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The Light of the World
(painting, 1854)
Many readers will find The Light of the World vaguely familiar, as a version of it created by Warner Sallman has adorned countless Sunday school rooms. But this familiarity should not cause us to overlook the ingenuity and mysterious force of the original painting by English Pre-Raphaelite painter William Holman Hunt. The famous critic John Ruskin, a contemporary of Hunt, called it “one of the noblest works of sacred art,”1 and its illustration of Revelation 3:20 (“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock”) continues to inspire those who see it, right down to our own time.
For his depiction of this famous passage, Hunt did not draw on the kind of complex theological symbolism typical of many religious paintings but used straightforward images drawn from nature and ordinary life. Some critics at the time thought this improper and undignified, but it is likely the reason the painting was so warmly embraced by the general public. A larger version of the picture, which Hunt created late in his life, was sold to entrepreneur philanthropist Charles Booth, who took it on tour around the world, where it was seen live by an estimated seven million people. After that it was placed in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London so that it could be readily accessible to the public. The immense popularity of this print and the many alternative versions created by other artists testify to its almost iconic status.
The painting depicts Christ, the Light of the World, knocking upon a wooden door. The setting is a dark night, and the mood is just a little forbidding. Hunt painted most of this work in his studio during the late-night hours so that he could mimic the effect of an environment lit by a lamp. That lamp, which Christ carries in his hand, provides the main source of light for the scene. Christ wears clothing that combines kingly dress and priestly dress, representing his two roles, and he has two crowns upon his head, which is illuminated by a halo, the only other source of light in the picture. One of these two crowns is the crown of thorns, reminding us of his sacrifice.
The Light of the World by William Holman Hunt, Keble College, Oxford [Wikimedia Commons, CC-PD-Mark]
Christ is portrayed as a strong, sturdy figure, which was one of Hunt’s intentions. “In England,” he wrote, “spiritual figures are painted as if in a vapor. I had a further reason for making the figure more solid than I should have otherwise done,” as “it is Christ alive for ever more.”2 In other words, this is not a depiction of the earthly man, Jesus, but the risen Christ. There are clumps of weeds at his feet, partly obstructing the door, which represent the temptations and distractions of life that keep us locked away inside ourselves and can separate us from God. The door itself is shut tight, illustrating that our hearts and minds are closed to him. And the door has no latch, no doorknob, and no keyhole. This is a door that can only be opened from the inside. To add to the urgency of the message, Hunt shows the feet of Jesus turned sideways, as if he is preparing to leave because entry has been denied him.
The Light of the World was a special painting to its creator, who directly attributed it to an inspiration from God: “I painted the picture with what I thought, unworthy though I was, to be by divine command, and not simply as a good subject.”3 Because it has been so widely disseminated, some version of this iconic image is what often settles into our minds when we encounter the Scripture verse about the One who stands at the door and knocks.
William Holman Hunt was born in 1827 in London, and grew up in a middle-class home where his talents were not encouraged. To be an artist was not seen by his parents as a viable career, though he knew from very early on that this was what he wanted to be. He worked hard at developing his abilities. A crucial influence in his artistic development came from John Ruskin’s seminal book Modern Painters, which an artist friend loaned him. Since Hunt was only able to borrow it for twenty-four hours, he went without sleep in order to read through the night to finish it. In its pages he found the encouragement he needed to paint in a way that was “true to nature,” which ever after became his goal. Success, however, did not come quickly. By the time he finally sold his first major painting he was so poor that most of his possessions were in the hands of pawnbrokers.
A turning point in his career came when he met John Everett Millais and Dante Rossetti, two artists with whom he shared similar passions and vision. Together, in 1848, they formed what they called “The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.” They were a wild, flamboyant, and rebellious trio, bent upon overturning the artistic standards of their day. They dismissed the general direction that art had taken since Raphael, and disliked the stiff academic style of painters such as Joshua Reynolds and Peter Paul Rubens, who were popular at the time. In fact, in a book of prints that he owned, Rossetti jotted the phrase “spit here” under each reproduction of a Rubens picture. The Pre-Raphaelites did not immediately catch on as an artistic movement and received a great deal of criticism, which meant that few paintings were sold until they were discovered and promoted by John Ruskin, the most important art critic of the day. Because they had little money, they used themselves, their wives, and their girlfriends as models. They are well known for their paintings of these mysterious, attractive women, whom they referred to as “stunners.” Their subject matter also showed their fascination with the medieval world, stories from Shakespeare and Arthurian legends, and biblical subjects.
Their style, which Hunt helped to develop, was distinguished by vibrant colors that strike the eye with intensity, by meticulous attention to detail rendered with great painterly skill, and by a polished finish. They sought to be realistic in their work, but it was a magical sort of realism, deeply Romantic and often hearkening back to earlier times.
The rowdy escapades of the Pre-Raphaelites, especially Rossetti, drew almost as much notice as their art, as they fueled their creative endeavors with alcohol and sexual promiscuity. But this kind of lifestyle did not have a long-term appeal to Hunt, who had begun painting religious subjects even before he met the other artists, and whose own struggles with his conscience may have been reflected in paintings such as The Awakening Conscience (1853), where he explained that his intention “was to show how the still small voice speaks to a human soul in the turmoil of life.”4
While painting The Light of the World, Hunt underwent a life-changing deepening of his spiritual commitment. He became an enthusiastic student of the Bible, and in late 1854 he traveled to the Holy Land so that he could experience the world in which the scriptural stories had taken place. This was to be the first of three extended trips, and he ended up spending six and a half years of his life in the land where Jesus once walked. Hunt reveled in the experience but was disgusted by the corruption he saw among many of the missionaries, as well as the hypocrisy of some who claimed the Christian faith.
Hunt’s religious paintings give ample evidence of his creativity and originality. He found unexpected ways to present religious ideas, and rarely settled for traditional sacred subject matter. He sought to teach moral lessons through his painted parables, such as The Hireling Shepherd (1851–52), a picture based on John 10:10–14 that features a shepherd being distracted by the wiles of a beautiful maiden while his sheep have wandered into the cornfield and become bloated—a commentary on how he saw church leaders failing their flocks. Similarly, Our English Coasts (1852) portrays a flock of sheep that have gone astray and wandered into a precarious spot on the rim of a seaside cliff.
The Scapegoat (1854–55), one of his most famous paintings, is a canvas based upon Leviticus 16:22, which speaks of the goat upon whom the sins of the people are cast before he is driven from the community. Hunt went to great lengths to create an authentic rendition of this Old Testament “parable” of Christ’s sacrifice. He purchased a goat and trekked into the Israeli desert to paint so that he could accurately capture the landscape of the southern shores of the Dead Sea. He subjected himself to blistering heat, violent winds, sickness, and fever, as well as risking the possibility of attack by violent desert dwellers, but emerged with a strangely compelling picture that draws a strong emotional response from viewers. A similar response is created by The Shadow of Death (1870–73), in which Jesus lifts his hands in joyful prayer while the shadow that is cast by them prefigures his death upon the cross.
William Holman Hunt had a gift for capturing moments of spiritual illumination on canvas. The way he recorded them in paint was unusual and unexpected but emotionally stirring. Never one interested in painting ethereal religious visions, his strong, earthy depictions of spiritual realities memorably brought alive the intervention of the divine realm into the earthly one. In one way or another throughout his career, he drew attention to the ways that the Light of the World illuminates the darkness of our human experience.