A Forerunner

A Forerunner, painted in 1896 — the year of Millais's death — depicts John the Baptist, the prophet who proclaimed the coming of Christ and is described in the Gospels as the forerunner or herald of the Messiah. The subject carried particular resonance in the final year of Millais's life, when he was gravely ill with throat cancer and working as much as his condition would allow. John the Baptist as a figure of proclamation and precursor had been painted many times in European art, from the great Renaissance images by Leonardo and Raphael to the Pre-Raphaelite treatments of biblical subjects that had been central to Millais's early career. This late return to a biblical figure may carry autobiographical weight — the artist as a forerunner who has prepared the ground for what comes after. The Glasgow Museums Resource Centre holds this final religious work as a significant document of Millais's late career.

The late handling is broad and somewhat summary, but the figure of the Baptist is rendered with concentrated energy appropriate to a prophet. Millais emphasises the rough, ascetic quality of John's wilderness existence through the treatment of his clothing and physical bearing. The background, whether landscape or sky, is managed with the atmospheric confidence of his late manner.