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Four girls rake fallen leaves into a smoking heap as the light fades from a Scottish sky. John Ruskin called it the first instance of a perfectly painted twilight.

The story behind the painting

Millais began Autumn Leaves in the autumn of 1855 and finished it in April 1856. He painted it in the garden of Annat Lodge in Perth, Scotland, where his family was living; the site is now Rodney Gardens. His wife Effie wrote that he wanted a picture full of beauty and without a subject. The two girls on the left were modelled on his sisters-in-law, Alice and Sophie Gray. The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856.

What to look for

On a canvas of about 104.3 by 74 cm, four girls in the twilight gather and rake fallen leaves in a garden. They are making a bonfire, but the fire itself is never shown, only smoke rising from between the leaves. The two girls on the left wear the middle class clothes of the period, while the two on the right wear rougher, working class clothing. The youngest girl, at the right, holds an apple. Above them the dusk light is the subject Ruskin praised.

Meaning and intent

The painting is usually read as an image of the passing of youth and beauty, a theme Millais often returned to. Malcolm Warner suggests he was influenced by Tennyson, at whose house he had once helped rake autumn leaves, and especially by the song Tears, Idle Tears, with its thoughts of the days that are no more. The apple may allude to the loss of childhood innocence and the expulsion from Eden. Millais himself wrote to F. G. Stephens that he meant the picture to awaken by its solemnity the deepest religious reflection, and chose burning leaves to produce that feeling.

Legacy

Autumn Leaves has been seen as one of the earliest influences on the development of the Aesthetic Movement, with its stress on mood and beauty over story. Ruskin's verdict about a perfectly painted twilight has followed the picture ever since. In Perth, Rodney Gardens now holds a stone sculpture called Millais Viewpoint, which frames the view through the two lower corners of a picture frame, close to where the painting was made. The canvas is in the Manchester Art Gallery.