Anđa Belić

Prof. Tatjana Jukić-Gregurić, PhD

Pre-Raphaelitism

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb

January 20, 2019

Portrayal of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish in Millais’ Lorenzo and Isabella

Isabella, also known as Lorenzo and Isabella, is a painting by John Everett Millais

which, actually, was his first work in the Pre-Raphaelite style. The painting is based on

Keats’ poem Isabella, of The Pot of Basil which was itself based on the 14th century Italian

writer Boccaccio and his Decameron. Namely, in Keats’ poem, Isabella is the sister of two

wealthy Florentine brothers who are intending to arrange a marriage for her to some wealthy

nobleman but unfortunately, she falls in love with her brothers’ employee Lorenzo. When

Isabella's brothers realise that there is a romance between the two young people, they

summon Lorenzo on a spurious journey and kill him. Through the detailed analysis of the

painting we will see how Millais uses clear gestures and facial expressions as well as

symbolic details such as the blood orange, the falcon tearing at a feather and passion-flower

above Isabella’s head in order to show connection between the painting and the Foucault’s

Discipline and Punish, particularly with the part where Foucault discusses "docile bodies"

and peculiar perspective on how bodies are treated and represented in modernity.

Firstly, due to their specific situation, Lorenzo and Isabella can meet only at night,

when nobody can see them which means that this absence of light operates as the agent of

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social control, representing once again Bentham’s project of panoptic control. "In other

words, Isabella and Lorenzo must perform as phantoms, on the very perimeter of visibility, if

they are to escape social supervision." (Jukić, 131) According to Foucault "to discipline the

body, optimize its capabilities, extort its forces, increase its usefulness and docility, integrate

it into systems of efficient and economic controls." (Foucault, 139) In other words, political

order is maintained through the production of "docile bodies" or subjugated, passive and

productive individuals whose lives are under constant supervision through the institutions

such as schools, prisons, hospitals and the family. As a result, this surveillance and discipline

of the body create bodies that are habituated to external norms and thus produce the types of

bodies that society requires. The similar thing happens with Millais painting.

Namely, the viewer is offered a view of two lovers, Lorenzo and Isabella, surrounded

by Isabella’s three brothers and the rest of the family who represent the figures of social

control. Although neither of them is aware of their future destiny, they are aware of the fact

that they are under control. "The game of proleptic hide-and-seek is particularly relevant

here, since Millais’ painting too enacts visibility as the means of cognition and control. The

very subject of the painting is a careful orchestration of looking, in which looking is made an

instrument of control." (Jukić, 140) For instance, Isabella is represented with her eyes looking

down which shows her hidden desire. However, the fact that she is not looking makes her

ignorant of her brothers’ knowledge which means that she is unable to see what they are

planning to do. On the other hand, Lorenzo is also ignorant of Isabella’s brothers because he

is not focused on them but on Isabella. Also, "Lorenzo’s fervent erotic gaze focusing on

Isabella, however, is the object of the gaze of one of the brothers (the one with the falcon). As

a result, in Millais’ painting it is precisely the act of looking that gets to be constructed as the

sign which motivates the brothers’ disciplining action and propels the narrative." (Jukić 140-

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 Secondly, the fact that Isabella’s brothers are Florentine merchants, while Lorenzo is

only their employee raises the question of social class and thus of social control. In other

words, her brothers are unable to suppress a contemptuous sneer for Lorenzo who, seated

opposite is:

". . . caught between his love for Isabella and his employment under her brothers – is

conveyed in his placement, posture, gaze and association with the servant. According

to Keats, the brothers consider Lorenzo, their clerk, ‘the servant of their trade

designs’. He eats with the family, but like the servant he is considered too lowly to

marry Isabella. He is both in and out of the family." (Codell, 58-59)

For instance, in the foreground of the picture, Isabella’s brother, hunched over the table,

rocking forward on his chair tries to kick the hound that at the same time symbolises

Lorenzo’s devotion to Isabella and her brother’s violence towards Lorenzo. However, not

only the hound represents violence of Isabella’s brother but his long, white leg also represents

"borderline between the represented events (Isabella’s brother is shown kicking a dog) and

the symbolic violence enacted on the viewer’s gaze. Only after a however figurative

showdown with the representation of Isabella’s cruel brother is the viewer’s gaze in for a

performance." (Jukić, 139) In other words, brother’s leg, in a way, represents the border

between Lorenzo and Isabella and thus a certain type of social control over Isabella and her

life.

According to Foucault through the surveillance bodies are managed and made useful.

"Discipline is no longer simply an art of distributing bodies, of extracting time from

them and accumulating it, but of composing forces in order to obtain an efficient

machine . . . The individual body becomes an element that may be placed, moved,

articulated on others. Its bravery and its strength are no longer the principal variables

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 that define it; but the place it occupies, the interval it covers, the regularity, the good

order according to which it operates its movements." (Foucault, 164)

For Foucault the body is always unstable: it is not historical given and the self must be

invoked as a vehicle through which control is enacted on the body. Also, "power is not

imposed from above by adominant group, but rather comes "from below". We are all the

vehicles of power because it is embedded in discourses and norms that are part of the minute

practices, habits, and interactions of our everyday lives." (Pylypa, 23) Pursuant to these

quotations, Millais’ Isabella can be seen as an individual who constantly tries to live up to the

expectation of the society (in this case of her brothers). Even though, control is not violently

imposed on her, "Millais’ Lorenzo and Isabella effects a wariness of panoptic control, a fear

of being spotted while making a wrong move (or while exchanging a wrong glance), by the

authority forever suspended from the field of vision." (Jukić, 141)

Furthermore, the position of their bodies also symbolises a kind of control. For

example, first and eldest brother leans towards Isabella and Lorenzo while cracking nuts

which suggest both violence and control. The second brother, who holds the glass of red wine

that symbolises blood and Lorenzo’s death, is not merely looking at his wine, but also he is

looking at two lovers out of the corner of his eye. The third brother seems quite calm with

scorn on his face while he is also looking at Isabella and Lorenzo which can also suggest

Lorenzo’s death because he knows they will eventually kill him. On the other hand, the facial

expressions of the rest of the family are not so brutal, but it is obvious who is in control at

this table and who are objects of supervision. However, the tension between the family and

Isabella and Lorenzo is further elaborated by the use of more overt symbols. For instance, the

falcon tearing at the feather indicates impending violence as well as the blood-red orange

which symbolises both Lorenzo’s passion and the neck of someone who has just been

decapitated and this alludes to the time in the future when Isabella will cut off the dead

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Lorenzo’s head and bury it in the pot of basil. Also, spilt salt which is symbolic of future spilt

blood, etc. In contrast to these indicators of violence and control, Millais uses some symbols

which represent love and peace. For instance, passion-flower which indicates Lorenzo’s love

as well as the purity of his affections and the archway behind them which serves to link these

two figures together.

To sum up, thinking about Millais’ painting in terms of hidden supervision and

control as well as violence and power over Isabella and Lorenzo certainly shocks the viewer

in a way. In any case, Millais offers to us plenty of details, symbols and hidden meanings,

which is characteristic of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. However, the viewer through the

picture is able to comment on certain problems of that time as well as the problems of the

society today. Thanks to the Foucault’s Discipline and Punish the viewer is able to go deeper

into analysis and see every character from the painting as an individual who struggles with

certain things and problems that affects not only him or her but society as a whole.

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Works Cited:

Codell, Julie F."The Dilemma of the Artist in Millais’ 'Lorenzo and Isabella': Phrenology,

The Gaze and the Social Discourse" Art History XIV.1. 1991.

Foucault, Michel. "Panopticism." Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: the birth of

prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. 2nd. New York: Random House, Inc., 1995.

Jukić, Tatjana. "The Optics of the Pre-Raphaelite Keats." Studia Romanica et Anglica

Zagrabiensia. Vol. 47–48. (2002–2003).

Pylypa, Jen. Power and Bodily Practice: Applying the Work of Foucault to an Anthropology

of the Body. Association of Student Anthropologists, Department of Anthropology,

University of Arizona, Tucson. 1998.