her husband, he could take her home against her will and might rape her with impunity. Most women could not leave their marital house even in mistreatments and abuses, mainly because of the lack of financial support. And a wife had no ownership of her clothes and jewellery. Sadly in the Victorian era, women could not vote, own properties, or sue. The life of Effie was challenging because of t he oppressive social traditions and her loveless marriage with Mr Ruskin. Effie, as an ambitious wife, wished to promote her husband’s career. In Victorian England, u ntil 1857 only the Parliament could grant a divorce. The Ruskin family thought that Effie was a wicked and insane woman. Effie ran away from an exhausting and unnatural relationship where her husband believed she was inadequate as a future mother. Charlotte Brönte and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were very fond of his book. Nevertheless, John became a celebrity because of the book Modern Painters. He was excessively attached to his parents’ house and his books.
John reserved all his attention on art, not people. The book starts on the cold morning of Tuesday, 25 April 1854, when Effie escapes her abusive marriage with the art critic John Ruskin. This book is not a novel but the reconstruction of the life of Euphemia Chalmers Gray. And it is the ninth book in my second list of readings. Effie Gray Millais’s life is the main subject of the book “ Effie: The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais” by Dr Suzanne Fagence Cooper.
0 kommentar(er)
