Portret van John Milton 1830

This is a portrait of John Milton, made by Bernard Romain Julien, sometime before 1871. It’s an engraving on paper, a medium well suited to the democratization of images in nineteenth-century Europe. The portrait presents Milton, the great English poet and defender of the Commonwealth, as a figure of established cultural authority. Yet this wasn't always the case. In his own time, Milton’s radical political views made him a controversial figure. After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, his writings were censored and he was briefly imprisoned. Later in life, his poetry, especially Paradise Lost, would cement his place in the canon of English literature. The image is interesting, as a piece of institutional history, because it shows how cultural figures are made and re-made over time. To understand this image better, we might ask, what was Milton’s reputation in France at this time? Did Julien share Milton’s republican sympathies? Answering these questions helps us understand how artistic and political reputations are constantly in flux.