Art Story: Our Sacred Bonds The Blind Girl by John Everett Millais

This painting, titled The Blind Girl, is a painting by John Everett Millay from the Pre-Raphaelite movement. The scene was painted in 1856 on the road just outside the quaint medieval town of Winchester, near the coast of southern England. So what was Millay trying to capture in this painting? In 19th century England, John Everett Millay established the Pre-Raphaelite movement in painting, which shifted away from the stiff and heroic neoclassical themes that were the staple of his time. Millay and his fellow Pre-Raphaelite companions explored narratives in the works that brought us into the effeminate world of nurturing care, empathy, and intuition. Millay's painting, The Blind Girl, took us into that world with two girls who had opposing abilities. Millay never revealed any specific meaning in his painting. He left it to the viewer to glean from the painting what they will. No doubt, though, he captured and highlighted a central part of our shared human experience, that we are wholly dependent upon each other to make it in our lives. The sweet painting guides us into the scene and the story of the two girls' relationship with one another through our senses. The warm rays of sun soak the motionless blind girl. The viewer clues in by the butterfly that safely rests on her shoulder without any trepidation. A sign, pity the blind, hangs around her neck as a concertina rests on her lap. She moves blades of grass through her fingers on her right hand and clasps the other girl's hand tightly with her left. The two girls are beggars, possibly orphans, which were a common sight throughout England in the mid-19th century. The scene conveys a bit of a commonly held wisdom that our hyper-individualized society might do well to reflect on. We live in the same situation as these girls, with every aspect of our lives being dependent upon one another. In the traditional view of the world, the family and the bonds with others were one of the most important facets of a person's life and served many of the crucial needs a person would have, physically, psychologically, and spiritually. Even an impoverished family could live a very contented and purposeful life if they had a strong family or ties with others. The emphasis in the past was put on service towards the other and away from the self. John Everett Millay beautifully illustrated the two girls complimenting and looking out for each other, not reveling in a comfortable life, quite the opposite, but being fulfilled and enriched with a shared bond that goes beyond the value of money and material wealth. In a modern culture, the shift away from the importance of family and marriage to the commodification of relationships has left many to face the world alone. That careful consideration, valuing, and honor, being truthful, and respecting vows of marriage are an afterthought to emotional impulses. The removal of these sacred institutions that lifted humanity into living a noble and reverent life were purposefully maligned, however, to steer humanity towards depravity. Along with modern technology, Marxism and materialism were the culprits that began to spread in the 19th century across Europe and England during Millay's time and wreaked havoc on society, hurting people of their sacrosanct ties to each other. In the thesis on Feuerbach, Karl Marx stated, quote, therefore after, for example, the earthly family is discovered as a secret of the holy family, the former must itself be theoretically and practically destroyed, end quote. Vladimir Lenin, the Marxist dictator of Soviet Russia, set to break familial bonds and replace them with the state. From Marxist came the feminist movement, which pitted the sexist against each other, an endless struggle which broke the sacred bonds that binded each other in service to one another. Lenin pushed an agenda to demean and disparage any devotion to family as oppression and force in irreverence towards life. Lenin compared marriage, familial piety, and childbearing to slavery. In his treatise, Prophetic Words, published in 1918, he stated, quote, human childbirth is an act which transforms the woman into an almost lifeless, bloodstained heap of flesh, tortured, tormented, and driven frantic by pain, end quote. After World War II, the Marxist influence spread to the United States via the Frankfurt School under Herbert Macusi and Theodor Adorno as they fled the war in Germany. Their beliefs soon spread throughout the universities, the entertainment industry, in the arts, and with them promoting this new risque and invoke ideology. The effects of the Marxist influence on our culture were the complete breaking of the once sacred bonds and importance we placed in relationships. Drug abuse, free love, the celebration of abortion, and many more cultural ills, along with modern technology, have taken the warmth of connection and societal bonds out of the picture. These Marxist beliefs that have gained such a foothold in our culture now have made it increasingly difficult to share our lives with others. Karl Marx, in his bizarre utilitarian view of life, stated, quote, the less you eat, drink, and read books, the less you go to the theater, the dance hall, the public house, the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc. The more you save, the greater becomes your treasure, which neither moss nor dust will devour, your capital. The less you are, the more you have. The less you express your own life, the greater is your alienated life. The greater is the store of your estranged being, end quote. We are no doubt, with each passing year, living more and more in accordance to Marx's utopian vision. Ironically, capital or power is the ultimate meaning of life to him. He knew the bonds of family made people strong unto themselves. It was an institution, he thought, that had to be done away with. Nonetheless, now Millais' painting offers a meditation from a modern world back into the important aspect of the human condition that our traditional wisdom and values have given us, for us as a society to honor the bonds that tie us together by selflessness and servitude to others. A beautiful and richly rewarding life is one where we can unequivocally put our lives safely in others' hands. With the girls in the painting, they can go through life, even in its many setbacks, and confide in and enrich each other's spirits. Thank you for listening to Ventures in Spirit. See you next time.