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.

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