27 MARCH 1886, Page 14

ART.

HOLMAN HUNT'S PAINTING.* [SECOND NOTICE.]

WE were, unfortunately, compelled by lack of space to omit from our first article on these paintings the conclusion of our description of the characteristic difference between the range of expression in Mr. Hunt's pictures and those of Sir John Millais. We noted that, broadly speaking, the Academician's figures had a quiet and rather sentimental expression as opposed to those of the pre-Raphaelite painter, and also that, as a rule, Millais rather chose rest than action for the moment of his pictures. Think how different is the case with Mr. Hunt's greatest compositions. For, broadly speaking, we may say that the sentimental finds no place in his art ; Love, with him,. is too strong a passion, of too vital issues, to be treated lightly. Compare for the extremes of difference, such pictures as the famous "Light of the World" and the " Awakened Consoienee,"—the first showing us a face, beautiful indeed, but even more powerful, beneficent, and

• 148 New Boud Street.

clearly but the central figure ; nay, even to one who knows Is there any real reason for this comparative indifference,— the picture well, it is difficult to recall its details ; its barred and any reason that can in any way excuse it ? We think there is, ivy-bound door, its grass and brambles, even the double crown for the following reason. It is one of the greatest drawbacks and the white robe, are lost, or, rather, are only dimly felt, in to what is known as pre-Raphaelitism that the work is apt to comparison with the face of Christ. We have dwelt upon this have a laborious, built-up look, owing to its minuteness, and the subject, for it leads us towards the consideration of why it is long-continued effort with which it has been executed. The that this work is so much more popular than any other painting original impulse has not, it may be, faded, but its place in by this artist, and what it is that renders so many people the mind has been jostled by a variety of subsidiary pur.

intolerant of Mr. Holman Hunt's paintings. The reasons for the popularity and the power of this picture are (though poses, which have to some extent pushed it on one side.

it is rarely the case that the same cause accounts for both) sparing no toil upon his subject, either in its think- the same. It was painted under the stress of an intense ing-out or its execution, he is apt to impress the mark religious conviction, the subject being, to use the artist's of that labour upon the composition, and almost to make own significant word, " vouchsafed " to him. He believes it the governing impression. And the result is a heavi-

firmly that subject, detail, and treatment were revealed to ness, almost pedantry, which militates strongly against the o him for a distinct purpose, and in elaborate detail. It is, we think, evident that a picture painted in such a manner rather, his art—very seriously, and perhaps demands that we as this, will inevitably touch the heart more nearly than should take it from the same point of view. To tell the truth, any more purely intellectual work. Not only is the effect many of his pictures are in one sense "hard reading,"—they given to the work more powerful, but it is of a different are not suitable for tired eyes and weary brains ; they are too kind; it mounts into the region of feeling; it is inspired by a full of thought, involved meanings, and minutiae generally. similar emotion to that of its subject, and in a religions picture Nor, perhaps, would it be truthful to leave this part of the this is three-parts of the battle. subject without saying that they are frequently wanting in

Before we close this second notice, we must say a few sympathy ; the painter has wrought them with enthusiasm words about a matter which is to many excellent people almost invariably, but the enthusiasm has been often of a a stumbling-block with regard to this painter's work. " Yes," kind which is somewhat alien to every-day men and everyday we have heard it said ; "we will grant you all that ; actions. This is most evident in the picture of "Isabella" we will grant that there is ever so much more thought and caressing the Basil-plant, a subject which to most of us is a expression than in the average of even our best painters' eom- strange mixture of the fascinating and the repulsive, and is, positions ; we will grant you that other works look washed-out indeed, as a friend said to us, "scarcely a matter for poetry, and beside them, that they tell their story clearly and strongly, that certainly not one for painting." There is some of Hunt's finest they show patience, skill, and endurance which are most mar- painting in this picture, especially in its accessories ; but the vellons in their extent ; bat, somehow, we don't like them ; they effect, as a whole, is chilly and needlessly strained. The Basil- .are bard, their colour is too strong, they are wonderful in detail, plant itself has a matter-of-factness about it which touches the but unpleasing as a whole ; they have a strained, unnatural look." comic, and Isabella's face is hard and cold. In our next article calm, in which kindness and irresistible authority are most This we have heard said many times in one form or another ; wonderfully blended ; the second, filled with jarring chords of is there any satisfactory answer to be made to it P Well, like emotion and perverted feeling, of shattered peace and rained most other general objections, it has in it a grain of truth. A life. It is no exaggeration and no imaginative reading, to say man may hide his imperfections in the shadow, but hardly in that from the man's. face in the one picture and the other, the sunlight. Mr. Hunt's pictures attempt so much at which there looks out at us a god and a devil ; for, as we read it, the other artists never aim, that it is almost inevitable they should tragedy of the " Awakened Conscience " is hardly to be found fall short of complete success, and entirely inevitable that those so mach in the woman's face, instinct though it be with sudden, who accept their artistic creed ready-made, should find it awful remembrance of what she was and is, but in her com- difficult to believe in, or care for them. Here is a man trying panion's ghastly indifference to her feeling. Truly as Raskin to paint the most vital subjects he can conceive, with the has often written of pictures, he never wrote a more pregnant utmost expression of their meaning, with the most abundant word, than when he said that this work was one to waken to wealth of detail, in the most gorgeous and, to us Northerners, reflection " the cruel thoughtlessness of youth, and subdue the unusual effects of light ; and we turn round and judge him as if severities of judgment to the sanctity of compassion." It is he limited himself to a red-checked baby sitting on a doorstep absurd to attempt a detailed description of this picture when it in the shadow. Do people look like that when in thought, has been once given so finely as by Mr. Ruskin in the letter agony, or terror P " Not a bit of it," cries our comfortable, of which the above words are the conclusion ; but we may, per- middle-aged club optimist ; " or if they do, I don't want to see haps, be pardoned for pointing out one detail of great, if possibly them." " I never saw the mountains that colour," says a second; unintentional significance, which our great writer has left un- "not that I have ever been beyond the Isle of Wight ; but mentioned.* In the large looking-glass which forms a portion of I am sure they are wrong." " What is the use of trying the background to this composition, is reflected the window of the to paint sunlight ?" cries an artistic third ; " every one knows opposite side of the room, and through it a garden bright with it can't be done." And so the chorus goes on and on, and sunshine and spring foliage. Against this, the reflection of the the great artist toils a long life through, and produces pictures, -woman shows as it would actually do under such conditions of which, having in them a thousand times the heart and brain light,—dark and almost shapeless, just as a blot upon the and skill of average contemporary work, are yet slightingly brightness. The moral is too evident to need pointing out. dismissed by critics who cannot understand their merits, and Bat, indeed, in this picture there is not one, but a score of artists who are jealous of their achievements. Little pictures of details which show the intense intellectual effort of the painter, children at school, or sheep in a snowstorm, are purchased for

as well as his emotional perception and power. the Chantry Fund for encouraging the best art ; baronetcies and And this is true of Hunt's work in some cases. In pleasantness of the picture. This artist takes himself—or, the small "Finding of the Saviour in the Temple," and the " Strayed Sheep," which last-mentioned picture is the most complete, and perhaps the most beautiful, pre-Raphaelite rendering of English landscape in the world.