Blow Blow Thou Winter Wind

Blow Blow Thou Winter Wind of 1892, now at Auckland Art Gallery, takes its title from the famous song in Shakespeare's As You Like It — 'Blow, blow, thou winter wind, / Thou art not so unkind / As man's ingratitude.' The song, sung by Amiens in the Forest of Arden, contrasts the honest cruelty of nature with the more painful wounds inflicted by human betrayal and forgetfulness. Millais's late choice of this title for a painting of a woman in wintry conditions invests the image with Shakespearean resonance and a note of emotional suffering. By 1892 Millais was near the end of his life — he died in 1896 — and this late work carries something of the retrospective gravity of an artist looking back. Auckland acquired several Victorian paintings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, reflecting New Zealand's cultural connections with Britain.

Oil on canvas, the work reflects Millais's late technique: broad, confident handling with less emphasis on the crisp detail of his earlier work. The winter scene would have been rendered with cool blues, greys, and muted greens, creating an atmosphere of cold that mirrors the Shakespearean theme of nature's harsh but honest sting.