1854 -1892 · Jerusalem, Dead Sea and biblical realism

Hunt's travels to Egypt and Palestine seek to anchor the Bible in real light and geography, while revealing the tensions of the Victorian view of the Orient.

William Holman Hunt left for Egypt and the Holy Land in 1854, convinced that religious painting must rediscover the places, light and uses of the biblical story. He stayed in Jerusalem several times and worked in difficult conditions, accumulating studies of landscapes, costumes and architecture. The Scapegoat was designed near the Dead Sea. The animal abandoned on a salt shore embodies the rite of Leviticus and prefigures, for Hunt, the sacrifice of Christ. The Shadow of Death represents Jesus a carpenter stretching his arms in the workshop; his shadow forms a cross on the wall, while Mary opens a chest containing the gifts of the Magi. The Discovery of the Savior in the Temple combines architecture, Jewish figures and accessories studied in order to make the scene of Christ's childhood plausible. The Light of the World, begun before the first journey but taken up in several versions, inscribes observed vegetation and a meticulous night around a closed door. This quest for material truth, however, remains linked to 19th century orientalism: it translates the region through British religious and imperial expectations. Reading these works today therefore requires holding together observation, spiritual conviction and cultural construction of the place. The selection "Orientalism in William Holman Hunt" notably compares The Goat emissary and The Shadow of Death. His reading favors movement.

Hunt travels to give the sacred story credible soil, light and objects; this precision also reveals the Victorian way of looking at the biblical East.