Millais's captivating scenes from drama, the Bible and poetry deservedly remain among his most famous pieces, each revealing a visionary sensibility in search of a pictorial solution the supernaturalism of his green, batwinged sprites in "Ferdinand Lured by Ariel" (after Shakespeare's "The Tempest"), the extraordinary brick backdrop for the tender lovers in "The Huguenot" (inspired by Meyerbeer's opera "Les Huguenots").

WSJ: Victorian Avant-Garde | Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design | National Gallery of Art | By Barrymore Laurence Scherer