Music

Music, painted in 1847 as part of Millais's student allegorical series at Leeds Art Gallery, personifies the art of music alongside the companion pieces for Poetry, Youth, Old Age, Infancy, and Manhood. The personification of Music as an allegorical figure drew on a long tradition reaching from classical antiquity through the Renaissance system of the liberal arts, in which Music was one of the seven foundational disciplines of human learning. For Millais at eighteen, tackling such a subject demonstrated his command of academic tradition and his seriousness of purpose. Music, like Poetry, had a particular resonance in Victorian culture as an art form that was considered the most immediate expression of inner emotional life — the Romantic period had elevated music above the other arts, and its personification in this series signals Millais's engagement with contemporary aesthetic ideas.

The allegorical figure of Music would carry specific iconographic attributes — an instrument, perhaps a harp or lute, or the notation of a score — drawn from the tradition of personification that Millais was working within. The academic handling is careful and controlled, with the figure modelled against a relatively neutral background in a manner consistent with the other canvases in the series.