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| Photo taken at the Tate Britain, London |
In this image, the judge sits with his legs crossed at the
ankles on a throne-like cushioned chair. The judge wears fine clothes, pointed
slippers, and an apparently bejeweled hat. His right hand pushes the woman
away, and his left hand is upraised, in effect telling her to stop, that he has
heard enough, and that his answer is no. His head turns away from her, and his
face reflects his haughty, superior disdain for her; he smiles or perhaps even
derisively laughs at her desperate pleas.
The woman kneels by his feet on the right side of his chair,
her hands clasped in supplication, and her right arm reaches over the judge’s
right knee. Her face reveals her humble pleas, and her eyes remain steadily
focused on the unjust judge, a hint that she will persevere, no matter how much
the judge mocks or ignores her.
The faces are what stand out the most in the image,
especially the mocking, contemptuous dismissal of the woman reflected in the
judge’s face, and the pleading, desperate yet insistent face of the woman for
whom the judge is her last recourse. There is no sign yet that the judge will
relent, but the woman will not be deterred, even with the guard trying to drag
her away in light of the judge’s dismissal of her. She kneels alone, with no
one, it appears, willing to help her or to take her side, which accentuates her
isolation and desperation.
In the foreground, on the right side, we see a secretary
sitting on a cushion on the floor just to the left of the judge’s chair. He
holds a tablet on his lap and a writing instrument in his right hand. He looks
up at the woman expectantly and, perhaps, sympathetically, an emotion lacking
from most of the others in the image. He waits to see what if anything will
happen.
A guard, on the far left, looms over the woman and grabs her
with both his hands to pull her away from the judge. Just to the right of the
guard is a servant holding a fan; like the cushions on the chair, the judge has
every comfort available to him. The servant looks at the judge, and he shares
the judge’s amusement at the woman’s predicament, although his smile is not as
pronounced as the judge’s—his teeth do not show. There is no trace of sympathy
in his smiling face. Another man stands just beside him. He also smiles with
some amusement, but instead of looking at the judge, he looks at the woman. His
hand is raised, seemingly to direct the woman to leave the judge’s presence.
Another young man peers over the top of the judge’s chair.
We only see his face and one hand on the top of the chair. Apparently the young
man has to struggle to gain a peek at what is going on. His face also betrays a
slight sense of amusement. No one yet shows any interest in helping the poor
widow.
Two men, however, stand in the background, both with full,
long beards and no trace of amusement on their faces. One man
stands in profile, and he apparently looks at the widow as she attempts to
plead her case or, perhaps, his eyes merely look down in sadness. The other man
looks directly at the viewers, in effect challenging them if not accusing them: "What will you do?" he seems to ask. How will you respond to the injustice taking
place against this woman? Or he may be reminding viewers that they too must be
persistent, which eventually results in the parable in a happy ending for the
widow and, as Luke 18:6-8 promises, God’s bringing justice to those who cry out
for it “day and night.”
Millais later used this print as a starting point to
recreate the parable in watercolor; a total of twelve images were developed into
watercolors, and fourteen of the designs were used as models for stained-glass
windows for the church of Millais’s father-in-law in Perth. One large oil
painting of The Parable of the Lost Piece
of Money (1862) was lost in a gas explosion and fire, but an oil painting
of The Parable of the Tares (1865) is
still extant (Barlow 2005: 94).
Millais’s
representations of the parables were not universally acclaimed, a fact that I will discuss briefly in my next post (and to which I will respond a bit). I also will include several other photos of Millais's parable prints from the Tate Britain in London.
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