69“My Ariel, chick, […] Be free, and fare thou well!”:
Shakespeare’s Language in Millais’s Ferdinand Lured by Ariel (1849−50)
Naoko Asano
I. Introduction
Often overshadowed by the glory of Ophelia (1851-52) and later portrayal
and fancy paintings as it is, Ferdinand Lured by Ariel (1849-50) is a vivid
proof of John Everett Millais’s brief engagement in fairy painting during its“Golden Age between 1840 and 1870” (Maas 11). Ferdinand is the artist’s firstand last venture into this genre and a very experimental composition fromhis early Pre-Raphaelite career. An admirer of a caricaturist, Richard “Dicky”
Doyle (Hunt; Millais), and a lifelong friend of Joseph Noel Paton as he was,Millais had never created any work of the genre after Ferdinand so that he has
rarely been considered as a prominent example of the Victorian fairy painters.
Yet Ferdinand stands out as unconventional representation of ethereal subjects
among all numerous compositions from this category. It depicts ethereal
figures including “tricksy” Ariel in completely different ways from precedentand contemporary representations which depict “graceful human pigmies”(Hunt 399). Millais conceived an unconventional fairy painting, which were
derived from nothing other than Shakespeare’s language.
This paper is an attempt to highlight John Everett Millais’s Ferdinand
Lured by Ariel as a departure from conventional representations of The Tempest
in the fairy genre. Ferdinand is a crucial painting in the longstanding careerof the artist. It is one of the first Shakespearean works by Millais in hiswhimsical, Pre-Raphaelite style and demonstrates the elaborate depiction ofStudies in Victorian Culture, No. 15 (2017)

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nature through its careful, meticulous observation. Exploring the preceding
and contemporary works of the relevant genre, the theatrical adaptations of
The Tempest and different editions of the text Millais might have seen andread, we will first set Millais’s representation in the Victorian context. The
focus will then move on to the depictions of Millais’s Ariel and subordinate
sprites and clarify the difference between the pictorial representations of
Millais and his contemporaries as well as the theatrical ones. Simultaneously,
following the transition in his own representations of Ariels from fair,blonde, angelic figures in the initial sketch and oil study to a translucent
figure in stark green in the final format, we will prove that the subtle qualities
of Millais’s ethereal subjects are the result of the gradual amalgamation of
his imagination and Shakespeare’s language in The Tempest. Overall, we will
elucidate that Millais produced a work which differs itself from the preceding
and contemporary representations of The Tempest by applying such qualities
derived solely from Shakespeare’s text on his canvas.
Ferdinand may be regarded as a pivotal composition in the artist’s career
mainly for two reasons. First, it was the very first painting based on the
Shakespearean play executed by the painter after the foundation of the PreRaphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. Secondly, the painting is regarded as his“first attempt to paint nature in a radical Pre-Raphaelite manner” (Rosenfeld
36). Following the Pre-Raphaelite principle to stay true to nature, he aimed
to depict “all [he] could see” (Prettejohn 172) and pursued reality on canvas;
such an eagerness is directly reflected in the detailed botanical backgroundin highly saturated colours in his own pictorial representation. Besides thesefacts, there is another reason why this work matters in his career: As alreadymentioned, it was the only example where Millais invested in conceiving his
own fairy painting.
Long before Ferdinand stirred the exhibition space in 1850 with anotherambitious work by Millais, Christ in the House of His Parents (The Carpenter’sShop, 1849-50), the audience had already witnessed the heyday of fairy
painting. Ethereal subjects such as fairies and spirits have appeared in British

“My Ariel, chick, […] Be free, and fare thou well!”71

literature since the fourteenth century; yet the inspirations for the works ofthe fairy genre mainly came from Shakespeare’s plays such as A MidsummerNight’s Dream and The Tempest (Maas 12). In most cases, fairies and spirits
were depicted in a similar way as described by Millais’s Pre-Raphaelite peer,
Hunt, in his comment on Ferdinand:We must put ourselves back to the date when it was painted. The exhibition
works were full of pictures of fairies and attendant spirits, and without
exception we may see that these were all conceived as graceful human pigmies.
(399; emphasis mine)

Hunt astutely points out that fairy painting dominated exhibition spaces in
the mid-nineteenth century; the most notable aspect about this phenomenon
is that they were all depicted in similar appearances as “graceful humanpigmies.”This convention has been, in fact, present before the arrival of the Golden
Age of fairy painting as observed in preceding works from the late eighteenth
century: For example, Titania and Bottom (c.1790) by Henry Fuseli, based on
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, displays an almost naked figure of Titania inmilky-white skin. Surrounding her and well-muscled, donkey-headed Bottom,
there fly and stand attendant fairies and spirits dimly tinted in white who
appear either naked or dressed in neoclassical garments. David Scott’s Puck
Fleeing Before the Dawn (1837), also based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, andanother fairy painting of his based on The Tempest, Ariel and Caliban (1837)
present more playful, amusing figures of spirits. These precedent figures madetheir ways into the later examples such as Richard Dadd’s Come Unto These
Yellow Sands based on The Tempest (1842) and the painting with the same
title by Robert Huskisson (1847). Almost stark-naked, serene, human-likefigures, dancing and flying in the air are observable in the latter two works; asthese elegant dancers remind their beholders of dancing performers on stage,often suspended with wires from ceiling, theatrical influence on these fairyNaoko Asano

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paintings is distinctive and unmissable. Literature had been a predominantsource of inspirations for subject matter while “the visual impact andcontemporary pantomime, theatre and opera was paramount” (Maas 13);art, likewise, had a considerable influence on theatre as later discussed,
and these two realms often shared the same type of fairies in their visual
representations.
II. Millais’s Familiarity with The Tempest in Victorian Culture
Let us then explore the Victorian culture, especially in the realms oftheatre and publication, which likely allowed Millais to familiarise himself
with various adaptations and interpretations of Shakespeare’s Tempest.
Publishing was a thriving industry in the Victorian period so that various
editions of Shakespeare’s plays became available: By 1849 when the artist was
producing Ferdinand, three individual editions of The Tempest were published(1823, 1830 and 1849) and so were ninety-one editions of “Complete Works”
since the beginning of the century (Hollingsworth 442). Some of them wereintroduced into both public and private libraries, including the library at theRoyal Academy which Millais occasionally visited as a student. According
to the records of the R.A. library, the only editions of Shakespeare accessible
to the students at the time Millais and his Pre-Raphaelite fellows attended
were the Boydell edition presented by Boydell himself in 1804 and theChalmers edition of 1805 (Savage 43-44). It is plausible that Millais as ahumble student who could not afford the latest published editions had readthem at the library. I believe it is possible that Millais was familiar with
the Chalmers edition based on the First Folio of 1623, since the format of
the stage directions and lines in the excerpts attached to the 1850 catalogue
descriptions of Ferdinand accord with that of this very edition; hence, thequotations from The Tempest in this paper are based on and derived fromthis particular edition. Additionally, it is noteworthy that Millais may haveconsulted the Boydell edition, which is an illustrated edition derived from“My Ariel, chick, […] Be free, and fare thou well!”73

a collection of paintings called “Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery” founded to“establish an English School of Historical Painting” (Christian 217).
As much as reading, theatre was indispensable in cultural life of theVictorians; the heightened bardolatry allowed Shakespearean adaptations,
often directed by actor-managers such as William Macready, to dominate
the stages in the nineteenth century. Considering the fact that Millais, in his
early career, frequented theatres to “earn small sums by making sketches of
the actors and actresses” (Millais 83), the artist must have been no stranger tothe adaptations of The Tempest. Even though it cannot be determined which
performance of The Tempest he actually had seen, it is feasible to speculate
some productions he had had a chance to see.
For example, Macready’s Tempest starring Helen Faucit and Priscilla
Horton as Ariel was put on stage at Covent Garden fifty-five times in 1838
(Norwood 348-416; Poole 56). The 1842 production with George Vanderhoffand Miss Rainforth was performed at least eighteen times, and the 1847
production at Sadler’s Wells, starring Samuel Phelps and Julia St George as
an angelic Ariel (Orgel 70), would be another candidate. Sadler’s Wells, inaddition, hosted another production of the play starring Miss Carlstein in
the year of Millais’s execution of Ferdinand, 1849 (Norwood 348-416). Mary
Bennett adds to this that Millais might have seen “the Shakespeare [N]ight
at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on 7th December 1847” (503).
This event is particularly remarkable as it offered an opportunity for theVictorian public to see the enacted scenes from various Shakespearean playswith which they might have found familiar. It also serves as a great exampleof the heightened bardolatry at the time as it was held in order to raise a fund
for the purchase and preservation of Shakespeare’s house in Stratford-uponAvon. According to the content on the programme of the event, there werenine performances shown based on particular scenes from Shakespeareanplays such as Henry VIII, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Romeo and Juliet and A
Winter’s Tale. It included a performance called “The Story of Prospero” basedon Act 1 Scene 2 from The Tempest, in which Priscilla Horton performed

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Ariel as she did in Macready’s 1838 production: It is remarkable that this was
the exact scene represented in Ferdinand. This event must have provided an
introduction to Shakespeare’s works to some in the audience who were notfamiliar with the plays included in their programme as well as entertained
those who had already been acquainted with the world of his plays. Thoughmostly speculative, these examples also illustrate there were abundant
choices for Millais to familiarise himself with The Tempest; there were various
adaptations which stimulated the young artist’s imagination in his process ofrecreating the world of the enchanted island.
Millais could have possibly been familiar with Shakespeare in thecontemporary theatre as mentioned earlier, and considering the principal
nature of the text as a script for theatre, it must not be reasonable toseparate his own pictorial representation of the play from his possible
theatre experiences. However, Millais’s composition neither appears to begreatly under theatrical influence nor exudes the mood which pervaded theVictorian stages when compared with other works of the same subject matter.
In the compositions of the works by Dadd and Huskisson with the same
title of Come Unto These Yellow Sands1 as earlier mentioned, an element of aproscenium arch from the traditional theatre is distinctly observable, as a
rocky semicircular arch is placed on the left-hand side of the canvas in bothpaintings. Furthermore, in the case of Huskisson, the artist painted more than
one semicircular arch in his composition: The camel-coloured frame on theforeground is not the actual frame of the painting but the trompe l’oeil arch
painted by the artist. Having no such obvious, theatrical features as these, theimpact of theatre on Millais’s canvas appears relatively small.
III. “How lush and lusty the grass looks!”: The Vivid Colour Scheme on Ferdinand
Compared to Other Fairy Paintings
Regarding the ingenuity of Millais’s rendition in comparison to the worksof his contemporaries under the theatrical influence, it might be worth paying

“My Ariel, chick, […] Be free, and fare thou well!”75

attention to the colours used in these works. The bright and luminous colours
which dominate Millais’s composition were not the colours recognisable
in other canvases based on Shakespeare’s plays. Fuseli’s Titania and Bottom,
as already mentioned, presents a very obscure and dark-toned backgroundbehind dim shapes of the fairies in white and light gray around the figure of
Bottom. Scott’s Puck Fleeing Before the Dawn and Ariel and Caliban share theeerie and earthly pigments such as olive, deep orange and gray.2 Regarding thepaintings by Dadd and Huskisson, their colour schemes appear much softerand brighter than those of the preceding ones, yet they are still occupied bydark and obscure colours. By comparison, the colours constituting Ferdinandare all luminous and clarified. The creation of such vivid colours on canvas
was possible only by the particular technique on which Millais and his PreRaphaelite peers experimented, the “wet-on-wet” technique. In this painting
technique, colour pigments are applied over a canvas covered in half-wet
white pigment. The saturated colours achieved with this technique give thewhole painting a photographic impression and imbue the otherworldly event
happening on canvas with liveliness.
Among the several colours applied on Ferdinand, particularly the mass ofgreen hues must attract the attention of the beholders, and these green colours
pervading the background foliage echo a certain quotation from Shakespeare’s
text: Landing on the island with the King of Naples and his courtiers,
Gonzalo, “a noble Neapolitan” (I. ii. 161), exclaims “How green!” (II. i. 55).
This striking remark must be uttered with awe at the wild nature surrounding
them on the island, including the lush grassland he and the Italian nobles are
standing upon as suggested by his earlier comment: “How lush and lusty thegrass looks!” (II. i. 55). The gradations of colour in the nature from the greenof tree frogs to the straw colour, together pierce the eyes of the beholders, andvisually heighten the exclamation of Gonzalo. As will be later discussed, thisgreenness even permeates the bodies of Ariel and the subordinate sprites, andoccupies more than half of the whole space.
As earlier mentioned, Ferdinand is one of the first paintings which Millais

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fully engaged in drawing “en plein air,” following a Pre-Raphaelite principle
to depict “all one could see”; as seen in later works such as The Woodman’s
Daughter (1851) and Ophelia (1852), the artist continued to engaged in
representing greenness in nature. Considering these facts, Shakespeare’s text
should not have been the sole reason for such a striking green colour on
this particular work. Yet, more than any other painting, Ferdinand is a fineexample where the colour scheme of the source text is well reflected on
canvas. Also, having altered the background from blue sky and ocean in theoil study (1849) to green foliage in the final version, Millais might have beenaware of its evocativeness of the particular lines from the original text.
Contrasting to the vivid green of foliage, flamboyant scarlet of
Ferdinand’s tunic also stands out and these two colours bring out eachother: Meanwhile, a puzzled look on his face makes this naïve prince appear
overwhelmed by the greenness of exuberant, thriving plants on the mysticalisland. This seems to heighten vulnerability and smallness Ferdinand must be
feeling while lured and confused by Ariel and sprites.
IV. The Transition of Millais’s Ariel Throughout the Three Ferdinands
Greenness is certainly not the only element which separates Millais’s workfrom contemporary works of the same subject matter. In terms of the subjects
depicted on canvas, Ariel and its subordinate sprites must have appeared
and even still do quite different and radical. When compared to serene
figures of these ethereal characters like ballet dancers on stage by Millais’scontemporaries, his Ariel and sprites are certainly unconventional in theirappearances and movements.
Let us then focus attention on the transition of Millais’s interpretationand depictions of Ariel in particular by comparing Ferdinand with the earlystudies, independent drawing in pen and ink (1848) and an oil sketch (1849).
As is customary for Millais to produce several studies in his painting process,it seems the artist created these two in order to experiment with composition

“My Ariel, chick, […] Be free, and fare thou well!”77

and figures for the large-scaled Ferdinand. For Mariana (1850-51) based on
Tennyson’s poem, Millais initially conceived a pen and ink study of a female
figure who stands straight with a painful look on her face while biting a tip ofa cloth (1850; illus. in Millais 104). The composition and figure of this study
quite differ from those in the final oil version of a woman arching her back;this suggests such studies and early drawings remained as part of the artist’s
experimental process and did not always make their ways to the final versions.
Also, in the case of Ferdinand, as it was initially commissioned by the dealer
named Wethered, Millais might have conceived them to let his commissioner
know of his initial plan. Surprisingly or not, while the Ariels seen in both
his pen-and-ink drawing and oil sketch seem to echo contemporary stage
Ariels, Ariel in his final format of Ferdinand appears alien to such stage
representations of the figure. We will begin by considering the two earlier
representations of the spirit by Millais in comparison with the representationsin the contemporary theatre.
Millais’s early drawing of the relevant scene in ink on paper and smallscale oil study interestingly illustrate the artist’s initial image of the spirit
which suggest the influence of theatrical representations of Ariel. From its
feminine features and streamlined form with bird wings, fair skin and blonde
hair, it is quite apparent that he initially considered depicting the spirit in anangelic and serene form in accordance with stage conventions of the time.
On the Victorian stage, as it had been since the previous century, Ariel wasa female role in general. The engravings of the stage productions clearlyreflect such a convention; even the illustrations which are not direct copiesof the stage performance still depict Ariel in a female form, occasionally withangelic features and flying in the air.
Among several productions of The Tempest the artist had likely seen, allthree productions, Macready’s production in 1838, the 1847 performanceat Sadler’s Wells and “The Story of Prospero” at the Shakespeare Night in
1847, featured female actors performing Ariel, in angelic forms. Priscilla
Horton, who performed the spirit role in the two previously mentioned

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productions, could have provided inspirations: In the print titled “Priscilla
Horton as Ariel in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Covent Garden 1838” (V&A),
the popular singer-actress adorned with sea plants and creatures such as “anelaborate headdress of corals and small shells […]” (V&A collection) appears
very feminine and erotic. She had mastered the art of hovering over stage
suspended with wires before her debut as Ariel and her floating image might
have influenced Millais’s interpretation and reconstruction of the character.
The first production in which she performed the role turned out to be a great
success, as “it was performed fifty-five times that season,” and the popularity
partly owed to the floating act of Horton’s Ariel (Martineau 158). This
popularity was recorded in the numerous lithographs as well as paintings.
The Irish painter, Daniel Maclise painted a portrait of Horton (1838-9, Royal
Shakespeare Company Collection) a yellow-gold costume too short to hide
her knees, with a rose-coloured shawl which floats around her shoulders
in the air. In this version, the feminine curves and graceful manners of theperformer are underlined and this kind of representation might have affected
Millais’s initial concept.
Surely, the theatrical representations might not be only responsible forsuch a convention of depicting the spirit as female. Stephen Orgel states thatthroughout the seventeenth century, Ariel had been a male role, taking into
account Davenant’s explicitly male Ariel “provided with a consort,” a female
spirit named Milcha. However, with Dryden’s production in which Ariel
appeared as a female, the new century had been, or so it seemed, content with
Ariel as a female role (77). While most scholars do not make further remarks
on such a transition in theatre, Russel Jackson argues that the conventional
portrayal of a female Ariel was a result of reciprocal influences between therealm of theatre and that of painting. In his discussion regarding the effort
towards historical accuracy made by the theatre managers and producers of
the nineteenth century, he points out that “Ariel was a sylph (played by awoman) in the conventions of contemporary ‘fairy painting’” even though
the play “afforded opportunity for accuracy in the costumes of the court, the“My Ariel, chick, […] Be free, and fare thou well!”79

sailors and the human inhabitants of the island” (158). The idea of a female
Ariel, in this sense, could be regarded as a fruit of the prevailing preferencesof both theatre and art worlds, which was under the domination of the Italian
Renaissance art at the RA in terms of physical representations of figures on
canvas.
By undergoing such an experimental process as previously discussed,
Millais ended up with a quite different and surprising result. His final
representation of Ariel, a spirit in completely luminous green, appears poised
between human and animal, as described as “half human and half like birds”(Rossetti, The P.R.B. Journal 232), besides between female and male. These
subhuman, androgynous and insubstantial qualities of this Ariel must serve asa proof of the artist’s close attention to Shakespeare’s text.
First of all, throughout the text, Ariel appears to have a dual nature;nonhuman and humanlike, as respectively underlined by its own act and thewords of other characters. Such a duality had been observable in various fairy
paintings; yet in case of Millais, the whimsical appearance of Ariel appears to
represent a particular feature of this character in The Tempest. In the beginningof the play, Ariel displays magical acts beyond human control, such as raisinga storm and a fire as well as hiding a ship (I. ii. 195-236). Simultaneously,from its report to Prospero, we are informed that the spirit is capable ofwide-range tasks, including “to fly, / [t]o swim, to dive into the fire, to ride /[o]n the curled clouds” (I. ii. 190-2). Ariel’s actions associate itself with thefour classical elements; not only with the air as its name “Ariel” suggests,
but also with the water, the fire (I. ii. 191) and the earth (I. ii. 255-6). The
miraculous acts performed by the spirit suggest that it is an unworldly anduntameable being, free from human control.
On the other hand, Ariel’s rebellious attitude towards Prospero evokes
the image of a disobedient pupil against his tutor, and displays itself very
humanlike. During the conversation with its “master” (I. ii. 216), the spirit
mostly remains meek and submissive as a child to his father. In spite of its
superhuman ability to control nature, Ariel is unable to undo the spell by

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Sycorax and is only to be saved by the mortal, Prospero: This vulnerability
reveals another side of its nature, humanness. This duality of its nature isemphasized by the following description by Prospero, in his recollection ofAriel suffering from Sycorax’s evil art:
PROSPERO.
Thou best knowst
What torment I did find thee in: thy groans
Did make wolves howl and penetrate the breasts
Of ever-angry bears. It was a torment
To lay upon the damned, which Sycorax
Could not again undo. (I. ii. 286-91)

The sound of Ariel’s groans being echoed by the howls of savage beasts suchas wolves may, on one hand, suggest the spirit is closer to the wild and feral
nature. On the other hand, an act of groaning itself may imply its humanlike
quality; “to groan,” according to Alexander Schmidt, can be defined as “toutter a mournful voice in pain or sorrow” (498), and such a piteous act may
be unfit for a savage creature. The idea that “Ariel’s agony aroused sympathy
even in wolves and bears” (Vaughan and Vaughan 192) rather reveals Ariel’s
human side as its vulnerability even moves the wild souls. Millais might havegrasped such a complex dual nature of this character through his carefulreading of the text, and conceived his own version of Ariel, “half human andhalf like birds” (Rossetti, The P.R.B. Journal 232).
As already discussed in the previous paragraphs, Millais took an advanced
step in his final representation, regarding Ariel’s gender. Returning to thetext by Shakespeare, several hints on this matter lie scattered. In the scene
on which Ferdinand is based, Ariel is supposed to be disguising as a sea
nymph or “a nymph o’th’sea” (I. ii. 302) as commanded by Prospero. Thisparticular order must explain why many preceding representations of thespirit contain a female figure throughout centuries, and Millais’s early worksof the same subject must be relevant examples. In contrast, there might havebeen some artists who perceived the spirit as a male character, based on the

“My Ariel, chick, […] Be free, and fare thou well!”81fact that in Shakespeare’s text, the spirit is sometimes addressed as “he” byitself and others (I. ii. 193; III. ii. 151-2). However, this addressing of “he”
must not suggest the particular gender of the spirit, considering the natureof early modern English: According to Sylvia Adamson, in the language of
Shakespeare and his contemporaries, the personal pronoun “he/his/him” wasused not only for referring to the masculine gender of an addressee but also
to nonhuman subjects. She states that “where we would use its, Shakespeare
and his contemporaries used his” (215). In this sense, in the understanding ofother characters from The Tempest, Ariel is nonhuman and ungendered, hence
called “he.” In other words, the concept of the spirit’s gender is perpetuallyunsettled between male and female. If we take a closer look at Millais’s
painting, thereupon, we notice Ariel here appears neither as soft and plump
as a woman nor as masculine and well-muscled as a man, but an androgynous
being; such an appearance must claim that Millais’s representation shares theambiguity of Ariel’s gender originally derived from Shakespeare’s texts. As
Shakespeare has left it unclear, Millais let his Ariel remain mysterious andsuggestive.
Finally, as a shape-changer, Ariel’s insubstantiality is evident in
Shakespeare’s text, and that is visually connoted in Millais’s representation.
The vivid fluorescent green colour of Ariel and its subordinate sprites, at firstsight, stands out, yet we eventually realise that this particular colour recalls
us not only of the grass but also the greenness of the ocean, from which the“sea nymph” Ariel and the “lured” Ferdinand landed. Besides, this greennessof high transparency actually lets us see through Ariel’s body, and they are
assimilated to the greenness of the foliage and the grassland. This translucenceof its body and the effect of its merging into the background allow this spirit
appear as light as air, and also, invisible.
Ariel in this scene, as already mentioned, is supposed to be pretending as
a sea nymph, and that also suggests it must remain invisible to everyone apartfrom Prospero:

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PROSPERO.
Go make thyself like a nymph o’th’ sea;
Be subject to no sight but thine and mine, invisible
To every eyeball else. Go take this shape
And hither come in’t. Go! Hence with diligence. (I. ii. 302-5)

As the following stage direction “ARIEL, invisible” (375.1) implies, “[t]hesea-nymph costume serves as a reminder of [its] invisibility” (Vaughan and
Vaughan, 177) on the stage, and in Millais’s pictorial language, the green“membrane” of Ariel serves as an invisible cloak.
Shifting our attention to Ferdinand’s face, he looks quite vacant, confusedby not knowing where he should look at, listening to the mystical sound fromnowhere: This blank expression in his eyes must suggest Ariel on Millais’s
canvas is also invisible to him. As the prince of Naples recognised, Ariel’s
singing is “no mortal business”; unlike the mortals, the spirit keeps shifting
its voice and form, and bewilders humans in both Shakespeare’s text andMillais’s adaptation.
For these certain qualities discussed above, Millais’s final representationof Ariel must have appeared daring to the Victorian beholders and defies theconventional image of the spirit as developed by preceding and contemporary
artists and theatre producers.
V. “This is no mortal business nor no sound”: Ferdinand’s Musicality Echoing theBard’s Text
Finally, let us focus attention on a particular quality which proves
Ferdinand’s affinity with Shakespeare’s language instead of the Victorian
adaptations, musicality. To begin with, let us examine the musicalityof Shakespeare’s text. For example, Stephen Orgel explains that “[n]o Shakespeare play calls for more music, and of more various kinds, than
The Tempest” (220). Seng points out that “none of [the other plays by

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Shakespeare] puts so much emphasis on ‘dispersed’ music, performed as if itcame from all over the stage” (252) and Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden
T. Vaughan agree with this point, stating the whole play of The Tempest is
structured by music. There appear numerous scenes in which the characters
sing and play instruments as well as dance to the sound. The Vaughans state
that, as if to realise Caliban’s depiction of the island full of “[s]ounds andsweet airs” (3.2.136), “[t]he atmosphere of The Tempest’s enchanted island iscreated largely through sound” (17). The stage directions calling for auditory
effects throughout the play are essential in the stream of the narrative, assome particular music works to push the narrative forward and supplement
the information for the audience. This is evident when we focus on music
performed by Ariel, who sings four different songs, “Come unto these yellow
sands,” “Full fathom five thy father lies” from Act 1 Scene 2, on which
Ferdinand is mainly based, “While you here do snoring lie” in Act 2 Scene
1, and “Where the bee sucks, there suck I” from Act 5 Scene 1. These songs
sometimes guide and lead people on the island and function as “a vehicle for
Prospero’s magic” (Vaughan and Vaughan 18).
If we extend our discussion to musicality in Millais’s painting, thisstatement of the Vaughans appears quite relevant to the subject matter of thecomposition, which is based on the scene in which Ariel introduces one ofthese songs to the shipwrecked Ferdinand:
ARIEL. [Sings.]
Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made;Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell.
SPIRITS.
Ding dong.
ARIEL.
Hark, now I hear them.

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SPIRITS.

Ding dong bell. (I. ii. 397-406)

Here is depicted the scene where the “quaint,” “delicate,” “dainty,” and“tricksy” spirit (I. ii. 318; IV. i. 49; V. i. 95, 226), Ariel, dressed as a“sea-nymph” (I. ii. 303, 317), sings to infuse false information into Ferdinand,the Prince of Naples, who sets foot onto the “magical island,” that his father
has died in the shipwreck which he himself has just survived.
Millais possibly intended to emphasise such musicality derived fromthe text, and that can be observed both in its catalogue entry as well as on
canvas. Millais attached an excerpt of this particular song of Ariel with theline of the confused Ferdinand; “Where should this music be ? i’ the air or theearth ?” (“The Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts. The Eighty Second”
24) to the exhibited catalogue in 1850. In terms of poses and actions of the
depicted subjects, Millais’s representation appears more mobile and evocative,
compared to those by his fellow Victorians such as Dadd and Huskisson
which are static and tableau-like: The representation of the young man
hesitantly stepping forward on the ground, and the pose of Ariel who picks
up the hem of his hood to breathe the song in his ear allowed the audience toinstantly grasp the situation. Furthermore, the half perplexed and half amusedexpression of Ferdinand, his hand covering one of his ears, Ariel’s pose as wellas the facial expressions on “all his quality” (I. i. 192-93) or the subordinate
sprites—some puckering their mouths to whistle, some giggling—all suggest
there is a whispering, echoing and whimsical music performed and heard. The
pose of one of the sprites lacing its hands in front of its chest also seems tosuggest it is a member of the chorus accompanying Ariel’s singing, while theblue-eyed member on the far right “blows on a blade of grass” (Rosenfeld 38)
as if to add another strange sound to the vocal. The music created by such achorus, as Ferdinand earlier testifies, “crept by [him] upon the water […] with
its sweet airs” (I. ii. 392-4).
Furthermore, it is notable that Millais’s representation portrays Ariel
holding an instrumental object. Though the original stage direction does“My Ariel, chick, […] Be free, and fare thou well!”85

not clearly specify which instrument the spirit is supposed to play, theartist appears to be certain about this matter. As already introduced, Millais
produced an early drawing and a sketch of the scene with completely different
portraits of Ariel. In these earlier versions, both Ariels appear with an
U-shaped stringed object which reminds us of a lute, while the final version
of Ferdinand depicts the spirit fingering a rather round and small object.
Rosenfeld considers this “a mother-of-pearl conch shell, stringed and madeinto a musical instrument” (38) and a seashell seems to reflect the fact that
Ariel in this scene is pretending to be “a sea-nymph.” Just like the blade ofgrass blown by one of the sprites as aforementioned, this stringed instrument
turns out to be Millais’s own invention and echoes Shakespeare’s language.
Considering the representation of music in painting, we must always
pay attention to the link between music and theatre in the Victorian period
and how closely they were associated with each other. For instance, theShakespeare Night of 1847 which Millais had likely seen serves as a great
example to illustrate the affinity of music and theatre: In between the various
small-scale performances of Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies and histories,
several Shakespearean music pieces were performed. They included theperformances of Beethoven’s overture to Coriolanus, Sir Henry Bishop’s
overture, “introducing popular airs from Shakespeare’s plays” (The Shakespeare
Night (programme) 12) and Mendelssohn’s overture to The [sic] MidsummerNight’s Dream. This clearly shows that around the time Millais was inspired
to paint his first fairy painting, music and theatre had not been separated andbeen closely involved at least in the entertainment industry as they were both
performed on the same stage for the same spectators.
Music was essential at the Victorian theatres staging Shakespeare’s plays
so that Millais’s focus on music in the play might have been under the
influence of this stage convention: Yet, subtle music depicted on canvas
appears closer to that in the text rather than operatic, spectacular music in thestage productions. In this way, musicality in Ferdinand appears to be a crucial
quality which makes this work more unique and definitely different from theNaoko Asano

86

preceding and contemporary works treating the same subject matter.
VI. “A pea-green monster” or an “elfin creature”?: The Victorian Reception of
Ferdinand
As possibly expected, the unique representation of The Tempest invitedconflicting responses and criticism. As for the negative response, the“bat-like” figure of Ariel with its eerie subordinate sprites was not favoured
by some patrons such as the initial commissioner for the work, a man called
Wethered, who showed disapproval by asking the artist to make it more
“sylph-like” (Rossetti, The P.R.B. Journal 246-47). The Academy appeared
not to be fond of the outcome as they displayed the work “on the ground”(Rossetti, The P.R.B. Journal 272-75), which was a very unnoticeable location
at the Exhibition in 1850, while the artists craved for having their works
displayed “on the line.”
The critics mostly made negative comments and expressed theirdissatisfaction with this work. The Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine ruthlessly
called Millais’s Ariel “a pea-green monster” (82). While admitting the subject
and atmosphere of Ferdinand were “less offensive” than those of anotherexhibited work, Christ in the House of His Parents, which was slammed by
Charles Dickens, the London Times called the work “scarcely more pardonable
in style,” and rejected Ariel and the sprites “in the attitudes and shapes ofgreen goblins” (5).
The Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, described them in a similar way,
sarcastically referring to the illustrations of goblin figures in “a German
goblin story” which “come under the malicious trespass act when they set
their obscene little claws on the enchanted island” (355-360).3 The mention
of “a German goblin story” must refer to the pervading influence of acertain publication of that time; the first English translation of the brothers
Grimm’s Popular Stories was published in a volume with widely influential
illustrations by George Cruikshank in 1823-26. Though disparagingly, Tait’s

“My Ariel, chick, […] Be free, and fare thou well!”87

comment actually points out that Millais’s representation, to some extent,
shares the same quality of the ethereal figures narrated by the Grimms andthose reimagined by Cruickshank: To some Victorian eyes, Millais’s fairies
certainly appeared both English and foreign.
Most positive comments, in the meantime, came from Millais’s own
artistic community; nevertheless, there were surely some who appreciated thework, considering the fact that it was purchased at the price of £150, higher
than its initial commissioned price (Rossetti, Præraphaelite Diaries and Letters83). Let us here, once again, pay attention to Hunt’s comment on Ferdinand
which keenly describes the ingenuity of his friend’s representation:[…] Millais, at one burst, treated them as elfin creatures, strange shapes suchas might lurk away in the shady groves and be blown about over the surface
of a mere, making the wanderer wonder whether the sounds they made wereanything more than the figments of his own brain. (399; emphasis mine)

Here he acclaims his friend’s bold presentation of Ariel and the sprites as“elfin creatures” as compared with the “graceful human pigmies” depicted bytheir contemporaries. W. M. Rossetti also expressed a favourable view about
its difference from the conventional presentation of Ariel as a “ballet-girl”(Præraphaelite Diaries and Letters 360).
As well as his fellow Pre-Raphaelites, Millais’s depictions of Ariel andthe sprites likely caught attention of some of his contemporary artists; thecartoonist and illustrator, Richard Doyle who came to the RA exhibition left
numerous satirical sketches based on “either the works of art exhibited, theirtitles or the names of the artists listed” and some of them also show “othervisitors” on his exhibition catalogue (Royal Academy of Arts). Among many
drawings of “puns, caricatures, parodies or flights of fancy” (Royal Academyof Arts), particularly notable sketches must be the ones inspired by Millais’s
Ferdinand (Doyle). Throughout the lower half of the page of the catalogue
where Millais’s work is introduced, Doyle drew various sketches of ArielNaoko Asano

88

playing the stringed instrument behind the figure of Ferdinand as well as themischievous goblin-like figures. Though it is hard to tell if this practice of
Doyle is supposed to be a positive reaction or not, it is quite evident that he,as an artist, found Millais’s representation amusing (See Asano for a further
discussion on the artistic relationship of Millais and Doyle).
As seen from these responses toward Ferdinand, the work was notwidely appreciated and its evaluation remained uncertain at the time of its
exhibition; however, this controversy stemmed from the critics’ awarenessthat Millais’s representation is very different from the fairy paintings withwhich they had been familiar.
VII. Conclusion
Thus far, we have considered various distinctions of Ferdinand in termsof its contrasts to the preceding and contemporary paintings and theatrical
productions based on the same subject matter. The overall composition andarrangement of the subjects as well as colour scheme of Millais’s rendition
separate itself from the contemporary works which were quite close to thetheatrical representations of his time, while his early drawings echo theconventional representations of a feminine Ariel and the sprites. The historyof the theatre adaptations of the play and representations in fairy paintingsshow that the idea of a female Ariel and her ethereal companions could havebeen an amalgam of the preferences of both the art world and the theatre
world, as they were interactive. This underlines the ingenuity of the result,and suggests that the transition from the earlier depiction of the human-like,feminine subjects to the final version of an androgynous Ariel and whimsicalsprites possibly derived from another source of inspiration, the originaltext by Shakespeare. It also explains the controversial responses towards thepainting from the art world, due to its radical depictions of ethereal subjects.
At the end of the play, Prospero utters his final lines solely towards Ariel;“My Ariel, chick, […] Then to the elements / Be free, and fare thou well!” (V.

“My Ariel, chick, […] Be free, and fare thou well!”89

i. 332-35) Just as Shakespeare’s Ariel is set free from servitude to Prospero, so
Millais’s Ariel is liberated from the shackles of the conventional dancer-likefigure in the visual representations.
NOTES
1

2

3

John Christian discusses Huskisson’s work as follows:
The work is indebted to one of the same subject by Richard Dadd (Private
Collection), exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1842, but the main
influence is undoubtedly the stage. The action is seen through a painted
arch reminiscent of a proscenium arch in a theatre, with symbolic figures
painted above in a manner still found in some theatres built or refurbishedduring the Victorian era. As for the ‘actors,’ they fly around as if on wires
and seem to be caught in the gaslight or limelight that revolutionized theearly Victorian theatre, and were never more effectively employed than in
the ballets and pantomimes in which fairies so often played a central role.
(230)
According to George Field’s Chromatography; Or, A Treatise on Colours andPigments: And of Their Powers in Painting (London: Tilt and Bogue, 1841), whengreen pigment is “mixed with purple, it becomes the other extreme tertiary,olive” (223). Field further describes olive colour as follows:[T]he antagonist, or harmonizing contrast of olive, is a deep orange; andlike blue also, it is a retiring colour, the most so of all the colours, being
the penultimate of the scale, or nearest of all in relation to black, and atlast, theoretically, of the regular distinctions of colours. (264)Having stated as above, Field explains the importance of this colour is “as great
as that of black” (264) in nature and painting.
“[T]he malicious trespass act” in this comment might literally imply the
Malicious Trespass Act enacted in 1827, which, together with the Vagrancy Act
in 1824, dragged out many children and young people into courtrooms andgaols under the name of law (Johnston).

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