By Paul Dunwell, writing for EasyFrame
© Copyright EasyFrame 2021
William Holman Hunt was the principal founder of the Pre-Raphaelite movement that he established when he was just 21 with artist-and-poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a movement which was subsequently joined by the likes of John Everett Millais and Thomas Woolner. It was a movement that was mirrored by contemporary writers including the polymaths John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle, and essentially Holman Hunt and other artists simply sought to depict their take on truth, vividly colouring in a world where every detail could well be symbolic. Fundamentally the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood harkened back to the religiousness, or at least the spirituality, of the medieval times before the Renaissance supposedly made everything rational and explained (or potentially explicable) by science. So, essentially, Holman Hunt and his fellow Pre-Raphaelites celebrated enduring mystery - seeing God’s hand in every aspect of creation and the world they observed around them. That included nature, beauty and love. But, actually, the artist’s initial fame came when he exhibited religious work.
Born in London’s Cheapside as William Hobman Hunt, the artist assumed ‘Holman’ when he subsequently realised the name ‘Hobman’ had been accidentally misspelled as his baptism was registered. His dad was William Hunt, a warehouse manager. His mum was Sarah Hobman, and (in a contrast that must have set tongues wagging) she came from a well-to-do Rotherhithe family.
The artist was at first refused a place to study at the Royal Academy of Arts (it’s worth noting that fellow Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais had set a record by getting in when he was 11). But Holman Hunt was, when he eventually achieved admission, considered a rebel in that he didn’t like the ethos that was - in his opinion - a dated leftover from the previous century and the institution’s founder, the portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds.
The artist had a failed engagement to the model Annie Miller, then married Fanny Waugh but she died in childbirth (with the child, it seems) in their first year of marriage. He clearly loved Fanny and designed her ark-like tomb in Florence. Almost a decade later he married her little sister Marion Edith Waugh (known as Edith), but had to do so abroad, in Switzerland, since such a marriage was then illegal in Britain. The family didn’t like it, and one of the family was fellow Pre-Raphaelite Thomas Woolner who had married Alice Waugh (the middle sister) though he had previously been in love with Edith himself. One should view this scandal through the prism of the artist’s already-established success in painting religious subjects. The two strands of his life weren’t really compatible.
Holman Hunt painted Annie Miller in ‘The Awakening’, then there was a portrait of his first wife Fanny which he finished after her death, and then years later he drew Edith who appears to have also featured in some other work.
The artist had three children, all with Edith. Doubtless that would have eroded his qualifications to paint religious subjects in some eyes. The couple had sons Cyril Benoni Holman-Hunt then Hilary Lushington Holman-Hunt. And a daughter Gladys Millais Mulock Holman-Hunt
Holman Hunt’s initial success had come through his religious work, kicking that off with ‘The Light of the World’ in 1851. He then embarked during that decade on travels in the Holy Land. He even, eventually, had a home built in Jerusalem. His intention was to be able to realistically portray the landscapes, architecture and dress that would have been present during the life of Jesus Christ. And it is perhaps important to see how this fits in with the Pre-Raphaelite aversion to the religious work painted during the Renaissance that was largely executed by artists who had never been outside Europe - and it showed!
After that initial success with religious subject-matter the artist painted works based on poems, and this was a period famous for the work of the likes of John Keats, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Alfred Lord Tennyson. So he painted Keats’s ‘Isabella’ (a lady who falls for a lowly worker, a little as the artist’s mum had done) and ‘The Lady of Shalott’ (a lady stuck in a tower is eventually rescued by Sir Lancelot). But he illustrated poetry from other eras including - with a frontispiece - the 14th century classic ‘The Pearl’ (about the death of a young child, again a subject that might well have chimed with the artist’s experience), a poem which was probably written by John Massey of Cotton in Cheshire, UK.
The artist died at 83 in 1910, but by then he had already started to suffer so much with a decline in his eyesight that he felt to continue would have eroded the quality of his work and reputation.
It is worth saying that some of his latest works ‘The Importunate Neighbour’ and ‘The Miracle of the sacred Fire’ both underline his faith until the end - and are a testimony to his application and eyesight. The latter was actually not what it seems but an elaborately satirical comment on a conjurer’s trick - a fake miracle used by the Greek Orthodox church - which the artist felt brought Christianity into disrepute.
In summary William Holman Hunt was a consummate Victorian artist who took advantage of a world newly opened to travellers (previously most folk usually only got to go abroad during military campaigns).
You can easily and affordably buy unframed prints of his work. The Tate site at www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/william-holman-hunt-287 is one place to obtain these.
You'll want to frame whatever you buy. Any good framers will be able to show you a vast range of different solutions and advise on what might be the most suitable given the work and its proposed location.
EasyFrame is on 01234 856 501 and / or sales@EasyFrame.co.uk and they'll always chat even if you don't want to buy!
Article Posted: 17/05/2021 11:00:43