HUNT, WILLIAM HOLMAN (1827-191o), English art ist, was born in London on April 2, 1827. His father was the manager of a city warehouse. In his thirteenth year Holman Hunt worked in an office, but employed his leisure in reading, drawing and painting. In his 17th year he entered the Royal Academy schools, where he met his lifelong friend John Everett Millais, then a boy of 15. In 1846 Holman Hunt sent to the Royal Academy his first picture, "Hark ! ", which was followed by "Dr. Rochecliffe performing Divine Service in the Cottage of Joceline Joliffe at Woodstock," in 1847, and "The Flight of Madeline and Porphyrio" (from Keats's Eve of St. Agnes) in 1848. In this year he and Millais, with the co-operation of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others, initiated the Pre-Raphaelite move ment. Typical examples of the new creed were furnished in the next year's Academy by Millais's "Isabella" and Holman Hunt's "Rienzi vowing to obtain Justice for the Death of his Young Brother." His "Valentine protecting Sylvia from Proteus" (1851) was praised by Ruskin and gained a prize at Liverpool; it is reckoned as the finest of Holman Hunt's earlier works.
In 1854 he achieved his first great success by the famous pic ture of "The Light of the World," an allegorical representation of Christ knocking at the door of the human soul. "The Light of the World" was presented by the owner to Keble College. In Holman Hunt completed a second "Light of the World" which is hung in St. Paul's Cathedral, the execution of which was due to his dissatisfaction with the way in which the Keble picture was shown.
In January 1854 Holman Hunt left England for Syria and Palestine with the desire to revivify on canvas the facts of Scrip ture history. The first fruit of this idea, which may be said to have dominated the artist's life, was "The Scapegoat," a soli tary outcast animal standing alone on the shores of the Dead Sea, with the mountains of Edom in the distance, seen under a gor geous effect of purple evening light. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856, together with three Eastern landscapes. His next picture (186o), one of the most elaborate and most success ful of his works, was "The Finding of our Saviour in the Temple." Like all his important pictures, it was the work of years. Many causes contributed to the delay in its completion, including a sentence of what was tantamount to excommunication (afterwards revoked) passed on all Jews acting as models. The picture is now in the Birmingham Municipal Art Gallery. Holman Hunt's next great religious picture was "The Shadow of Death." This work was presented to Manchester by Sir William Agnew. After two years' absence Holman Hunt returned to Jerusalem in 1875, where he was engaged upon his great work, "The Triumph of the Innocents," which proved to be the most serious labour of his life. He executed two versions; of these one is in the Liverpool, the other in the Birmingham Art Gallery. "The Ship," painted on board a P. and 0. steamer on the voyage to Palestine in 1875, is now in the Tate gallery. His most important later work is "May-Day, Magdalen Tower." Holman Hunt remained entirely unaffected by the various movements in the art-world after 185o. His ambition was always "to serve as high priest and expounder of the excellence of the works of the Creator." His History of Pre-Raphaelitism, a subject on which he could speak as a first authority, but not without dissent from at least one member of the P.R.B., was published in 1905. On Sept. 7, 191o, he died in London, and he was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. He was a member of the Order of Merit. See Archdeacon Farrar and Mrs. Alice Meynell, "William Holman Hunt, his Life and Work" (Art Annual) (1893) ; John Ruskin, Modern Painters; The Art of England (lecture) [consult Gordon Crauford's Ruskin's Notes on the Pictures of Mr. Holman Hunt, 1886] ; Robert de la Sizeranne, La Peinture anglaise contemporaine (1895) ; W. B. Scott, Autobiographical Notes; W. M. Rossetti, Pre-Raphaelite Diaries and Letters; Percy H. Bate, The Pre-Raphaelite Painters (1899) ; Sir W. Bayliss, Five Great Painters of the Victorian Era (1902) ; H. W. Shrewsbury, Brokers in Art (192o). (C. Mox.; X.)