Phylactery of the shepherd
According to Stephens's helpful guide through Hunt's cast of characters, "Nearest of the Rabbis is seated an old priest, the chief, who, blind, imbecile, and decrepit," clutches the Torah to himself "strenuously yet feebly his sight is gone, his hands seem palsied.
#Phylactery of the shepherd series
Beginning with the chief Rabbi, he offers a series of psychological portraits which set forth the many ways and reasons that men have for resisting Christ - and all new truths as well. In his careful portrayal of the Rabbis who resisted Christ's message, Hunt chose to reveal the many ways in which the old faith had indeed corrupted itself and the world. Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. The old order changeth, yielding place to new, Like Tennyson, Holman Hunt was concerned to emphasize that The first is arranged in a semi-circle, partly enclosing the second." We haveĪlready noticed that the painter chose this particular scriptural subject because it conveyed his deepest feelings about the way old and new encounter each other, and we should also observe that he devoted great care to rendering the nature of the conservative group in truly Hogarthian detail. Stephens pointed out, within the Temple itself Hunt divided the composition into "two groups that of the Rabbis and their attendants, officers of the Temple, and that of the Holy Family. In The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, Hunt opposed inner and outer spaces while at the same time juxtaposing significant actions: in the courtyard of the Temple the builders are literally completing the edifice of the Old Law, while within its walls the young Christ performs the same function spiritually and figuratively. “ William Holman Hunt's "Oriental Mania" and His Uffizi Self-portrait”.“ William Holman Hunt and the Missionaries”.“ Shadows Cast by The Light of the World: William Holman Hunt's Religious Paintings, 1893-1905”.Dante Gabriel Rossetti's The Seed of David Epilogue Related Materials.Dante Gabriel Rossetti's"Mary's Girlhood".Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "For An Annunciation, Early German".Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "For a Virgin and Child, by Hans Memmelinck".Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Passover in the Holy Family.
Typological Symbolism in Hunt's Major Works The Miracle of the Holy Fire Chapter Two.The Influence of William Hogarth on Pre-Raphaelite Integrated Symbolism.To Elevate Materialism: Hunt's Search for a New Iconography The Effect of Reading for Types Chapter One.Typological Interpretations of Scripture in Nineteenth-Century Britain.Publication and Other Frontmatter from Print Edition.