As a religious painting, a representation of a Holy Family, this work was by no means approved by the mid-century critics. One of the writers of the period, who joined in the general outcry against the picture, declared, with what seems now to have been quite unnecessary emphasis, that it touched "the lowest depths of what is mean, odious, repulsive, and repelling." It certainly shows no respect for any of the traditions which were then popularly supposed to call for the unquestioning support of every artist, for the spirit by which was inspired such a composition, for instance, as Sir Charles Eastlake's _Christ lamenting over Jerusalem_, a picture now in the Tate Gallery, which explains very well the sort of feebleness that was in fashion in the middle of the nineteenth century. Millais did not hesitate to put on one side all the namby-pamby prettiness and elegant affectation which governed the production of his contemporaries, and struck out for himself in a very different direction. He laid the scene of his story in the house of Joseph, and, to quote another critic, associated the characters of the sacred story "with the meanest details of a carpenter's shop, with no conceivable omission of misery, of dirt, and even of disease, all finished with the same loathsome minuteness." The child Christ stands before the carpenter's bench with the Virgin kneeling beside him preparing to bind up with a piece of linen a wound in his hand, at which Joseph leaning forward from the end of the bench is looking. St. Anne in the background is picking up a pair of pincers, and beside Joseph is John the Baptist coming towards the central group with a bowl of water in his hands. An assistant on the other side of the picture watches the incident gravely. The keynote of the whole composition is its earnest symbolism. Every one of the lovingly laboured details explains something of the story, the tools on the wall, the dove perched on the ladder, and the sheep, typifying the faithful, and the wattled fence, an emblem of the Church, which are seen through the doorway; while in the meadow beyond is placed a well as a symbol of Truth. In its imaginative qualities, the picture is not less masterly than in its technical accuracy, and excites as much wonder by the depth of thought it reveals as by its astonishing accomplishment. It is the most original of all the artist's earlier works, marking definitely his emancipation from the influences of his student days, and his development in craftsmanship. OPHELIA