Part 2

“But in this English picture all the story of the escape, as of the flight, is told, in fulness of peace, and yet of compassion. The travel is in the dead of the night, the way unseen and unknown;――but, partly stooping from the starlight, and partly floating on the desert mirage, move, with the Holy Family, the glorified souls of the Innocents. Clear in celestial light, and gathered into child-garlands of gladness, they look to the Child in whom they live, and yet, for them to die. Waters of the River of Life flow before on the sands: the Christ stretches out His arms to the nearest of them;――leaning from His mother’s breast.

“To how many bereaved households may not this happy vision of conquered death bring in the future, days of peace.

“I do not care to speak of other virtues in this design than those of its majestic thought,――but you may well imagine for yourselves how the painter’s quite separate and, in its skill, better than magical, power of giving effects of intense light, has aided the effort of his imagination, while the passion of his subject has developed in him a swift grace of invention which for my own part I never recognised in his design till now. I can say with deliberation that none even of the most animated groups and processions of children which constitute the loveliest sculpture of the Robbias and Donatello, can more than rival the freedom and felicity of motion, or the subtlety of harmonious line, in the happy wreath of these angel-children.

“Of this picture I came to-day chiefly to speak, nor will I disturb the poor impression which my words can give you of it by any immediate reference to other pictures by our leading masters.”

A brief explanation of the history of the production of this picture is called for both as an apology for the long interval since last I exhibited a large picture, and also of the fact that the painting now shown is a repetition of my first attempt to illustrate this imaginative episode in “The Flight into Egypt,” which before long, will also be exhibited, cured of its defect. I may be allowed, perhaps, to state that first in the year 1854, I acted upon a resolution formed earlier to go to Palestine. This was to revivify on canvas, if it were possible to me, the facts of Scripture History, by study not made in sketches to be incorporated in subject pictures afterwards in England. My aim was rather to advance nearer to the truth than had yet been done, by patiently working out a whole picture, surrounded by the very people and the circumstances of the life in Judea of old days. To strive――while not forgetting the vital ambition of an artist, which is to serve as high priest and expounder of the excellence of the works of the Creator――choosing the highest types and combinations of His handiworks, as the Greeks taught the after-world to do, so that men’s admiration may be fascinated by the perfections of the works of the Great Author of all, and men’s life thus may be a continual joy and solace, and at the same time to embody the events by which God in His providence led the foremost of the people Israel to be prepared to act as teachers and prophets to the whole Gentile world. I did not――let me say――wish to condemn any artistic manly treatment of similar subjects by others. My idea suggested the experiment to me as worth making for myself. The attempt was beset with difficulties beyond expectation, and being away for long, put me at many disadvantages in my profession, but I have many reasons for rejoicing at the course taken, and I have now to gratefully acknowledge the recognition of the public who, from the time of the exhibition of the first result of my Eastern labours――“The Scapegoat,” have ever given exceptional attention to my paintings, produced only, I regret to say, at long intervals, owing to circumstances external to the limits of this statement.

In 1875 I returned to Jerusalem after an absence of two years. I had taken the care usual with experienced travellers to have all my luggage studiously packed and directed before leaving England. It was, however, an omission of mine, which seemed a trivial one at the time, not to see them delivered into the hands of the agent for the carriers to Jaffa. On my arrival in Syria the cases containing all my precious materials for my work had not arrived. Every effort possible was made to obtain information of my missing boxes, and I delayed for months to commence my picture. The excitement during this period, fanned by fanatical Moslems, grew very fierce. The miseries caused by the conscription for the Russian war, and still more those caused by the rapacity of governors who found the opportunity a good one for increasing their dishonest exactions, drove the poor fellaheen well nigh mad with ferocity, and it was easy then, as it was in Alexandria, and as it will ever be under similar circumstances, to make the poor people believe that all such miseries are sent by Heaven as a curse on them for not extirpating the enemies of Islamism. We lived always in doubt as to what a day might bring forth. Had the people been less dangerous I would have left my family for two weeks or so, and purchased canvas in Naples or Rome. As it was I dared not leave them. When first the uncertainty about my materials seemed serious and altogether inscrutable, I felt forced to purchase the best piece of linen to be found in Jerusalem. This I prepared with the tempera ground, which before had proved to be perfect. When this was ready, however, I still lingered over my preliminary work, in hope that the proper canvas would arrive; but months further went by mocking my hopes, and eventually I had to undertake my deferred labours upon the sheeting which the fortune of the day had compelled me to choose.

It was a chapter of accidents bearing pain and long long trial to me. The earliest part of my work was the sketching in of the whole composition and the painting of the background. No test of the suitability of my surface could have been more satisfactory as far as was needed for the point reached. I almost dismissed anxiety about the final results, and I had advanced considerably with my work before the missing boxes arrived. It seemed a great and needless waste to recommence my labours when so much apparently had been done. It would have been well for me, however, had I thrown all my work aside, and begun again, and this indeed it would have been even years later, for from the moment when I suspected with what fatal consequences my first start had been beset, until the moment, when in England, at the end of 1882, I gave up the picture, I always had reason to persuade myself that a little more patience――perhaps even the perseverance further of two more weeks――might overcome the difficulty intervening between the stage arrived at and the entire completion of the picture. I will not weary the reader with a statement of all the vexatious incidents of my trouble, but it is only a needful excuse for me to state that a studio built specially for me by German instead of Arab builders, let in the rain as though the roof had been made of open wire, and that when this worry had passed, I was under summons to come back to London by a certain date, and this made the difficulty greater of deliberately estimating the amount of danger which I incurred in advancing my work on the imperfect surface.

When I opened the picture in London and placed it in a fair light I could not fail to see how much precious time had been wasted from the fact that all my drawing and modelling and colour indeed was marred by irregularity of the plane on which they were given. I called in an expert to help me in the course to be followed, and he, as it happened, urged me still to trust to the means already used to overcome the evil, expressing the opinion that it was then nearly at an end. Alas! this proved to be far from the case, although I called in the best judgment to guide me at intervals, and I confided the work for relining on the strongest sailcloth canvas to the hands of one of the most skilful of restorers. Every revived hope ended in disappointment, until I having persevered with it for seven years and a half, finally abandoned it, and commenced on the new painting on January 1st, 1883. Since then, when away for my health, the reliner again had the old picture to treat on a plan of a radical character agreed upon between us. It was to cut out the central part of the sheeting containing the group of the Virgin and Child, to lift up the surrounding cloth, to fray out its edges, to insert a piece larger by an inch than the opening, with margins also frayed in the opposite direction, and to place the whole already relined picture upon another sailcloth. Unlimited time was given for this experiment, and I am happy to say that now the picture is thoroughly sound, and that it will soon be ready. The present exhibited painting is about four inches broader and two inches higher than the Jerusalem picture: it is also changed in several points, some of which modifications I have since adopted as improvement for the old picture: other additions, however, are only in the present painting.

W. HOLMAN HUNT.

DRAYCOTT LODGE, FULHAM, _February 23, 1885_.

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL.

The Triumph of the Innocents

This Picture, now being exhibited by the FINE ART SOCIETY, 148, New Bond Street, will be reproduced by Photogravure on a scale of 20½ inches by 33¼ inches, in its engraved portions.

It will be published at the following prices:

ARTIST’S PROOFS £10 10 0 LETTERED PROOFS £5 5 0 PRINTS £2 2 0

Subscriptions are now being received by the FINE ART SOCIETY, 148, New Bond Street.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

――Punctuation, and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.