Aubrey's Blog Post 2

Aubrey Van de Wetering

Prof. Marshall

12/2/14

Second Blog Post

            There is one reason I have become so fascinated with Pre-Raphaelite art, and the answer is simple: I really enjoy reading paintings. It follows suit then, that I am also interested in works of the early Northern Renaissance by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling and Petrus Christus. All of these artists also employed an intricately detailed style that included typological symbolism. These artist’s paintings are not realistic, as the perspective and scale of figures is almost always off, however, their works are quirky and disjunctive, always telling a story. From the figures that crowd the slanted-floor-perspective interiors, to the candle sitting in the back of the room that has just blown out, these works, grounded in religious imagery, are just begging you to read every minute detail.

            Pre-Raphaelite works attempt to capture that rudimentary, early humanist style that the Netherlandish painters used. If you look at, for example, works by William Holman Hunt such as “The Awakening Conscience,” or “The Triumph of the Innocents,” you get a sense of hyper detail and almost excessive symbolism, which this group of artists sought to employ. Hunt wrote accompanying literature with each of his works, explaining exactly what each and every flower and object he chose to include represented. The idea of an art work as a construction, as Carol Jacobi talks about in her book, William Holman Hunt: Painter Painting Paint, is something that Hunt really took to heart, apart from his  thoroughly thought out compositions. The rigidity of the canvas, composition of the paints, and act of conservation were all aspects to the construction of the piece that Hunt assessed (Peeters, 2008; 125).

 Hunt’s works were treated with a scientific attention to detail. As Tim Barringer explains in his discussion of typological symbolism and Hunt from his book, Reading the Pre-Raphaelites, the artist used a combination of “allegory and extreme historical authenticity,” which produced extremely striking and unique paintings (Barringer,1998; 128). Hunt went through great lengths to have accurate objects and subjects to paint from. It was as if Hunt wanted to only paint what he saw with his own eyes, which was a concept of the complete antithesis of expressionism, and the contemporary works of art that included little Roman ruins in the midst of a placeless landscape.

            All of these aspects mentioned above, can be read from a William Holman Hunt work of art. A viewer cannot read it one dimensionally; it is to be considered a work of art, but also as a work of historical research, experimentation with conservation, the meditation on a fraught religiousness, and the accompanying work to an explanatory pamphlet.

            When I visited Tate Britain in May, all of Hunt’s works were on exhibition in Italy. It completely broke my heart. You write a research paper on his works and tell me your heart would not be broken too. Due to the absence of Hunt’s works from the museum, I can only guess, but would suppose, that if I were to witness a work of his, it would take me a significant amount of time to finally walk away. I love Pre-Raphaelite and the Netherlandish paintings that inspired them, because each image is a gold mine of meaningful nooks, objects, and the secret presence of God, just waiting for you to come and find them. Like a great book, each time you look at one of their works, you are bound to catch another detail you had never seen before. 

           

Works Cited

Barringer, Tim. “Religion Race and Empire: Holman Hunt in the Holy Land.” Reading the Pre-                     Raphaelites. 1998: 128.

Peeters, Nic. Review: Carol Jacobi, William Holman Hunt: Painter Painting Paint. The Journal of    William Morris Studies. Summer, 2008: 124-127.

            <http://www.morrissociety.org/publications/JWMS/17.4.ReviewsJacobiPeeters.pdf.pdf>

Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, 1434 Source: SUNY Oneonta

William Holman Hunt, The Awakening Conscience, 1853 Source: The Artchive