In focus: The Scapegoat
Discover the lengths that Holman Hunt took to create this arresting painting
William Holman Hunt's 'The Scapegoat' is one of the most popular paintings at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, attracting many visitors to see it hanging in the main hall. While the Pre-Raphaelites were known for depicting striking women in historical narrative scenes, this painting instead focuses on a goat, which stares out at the viewer from a vibrant yet ethereal landscape. But how did the painting come about and how did the artist create this arresting scene?
In 1854 Hunt travelled to the Holy Land for the first time and stayed for almost two years. He was intent on finding authentic backgrounds for his biblical paintings, fuelled by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's principles of 'truth to nature' and his own desire to revitalise Christian art.
'The Scapegoat' was Hunt's first major painting made during this time. He came up with the idea while carrying out research for his painting 'The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple', which is now at Sudley House.
He read about an Old Testament ritual which took place each year on the Day of Atonement. The High Priest of the Temple of Jerusalem would cast a goat out into the wilderness, carrying with it the sins of the congregation. It was believed that if these sins were forgiven then the scarlet cloth tied between its horns would turn white.
For Hunt the animal was a symbol of Christ carrying the sins of the world, with the scarlet cloth around its horns representing the crown of thorns.
Hunt had initially thought that the subject might be of interest to the animal painter Landseer. However after seeing the extraordinary sight of the Dead Sea for the first time, he wrote to Rossetti saying that he had decided to tackle the subject for himself.
In the Book of Leviticus, which is quoted on the frame of the painting, the goat is said to bear its burden into a land that was not inhabited. Hunt chose to paint his goat in a suitably desolate location, on the salt-encrusted shore of the Dead Sea at Osdoom, with the mountains of Edom in the distance. In his diary he described this setting as "a scene of beautifully arranged horrible wilderness".
Hunt went back to the edge of the sea with guides in November 1854, where he spent about two weeks painting in the landscape and making sketches and notes. He took a white goat with him but had to leave the area before he painted the animal, as his guides advised him that it was dangerous to stay any longer due to local hostile groups.
Returning to his Jerusalem studio to finish the painting, he took samples of mud and salt to help with the foreground details. He also bought or borrowed sheep, ibex and goat skulls and a full camel skeleton to paint the ghostly remains of other animals in the shallows, which foretell the fate of the unfortunate goat.
Three sketches of the goat that Hunt made on location at the Dead Sea are now in the Walker Art Gallery's collection. They show him trying different poses for the animal and positioning it slightly higher in the composition compared to the line of the sea in the finished painting.
At the side of one sketch the artist made notes about the effects of the light on the water, "white cloud reflected/much brighter than salt".
The beautiful but desolate wilderness is rendered with an intense attention to detail. Hunt showcases the vivid colours of the sunset which will soon leave the wretched goat alone in the darkness, as the moon appears over the mountains.
He described the scene in his journal:
"The mountains lie afar beautiful as precious stones but anear they are dry and scorched, the rose colour is the burnt ashes of the grate, the golden plain is the salt and naked sand. The Sea is heaven's own blue like a diamond more lovely in a king's diadem than in the mines of the Indes but as it gushes up through the broken ice like salt on the beach, it is black, full of asphalte scum - and in the hand slimy, and smarting as a sting - no one can stand and say it is not accursed of God."
Writing about the artist's landscape painting, Allen Stanley commented on his lurid colour choices:
"Hunt may have painted what he saw, but by choice he saw strange things, and he saw them at their most vivid pitch."
The rich purple which bathes the mountains of Edom in 'The Scapegoat' became the hallmark of much of Hunt's landscape painting.
Hunt designed the frame himself to complement the painting
At the bottom of the frame "The Scape - - goat" is inscribed with a cross, around a seven branched candlestick which indicates Mosaic law.
Around this is a quotation from the Bible,
"And the Goat shall bear upon him all their Iniquities unto a Land not inhabited."
(Leviticus XVI, 22)
On the left in a trefoil, a dove with an olive branch suggests God saving Noah from the Flood. In Christian iconography the dove and the seven-branched candlestick below are twin signs of peace and reconciliation.
The seven stars at the top may be derived from the apocalyptic text mentioning the seven stars that fell on the day of wrath, or it may indicate the Book of Revelation's 'ancient' Christ, who held seven stars in his right hand.
Below the stars another Bible passage is inscribed:
"Surely he hath borne our Griefs, and carried our Sorrows
yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of GOD, and afflicted ."
(Isiah L111, 4)
On the right is a quatrefoil with the flower heartsease or Star of Bethlehem.
There was a cool critical response to the painting when it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856. Ruskin thought it was poorly painted and that the choice of a goat as the subject matter was rather misplaced.
Hunt sold the picture for 450 guineas. He also made a smaller version with a black goat and a rainbow symbolising hope and forgiveness of sins, which is now in Manchester Art Gallery.
William Lever bought the painting in 1923 for £4,950.
It was exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery in the 1923 Autumn Exhibition before going on display in the recently opened Lady Lever Art Gallery.
The painting has stood the test of time and become popular with visitors. This is in no small part thanks to the direct, accusing stare of the goat, which gives the picture an uncomfortable yet memorable emotional force.
The art critic Waldemar Januszczak described encountering the painting on loan to a London exhibition in 2004 as "an amazingly confrontational experience."
Perhaps the ultimate testament to how empathically Hunt depicted the suffering of the goat is this artistic response to it.
The cartoonist Terence Parkes, better known simply as Larry, was very taken with the Scapegoat, and drew the cartoon below for his exhibition ‘Larry on Art’ at the Walker Art Gallery in 1994.
It shows an RSPCA inspector handing a summons to Hunt for cruelty to animals, as he sketches the poor beast on the shore of the Dead Sea.
Built with Shorthand
