The Blind Girl
A blind beggar-musician and her small sister resting by the road outside Winchelsea, Sussex, under a double rainbow — the town on its hill is unchanged.
Winchelsea
The painting depicts a real landscape or cityscape. The precise viewpoint the artist used may be unknown, so the marker shows the general area.
The Blind Girl — at a glance
- Artist
- John Everett Millais (1829–1896)
- Year
- 1854–1856
- Movement
- Pre-Raphaelite
- Place
- The road outside Winchelsea, East Sussex, England
- Viewpoint
- Looking toward the hill town — Winchelsea and its church unchanged; the roadside bank is general
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 83 × 62 cm
- Now at
- Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Overview
The Blind Girl is one of the Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais's finest paintings, made in 1854–56. It shows two girls resting on a grassy bank at the edge of a road after a rainstorm: an older girl, blind, with a concertina on her lap and a hand-lettered ‘PITY THE BLIND’ label at her neck, and a younger sister who leans against her and twists round to look at a double rainbow. It is oil on canvas, about 83 by 62 cm, and it hangs in Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.
The story behind the painting
Scholarship Millais painted the landscape background on the spot at Winchelsea in Sussex in 1854, then completed the figures and details in the studio; the blind girl was modelled by Matilda Proudfoot and the head reworked from Effie Gray. The picture belongs to a Victorian tradition of sympathetic images of the itinerant poor, and won praise from Ruskin — though he made Millais correct the rainbow, which was first painted with physically impossible colours.
Where was The Blind Girl painted?
Scholarship The town on the low hill behind the figures is Winchelsea, a small medieval planted town in East Sussex, near Rye and Hastings, with the tower of the Church of St Thomas the Martyr prominent on its ridge. Millais painted the view looking towards the town across the fields; Winchelsea, its hill and its church are essentially unchanged, so the backdrop can be matched closely, although the exact bank where the girls sit is a general roadside rather than a marked spot.
What is in the painting?
The two girls sit on a bank of grass and weeds, minutely painted — clover, plantain, a tortoiseshell butterfly resting on the blind girl's shawl, which she cannot see. She holds the concertina and tilts her face up to feel the sun and the rain-washed air; the younger girl shelters under the same shawl and turns to the sky. Behind them, wet fields with grazing cattle and a flock of birds, a rain shower moving off, and the double rainbow arching over Winchelsea on its hill.
Look closely
The ‘PITY THE BLIND’ label
A hand-lettered card at the older girl's neck marks her as a beggar-musician earning alms.
The butterfly on the shawl
A tortoiseshell butterfly has settled on her shawl — a beauty resting on her that she cannot see.
The double rainbow
Two bows arch over Winchelsea against the dark departing storm; the fainter one is optically correct.
Winchelsea on its hill
The medieval town and the tower of St Thomas's church on the ridge — unchanged today.
The minutely painted bank
Clover, plantain and grasses rendered blade by blade in Pre-Raphaelite detail.
Analysis
Composition & perspective
The two seated figures fill the foreground as a solid pyramid; the landscape, town and rainbow are laid out in bright detail behind.
Scholarship Millais builds the girls into a compact triangular group at the front and gives the whole background equal, unblinking Pre-Raphaelite sharpness — every blade of grass, the cattle, the town, the rainbow. Nothing is blurred by distance, so the viewer sees, in full, everything the blind girl cannot.
Colour and light
Rain-cleared light: vivid green fields, a dark retreating shower, and the two rainbows against slate-grey cloud.
Millais keys the picture to the brilliant, saturated colour of landscape just after rain — intense greens, the black-grey of the departing storm, the prismatic bands of the double rainbow — with the warm browns and reds of the girls' worn clothes in front.
Meaning and interpretation
Interpretations differ. What the artist documented, what museums and scholars propose, and later or speculative theories are marked and kept separate.
Seeing and not seeing
The picture turns on a contrast the viewer is made to feel: a landscape of extraordinary visible beauty — sun, colour, a rare double rainbow, a butterfly on her own shawl — none of which the blind girl can see. She receives the world through warmth, sound and touch instead.
Sympathy for the itinerant poor
The ‘PITY THE BLIND’ placard and the concertina mark the older girl as a street musician earning alms. The painting asks its middle-class audience for compassion without sentimentalising the pair.
History & provenance
The painting changed hands several times in the nineteenth century and was bought for Birmingham's public collection in 1892; it hangs in Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.
Sources
- Birmingham Museums Trust — collection entry for John Everett Millais, ‘The Blind Girl’ (1854–56; oil on canvas, c. 83 × 62 cm)
- Tate / Jason Rosenfeld, ‘Millais’ (2007) — the Winchelsea background and the rainbow correction
Frequently asked
What is the town in the background of The Blind Girl?
Winchelsea, a small medieval hill town in East Sussex near Rye, with the tower of the Church of St Thomas the Martyr on its ridge. Millais painted the landscape on the spot there in 1854.
Can you match the view today?
Yes. Winchelsea, its hill and its church are essentially unchanged and the backdrop can be matched closely. The exact grassy bank where the girls sit is a general roadside, not a marked spot.
Who are the two girls?
A blind itinerant musician with a concertina and a ‘PITY THE BLIND’ label, earning alms on the road, and her younger sister sheltering under the same shawl. They were posed by models in Millais's studio.
What is the point of the rainbow and the butterfly?
They are things of great visible beauty that the blind girl cannot see — a tortoiseshell butterfly has even settled on her own shawl. The picture makes the viewer feel the gap between her world and the seen one.
Why are there two rainbows?
Millais first painted a single rainbow with impossible colours; after criticism (including from Ruskin) he corrected it and added the fainter secondary bow, which is optically accurate.
Where is the painting now?
In Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.
Related paintings
The Bohemian
1890
Bouguereau's street violinist against Notre-Dame — another poor girl, an instrument and a precise real backdrop.
Christina's World
1948
Wyeth's disabled figure in a wide real landscape — the same pairing of physical limitation and open country.
The Hay Wain
1821
Constable's Suffolk — the English landscape tradition Millais brings his Pre-Raphaelite sharpness to.
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