The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-12 00:00:00

Death of Mr. William Hunt.

Mr. William Hunt, the well known painter in
water colours, died at his residence, Stenhope-street,
Hempstead-road, on Wednesday, aged 74. Mr.
Hunt has exhibited in the gallery of the Society of
Painters in Water Colours, since 1824. His works
have latterly formed one of the chief attractions of
the annual exhibitions, and their absence will create
a void that the society will not easily be able to fill.
His exquisite colour and delicate manipulation were
not more conspicuous than his intense perception of
the beauties of those objects of still life which he so
loved to paint. Nor were his powers limited to the
faithful reproduction of fruit and flowers. As a
painter of flesh he was, perhaps, unequalled, and his
rendering of humorous phases of rustic life alone
was sufficient to win him an enduring reputation.
His studies of landscape, sea, and sky, reveal to the
instructed eye a capacity for this branch of art equal
to those by which he is more popularly known.
Mr. Hunt was an honorary member of the Academy
of Amsterdam in addition to being a member of the
Water colour Society. Although of late his in-
firmity has been greatly increased, Mr. Hunt hal
never relinquished work, except under temporary
access of indisposition. Debarred in a great mea-
sure from the pleasures of society, almost his sole
delight was in his work. He may be said to have
died in harness, for so lately as last Saturday, he
was at his easel until mid-day, and only left it to
visit the Gallery in Suffolk-street, where the com-
petition pictures of the candidates for associateships
of the Water-colour Society were exhibited. Pro.
bably the last act of his life was sending his proxies
for some of the competitors. During the night
between Sunday and Monday, an attack of paralysis
supervened upon the indisposition which had mani-
fested itself soon after returning home from the
Gallery. There was no return of consciousness,
and shortly after 8 o'clock onWednesday mornieg
he expired.
The following notice of the deceased is taken
from " Men of the Time." William Hunt was born
in Belton-street (since called Endell-etreet), Long
Acre, in 1790 :—" He first exhibited, as a member
of the Old Society of Painters in Water Colours, in
1824. Of the multitude who, from this painter's
modest pieces of nature and truth scattered through
each exhibition of the Water Colour Society, have
received annually fresh enjoyment, comparatively
few, perhaps, have suspected that those delight-
ful and unpretending little bits of paper contained
truer art, witnessed an eye for nature rarer and
more penetrating—nay, even technical gifts of
immeasurably finer quality—than are shown
amid acres of ambitious and clever oil paintings
at Trafalgar square pictures commanding
prices ten times higher than a mere water-
colour drawing can ever challenge. Who shall ex-
plain the secret of those magical effects of colour,
light and shade, and
composition? Why do those
modest groups of ' primrose pale,' or blooming peach
and gleaming grape—that broken branch of lilac or
of May—that wonderful bird's nest with its deli-
cately-tinted contents, or the familiar-looking inte-
rior of a commonplace English room, with its com-
monplace chairs and tables—why does this consum-
mate mimicry effect us with so vivid and so poetic
a delight ? IWe may look upon actual primroses
by a river's brim,
or drudgery in the production,' as when we gaze
.
on those of Mr. Hurt. 13ut, in nine cases out
of ten—unless, in
fact, we bring the seeing
eye with us, which we cannot all command,or at all times—we do not while we look
feel as Mr. Hunt makes us feel. Whoever shall ac-
count for this will do something to explain some of
the shyest secrets of Art and its perennial spell—
nay of external nature herself. For one thing,
Mr. Hunt is not only a masterly artist, but a poet.
By an over mastering sympathy (the poet's prero-
gative), the objects he paints `are seen and felt by
him as they exist, and conveyed by a mystery of art
with which we are wholly unacquainted,' writes a
critic worth hearing, which we are at a loss how
to define by any of the known results of genius and
practice.' People have wondered why so gifted an
an artist should perpetually repeat what often
seems identically the same subject. But, in fact,
it is only superficially the same. Because of his
deep sympathy with objects as they exist,' he
sees endless varieties in them; and delights
to exhaust every phase of effect, of colour, light
and shade, and grouping. As to the technical part
of his art, pre-Raphaelite painters might learn a
lesson from one whose practice implies and trail-
nature present the perfection of finish—a perfec-
scends their principles. Tnese iuobtrusive bits of
tion, however, not attained by elaboration. A
degree of slightness of execution, or muzziness, it
you will, appears to be an element in the process,
elaborators, admirable in other respects, have
neglected or overstriven to avoid.' Forty year.'
practice have brought this about, this marriage
,of finish and freedom—the last and most
difficult of technical achievements, result-
ing in images of Nature wholly, not partially,
accurate and consistent. As for his composition,
light and shade, colour, these are as quite in their
truth as complete. As a colourist, no loss a critic
thet
than Mr.
eßstuisnkainsclhovoeosl
(ttohespeakof
English)
rife with greathim as among
colourists. From the very nature of his art and of
his subject, Hunt cannot be engraved. Those spe-
cimens of printing in colours which seem to repro-
duce his effects so well, only seem to do so. The
difference is subtile, but complete. Mechanism
cannot give us the results of a hand such as his."