Hunt, William Holman, 1827–1910, English painter. Hunt was a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Pre-Raphaelites (prē'-răf`ēəlīts')
..... Click the link for more information. brotherhood and one of its most conscientious exponents. His paintings are often crude in color and laborious in technique, but are completely sincere in their devotion to Pre-Raphaelite principles. In 1854 he visited Palestine in order to have authentic material for his religious paintings. Among his best-known works are The Light of the World (Oxford Univ.) and The Triumph of the Innocents (Liverpool Gall.).

Bibliography

See his Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1905–6); studies by F. G. Stephens (1860) and A. C. Gissing (1936).

Hunt, William Holman

(born April 2, 1827, London, Eng.—died Sept. 7, 1910, London) British painter and cofounder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He attended the Royal Academy schools and achieved his first public success with The Light of the World (1854). His paintings are characterized by hard colour, minute detail, and an emphasis on moral or social symbolism; their moral earnestness made them extemely popular in Victorian England. He spent two years in Syria and Palestine painting biblical scenes, such as The Scapegoat (1855), depicting the outcast animal on the shores of the Dead Sea. His autobiographical Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1905) is the basic sourcebook of the movement.