HUNT, WILLIAM HOLMAN, a celebrated English painter of the present day, was b. in London in 1827, and exhibited his first picture, entitled "Hark!" in 1846. During the next few years, his reputation steadily advanced; but while the young artist was win ning fame, he was at the same time becoming more and more dissatisfied with the principles and practices that ruled his art, and along with Millais, Rosetti, and other young painters who shared his convictions, lie commenced a new style of treatment, known as the Pre-Raphaelite: This term was originated by Hunt and his friends, and was employed by them to indicate their predilection for the painters who lived before Raphael, such as Giotto and Fra-Angelieo, but did not at all imply that they meant to take the productions of these masters as technical models. It was because of their truthfulness and earnest simplicity that they admired the fathers of Italian art. The
first of Hunt's works that showed the new influence was his "Converted British Family sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids" (1850). He after wards produced, among others, " Valentine rescuing Sylvia from Proteus," " The Hireling Shepherd," "Our English Coasts," " London Bridge on the night of the Mar riag.e of the Prince of Wales," "The After-Glow," "The Festival of St. Swithin," "The Awakened Conscience," "The Light of the World," "The Scape Goat," "Christ disputing with the Doctors in the Temple," and the " Shadow of Death" (1873). The last four are perhaps Hunt's greatest; and multitudes who do not care to understand the Texata qua.i tio of Pre-Raphaelitism, have been moved by their tenderness and religious truth.