Part 1

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, eagkw and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR EDITED BY T. LEMAN HARE

HOLMAN HUNT

1827-1910

Holman Hunt

BY MARY E. COLERIDGE ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, LTD. NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.

CONTENTS

Page I. The Painter's Youth (1827-1854) 11

II. The East 48

III. The Subject Pictures 58

IV. Portraits and Other Works 74

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Plate I. Portrait of Holman Hunt at the age of Fifteen Frontispiece By kind permission of the painter Page II. The Two Gentlemen of Verona 14 From the Birmingham Art Gallery

III. Isabella and the Pot of Basil 24 From the painting in the possession of Mrs. James Hall

IV. The Light of the World 34 From the painting in Keble College Chapel, Oxford

V. The Scapegoat 40 From the painting in possession of Sir Cuthbert Quilter, Bart.

VI. The Triumph of the Innocents 50 From the painting lent by the painter to the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

VII. The Hireling Shepherd 60 From the painting in the Manchester Art Gallery

VIII. May Morning 70 By kind permission of the painter

I

THE PAINTER'S YOUTH (1827-1854)

"Art is too tedious an employment for any not infatuated with it."

"The only artists I ever knew who achieved work of note in any sense whatever, went first through a steady training of several years and afterwards entered their studios with as unwearying a punctuality as business men attend their offices, worked longer hours than these, and had fewer holidays, partly because of their love for art, but also because of their deep sense of the utter uselessness of grappling with the difficulties besetting the happy issue of each contest, except at close and unflinching quarters."

"I have many times in my studio come to such a pass of humiliation that I have felt that there was no one thing that I had thought I could do thoroughly in which I was not altogether incapable." W. H. H.

Upon a wintry afternoon in London, in the year 1834, a little boy of six years old was standing on the stairs of a poor artist's house, watching, through a window in the wall, the marvellous deeds of the man within. The man within was painting the "Burning of the Houses of Parliament." Scarlet and gold! Scarlet and gold! He used them up so quickly that he had to grind and prepare more and more. Every time he ground with the muller on the slab a fresh supply of vermilion and chrome yellow, there was a fresh flare up of the conflagration, another outburst of applause from the little boy. Meantime, the artist's wife put the kettle on the fire, and cut bread and butter as if nothing out of the way were going on; and by-and-by she and the father and their children sat down to tea. It seemed very strange to the little watchman that they could behave in this calm, everyday manner when such wonders were all about them in the room. Presently a porter came from a warehouse in Dyer's Court, Aldermanbury, where dwelt a merchant, Mr. William Hunt; and he took the little boy home to his father.

This little boy had been born on the 2nd April 1827, in Wood Street, Cheapside, and was christened William Holman at St. Giles's, Cripplegate. From the time that he could hold anything he held a pencil. When he was about four years old he begged for a brush and some paints, and his joy is thus described:

"How I idolised the implements when they were in my possession! The camel-hair pencil, with its translucent quill, rosy-coloured silk binding up its delicate hair at the base, all embedded together as in amber, was an equal joy with the gem-like cakes of paint. I carried them about with me in untiring love. A day or two of this joy had not exhausted it, when, alas, alas, the brush was lost! Search proved to be all in vain. I remember going around and over every track about the house and garden. Waking up from sorrowing sleep, in which my continuing pain had been finally relieved by a dream of the lost treasure lying ensconced in some quiet corner, I hurried to the spot, only to find it vacant. The loss was the greater trouble because it was my first terrible secret. That my father should ever forgive me for losing so beautiful an object was to my distracted mind impossible. What could be done? My hair was straight, fine, and of camel brush hue. I cut off pieces to test its fitness for the office of paint-brush, and as I held a little lock I found that it would spread the tints fairly well; but what to do for a handle? Quill pens were too big, and I could not see how they could be neatly shortened. A piece of firewood carefully cut promised to make a more manageable stick. With my utmost skill I shaped this, and with a little length of coloured cotton I bound a stubborn sprout of hair upon the splint. I was disconcerted to find that it formed a hollow tube. It seemed perverse of fate to ordain that just in the handle where it was needed to be hollow it should be solid, and that the hair which should be solid would form an empty pipe. Attempts to drill the stick into a tube failed, but there was an expedient for making the tuft fuller. Cutting a cross cleft in the bottom of the wood, I inserted a straight length of hair, which I then rebound with its crimson thread. With gum I managed patiently to bind down loose ends and to give an improving gloss to the whole. My fears grew apace, since every hour there was a danger of inquiry for the lost pencil. I summoned up, therefore, an assumption of assurance, trusting that my father would see no difference between my brush and his. I went forward to him, holding the trophy very tenderly lest it should fall to pieces. He turned his eyes, they became bewildered, his usual loving look made a frown from him the more to be dreaded. I fortified my spirit, saying, 'Thank you very much, father, for your brush.' He took it with, 'What's this?' and turned it over. Breathless I sobbed; he burst out laughing, and so brought a torrent of tears to my eyes. He exclaimed, 'Oh, I see, it's my brush, is it?' caught me up and tossed me aloft several times, ending with a scrubbing on my cheek from his close-shaven chin. This was the reception of my first work of art."[1]

[1] "Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood," vol. i., by W. Holman Hunt.

The warehouse was a mysterious place full of laughter and talk by day; empty, silent, and vast at night when the master went over it with a bull's-eye lantern. A funny man called Henry Pinchers busied himself with velvet binding on the third floor. The jests of Henry Pinchers were of infinite charm. He had had to take two steps back for every step forward, he declared, one cold morning. "Then how did you get to the warehouse at all?" asked his delighted auditor. "Don't you see, you silly boy, I turned round and walked backwards!" said Henry Pinchers.

Other people were not much more clear than he in their answers to questions. Temple Bar was so called "because there was no other name"; and the martyrs were burnt at Smithfield "because they were martyrs." Whether the child found more satisfaction at the school to which, soon after, he was sent, does not appear. The lessons from the New Testament read to him there made a deep impression upon his mind, and were remembered in years to come. "The gain in thoughtfully-spent life is the continual disturbance of absolute convictions." But there are certain convictions of childhood which are never effaced.

The choice of a profession was not left to the last moment in those days. He was but twelve when his father asked him what he would like to be. "A painter!" he said at once; and the sorrowful silence that followed told him what he knew already--that his choice was not looked on with approval.

His father had taken him away from school, and was about to find for him a situation in which he would have to go about with invoices for goods from nine in the morning till eight at night. No time for drawing; no time for painting in scarlet and gold! The idea did not harmonise with his presentiment of that which had to be. He set about to look for a place for himself, and explained the various qualifications that he possessed in the way of reading, writing, and arithmetic, to the master of a boy-friend who was leaving that gentleman's office. After some friendly chaff as to why he had not thought of enlisting as a Grenadier, to which he replied in all good faith, "I really should like your place better," his services were accepted, and his father--amused, and gratified, no doubt, by the master's ready interest in the boy--consented that he should stay.

The master, Mr. James, drew and painted himself. Far from discouraging his apprentice, he gave him his own box of oil-colours with directions how to prepare them; draughtsmanship was studied at a night school for mechanics, and the little salary expended on weekly lessons from a portrait-painter who had learnt from a pupil of a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds. His father, who had permitted this, was displeased, however, to find that on Mr. James's retirement he had time to visit the National Gallery; and once again, to avoid more unendurable subjection, he secured a place at the London Agency of Richard Cobden's Manchester business. Here he sat by himself in a little room that looked out on three blank walls, made entries in a ledger, pondered over the Bible stories heard at school, and the far-away land where they happened, drew pen-and-ink flies on the window with such accurate realism that his employer took out a handkerchief to brush them away, designed patterns for calicoes--taught by an occasional clerk. Here, too, he painted the portrait of an old orange-woman called Hannah, a Jewess, who came into the office and asked him to buy of her; "if only for a handsel to break her ill-luck of the morning."

The portrait was such a good likeness that the employer laughed aloud when he saw it; the fame of the thing spread fast. One night his father told him of this remarkable picture, adding that he certainly ought to see it; but no sooner had he discovered the artist than he threatened to take him away altogether if stricter discipline were not observed. Hunt was now sixteen; he had borne with the city for four years; if he waited until he came of age it would be too late to think of art as a profession. He took his life into his own hands, and declared that he meant to become a student at the Royal Academy, that he must be allowed to draw at the British Museum that he might qualify himself to pass the entrance examination.

He just contrived to make both ends meet by copy and portrait work three days out of the six. He learnt more from fellow-students than from masters. The first real instruction came from a pupil of Wilkie's, who told him, as he sat copying "The Blind Fiddler," that Wilkie painted without dead colour underneath, and finished each bit in turn like a fresco-painter. After this he found out for himself that quattrocentist work was very beautiful, and that the beauty of it was due to the early training of the artists in fresco. He was by nature hasty and impatient, and the city portrait-painter had encouraged rather than checked a tendency to handle his tools with loose bravura. He set himself to unlearn these lessons, to work with accurate and humble patience.

The hardest part of the endeavour had yet to come. Twice over he failed to find his name upon the list of those accepted as probationers for the Academy. Another precious year gone! His father appealed to him to give it up. "You are wasting time and energy. You can paint well enough to make friends admire you; but you cannot compete with others, who have genius to begin with, who have received an excellent education. Are you not yourself convinced?" The sense of discouragement was bitter. Six months more he asked for one other trial; if, for the third time, he failed, he would go back to business.

One day, as he stood at work in the Museum, a boy dressed in a velvet tunic, and belt, his bright brown hair curling over a turned-down white collar, darted aside as he went by, gazed attentively at the drawing for a minute or two, and was off again. He knew the boy, for he had seen him take the Gold Medal at the Academy over the head of all the older students. He returned the visit on his way through the Elgin room, where young Millais was at work on the Ulysses. Quickly the younger artist turned round.

"I say, are not you the fellow doing that good drawing in No. XIII. room? You ought to be at the Academy."

"That is exactly my opinion. But, unfortunately, the Council have twice decided the other way."

"You just send the drawing you are doing now, and you'll be in like a shot. You take my word for it; I ought to know; I've been there as a student, you know, five years. I got the first medal last year in the antique, and it's not the first given me, I can tell you.... I say, tell me whether you have begun to paint? What? I'm never to tell; it is your deadly secret. Ah! ah! ah! that's a good joke! You'll be drawn and quartered without even being respectably hung by the Council of 'Forty' if you are known to have painted before completing your full course in the antique. Why, I'm as bad as you, for I've painted a long while. I say, do you ever sell what you do? So do I. I've often got ten pounds, and even double. Do you paint portraits?"

"Yes," I said; "but I'm terribly behind you."

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Well, I'm seventeen," I replied.

"I'm only fifteen just struck; but don't you be afraid. Why, there are students of the Academy just fifty and more. There's old Pickering; he once got a picture into the Exhibition, and he quite counts upon making a sensation when he has finished his course; but he is very reluctant to force on his genius. Will you be here to-morrow?"

"No," I whispered; "it's my portrait day, but don't betray me. Good-bye."

"Don't you be down in the mouth," he laughed out, as I walked away more light-hearted than I had been for months.[2]

[2] "Pre-Raphaelitism," vol. i. p. 56.

At the next examination Hunt passed. "I told you so. I knew you'd soon be in," said Millais, when next they met at the Academy. It was the beginning of one of those rare friendships that make high things possible.

In the room at 83 Gower Street, where Millais painted while his mother sat at her work-table, Holman Hunt was now often to be found.

"They both help me, I can tell you," said Millais, as he stood with one hand on his father's shoulder, and the other on Mrs. Millais' chair. "He's really capital, and does a lot of useful things. Look what a good head he has. I have painted several of the old doctors from him. By making a little alteration in each, and putting on different kinds of beards; he does splendidly. Couldn't be better, could he? And he sits for hands and draperies too. And as for mamma, she reads to me and finds me subjects. She gets me all I want in the way of dresses and makes them up for me, and searches out difficult questions for me at the British Museum--in the library, you know. She's very clever, I can tell you." He stooped down and rubbed his curly head against her forehead, and then patted the "old daddy," as he called him, on the back. The father was then only about forty-seven....[3]

[3] "Pre-Raphaelitism," vol. i. p. 61.

Many and eager were the discussions that took place among the students. Hunt's first visit to the National Gallery, while he was still at the office, had not been altogether a success. The Age of Brown was flourishing. "Bacchus and Ariadne" was brown then. In fact when, some few years later, it was cleaned, and the original colours appeared, many people said they preferred it brown. Lost in the brown air, and quite unable to derive any pleasure from "Venus attired by the Graces," the new-comer, standing in front of Titian's masterpiece, inquired where were "the really grand paintings of the great master's?"

"That picture before you, sir, of 'Bacchus and Ariadne' is one of the finest specimens existing of the greatest colourist in the world." Here the custodian stopped to understand my paralysed expression. "Can't you see its beauty, sir?" "Not much, I must confess," I slowly stammered; "it is as brown as my grandmother's painted tea-tray." He stared hopelessly and then left me, only adding as a parting shot, "In the other rooms there are some wonderful Rubens, a consummate Guido, and miraculous heads by Vandyke, and several supremely fine Rembrandts; they will at least equal your grandmother's tea-tray; perhaps you'll be able to see some beauty in _them_."[4]

[4] "Pre-Raphaelitism," vol. i. p. 19.

It took wonderful courage in those days to go on thinking that grass and trees were green, when all the eminent teachers maintained that so far as Art was concerned, they were brown, and that if you only painted them brown for several years "an eye for Nature" would come. They were green, however, at Ewell in Surrey, whither the young artist went one autumn. While he was there, his first picture, "Woodstock," was sold for L20. Furthermore, a fellow-student borrowed from Cardinal Wiseman vol. i. of "Modern Painters," and lent it to him for twenty-four hours. He sat up most of the night to read it.

He had fished out a copy of Keats from a box marked "This lot 4d.," and determined to paint a scene from "The Eve of St. Agnes." "It's like a parson," said Millais, laughing--a curious commentary on the reading of "Isabella"; but he soon came round. Millais had begun to assert his independence of judgment, to the no small wrath of his mother.

"Johnnie is behaving abominably," she said. "I want you, Hunt, to hear; you would not believe it; he shuts us out of the studio altogether; he is there now all alone. For twelve days now neither his father nor I have been allowed to enter the room. I appeal to you; is that the way to treat parents? He cannot expect to prosper, can he, now? I hope you will tell him so."

At this point a voice was heard from the studio. "Is not that Hunt? Don't mind what they say. Come here."[5]

[5] "Pre-Raphaelitism," etc., vol. i. p. 80.

Some time afterwards, a wonderful conversation on the relative merits of the Old Masters was interrupted by a quiet knock at the door.

"Who's there?" asked my companion.

"I have brought you the tea myself," said the mother.

I was hurrying forward when Millais stopped me with his hand, and a silent shake of the head.

"I really can't let you in, mamma; please put the tray down at the door, and I'll take it in myself."

The mother made one more attempt; in vain. On went the talk. When Hunt had risen to say Good-bye,

"Oh no!" said Millais, "you must come in and see the old people," which brought to my mind the prospect of a terrible quarter of an hour.

Johnnie burst into the sitting-room, I came very bashfully behind. "Now, we've come to have a nice time with you, mamma and papa."

"We don't wish," said the mother, "to tax your precious time at all; we have our own occupations to divert us and engage our attention," and the crochet needles were more intently plied.

"Hoity-toity, what's all this? Put down your worsted work at once. I'm going to play backgammon with you directly;" and he straightway fetched the board from its corner, and laid it on the table before her.

"You know, Hunt, how shamefully he has been behaving, and I appeal to you to say whether it is not barefacedness to come in and treat us as though nothing had occurred," appealed the mother.

The _us_ was chosen because at the time Johnnie had gone to his father with the guitar, placing it in his hand and remarking, as he put his arms round the paternal shoulders: "Now, as we are too busy in the day to see one another, it's more jolly that we should do so after work, so just you be a dear old papa, and now prove to Hunt what a splendid musician you are. Hunt used to practise the violin once, but his family didn't like it, and he could not be annoying them in music and painting, too, so he gave up his fiddling; but he's very fond of music. You play that exquisite air out of Rigoletto!" And then turning to me he added, "There's no one in England has such an erect back as he has;" while to him he railingly said, "You want pressing, like a shy young lady."