The Scapegoat

1854 · Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Merseyside

mythological

The concern for direct observation led Hunt to leave for Palestine in 1854 in search of biblical locations. It was to the south of the Dead Sea, at Kharbet Esdun (then identified as the site of Sodom), that he painted the desolate landscape of his Scapegoat. Hunt depicts the animal as an exile living in this uninhabited place, bearing the sins of the Jewish people (according to the Old Testament another goat was sacrificed, and it is this one, drowned in the sea, whose horns can be seen on the left).

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About the Artist

William Holman Hunt

1827 – 1910

English painter, co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. A clerk for several years, he left the world of trade to study at the British Museum and the National Gallery. In 1844 he entered the Royal Academy. Here he joined with Millais and Rossetti to develop the Pre-Raphaelite theories of art and, in 1848, to found the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His first canvas to interpret these themes was Rienzi, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1849. In 1854 Hunt went to the Holy Land to portray scenes from the life of Christ, aiming to achieve total historical and archaeological truth. He returned to Palestine in 1869 and again in 1873. Throughout his life Hunt remained dedicated to Pre-Raphaelite concepts, as exemplified in such works as The Light of the World, The Scapegoat and The Shadow of Death.

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