Eleanor Pschirrer-West

Pre-Raphaelites and Polar Bears: J.E. Millais and The North-West Passage

John Everett Millais’s 1874 painting, The North-West Passage, could easily be mistaken for a domestic genre scene of the kind that proliferated the art scene in the Victorian period. However, there is a much larger narrative behind the painting that would have been obvious to contemporary audiences that is not immediately apparent to a modern viewer. Millais’s painting should be read as a construction that builds on and reifies a social history of Arctic Exploration. Millais’s painting is symptomatic of a larger cultural movement focused on reframing troublesome narratives in order to make them more appealing for public consumption. He both contributed to and was a product of his distinct cultural moment. This paper will explore how The North-West Passage is constructed, which in turn reveals how Millais drew on and produced the normative narrative of Arctic exploration in nineteenth-century Britain. As Britain reevaluated its position in the scheme of world power, as well as the aftermath of the rapid industrialization and urbanization, anxieties about the trajectory of society became increasingly prevalent. Additionally, multiple new media types appeared in the Victorian period that made it easier than ever for people in Britain to feel connected to the farthest edges of their empire. The visual culture of the Victorian Era reveals the intricate manner in which national identity was imagined through constructed versions of the past and present. Millais’s career suggests the origins of the devices that he uses to create a narrative in The North-West Passage, and a survey of the period’s media culture indicates his influences. While Millais’s ability to construct an appealing version of history was evident in his paintings long before he created The North-West Passage, the painting’s visual references can only be understood in conjunction to the larger visual and material culture of the period.