Produced by Juliet Sutherland, eagkw and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR EDITED BY T. LEMAN HARE
BY MARY E. COLERIDGE ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, LTD. NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.
Page I. The Painter's Youth (1827-1854) 11
Plate I. Portrait of Holman Hunt at the age of Fifteen Frontispiece By kind permission of the painter Page II. The Two Gentlemen of Verona 14 From the Birmingham Art Gallery
III. Isabella and the Pot of Basil 24 From the painting in the possession of Mrs. James Hall
IV. The Light of the World 34 From the painting in Keble College Chapel, Oxford
V. The Scapegoat 40 From the painting in possession of Sir Cuthbert Quilter, Bart.
VI. The Triumph of the Innocents 50 From the painting lent by the painter to the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
VII. The Hireling Shepherd 60 From the painting in the Manchester Art Gallery
VIII. May Morning 70 By kind permission of the painter
"Art is too tedious an employment for any not infatuated with it."
"The only artists I ever knew who achieved work of note in any sense whatever, went first through a steady training of several years and afterwards entered their studios with as unwearying a punctuality as business men attend their offices, worked longer hours than these, and had fewer holidays, partly because of their love for art, but also because of their deep sense of the utter uselessness of grappling with the difficulties besetting the happy issue of each contest, except at close and unflinching quarters."
"I have many times in my studio come to such a pass of humiliation that I have felt that there was no one thing that I had thought I could do thoroughly in which I was not altogether incapable." W. H. H.
Upon a wintry afternoon in London, in the year 1834, a little boy of six years old was standing on the stairs of a poor artist's house, watching, through a window in the wall, the marvellous deeds of the man within. The man within was painting the "Burning of the Houses of Parliament." Scarlet and gold! Scarlet and gold! He used them up so quickly that he had to grind and prepare more and more. Every time he ground with the muller on the slab a fresh supply of vermilion and chrome yellow, there was a fresh flare up of the conflagration, another outburst of applause from the little boy. Meantime, the artist's wife put the kettle on the fire, and cut bread and butter as if nothing out of the way were going on; and by-and-by she and the father and their children sat down to tea. It seemed very strange to the little watchman that they could behave in this calm, everyday manner when such wonders were all about them in the room. Presently a porter came from a warehouse in Dyer's Court, Aldermanbury, where dwelt a merchant, Mr. William Hunt; and he took the little boy home to his father.