Images of Christ: The sea of faith

Rowena Loverance considers a work by Holman Hunt

by Rowena Loverance 20th October 2017

When I was planning this series of articles, however I framed them, this work by William Holman Hunt always kept turning up on the list. It is not because I think it’s a great work – I don’t. It’s clearly intended to be grotesque, but I think it only succeeds in being absurd, with the massively overcoloured background and the mangy goat. (This is the Manchester Art Gallery version; Holman Hunt also painted a larger version, now in the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Ellesmere Port, in which the colours of both background and goat are slightly toned down.)