By far the most entertaining show in London is the comprehensive exhibition of paintings by Millais at Tate Britain. In addition to his genius for creating an image which remains in the mind — the surest sign of a great painter — Millais had a wonderful knack of portraying interesting subjects and objects and took immense trouble to get the details right. The most riveting item in the show is ‘The Ruling Passion’, originally called ‘The Ornithologist’, showing an old bird-fancier on his deathbed, surrounded by children mesmerised by his collection of exotics; it is one of the finest bits of painting Millais contrived to pull off.
On the left sits a teenage girl — it was 1885 and the artist was 56 — with a Resplendent Quetzal in her lap. This bird has interested me ever since, nearly 50 years ago, I was shown one flying about in Costa Rica. It is of astonishing form and beauty and even the best photographs do not do it justice because they cannot convey the magic of seeing this creature actually flying about. Its basic colour is bright scarlet, covering its body, but over it — head, wings and tail — is a vivid shiny green, which on the top of its large head turns into black and gold, and some of its tail feathers are silver white. Its tail is enormously long and precarious-looking, more than twice as big as the rest of its body, and you can’t imagine how this exotic thing gets through the ordinary routine of living. It is the monarch of the Central American rainforest, very shy and difficult to get at unless you are prepared to take your life and health in your hands and penetrate the jungle. Even then the odds are you will not see one.
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