Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896) was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of English painters, poets, and art critics. His 1851-52 painting Ophelia embodies the group’s historical and naturalist focus, and depicts the character Ophelia from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, singing in a river before her demise. The painting is known for its highly detailed depictions of flora on the riverbank, a landscape often considered quintessentially English. The bright, intense colors of the natural landscape contrast with Ophelia’s pale gown and skin tone, and highlight the ecosystem’s cyclical patterns of growth and decay.

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