P. T. Forsyth, Religion in Recent Art, 3rd ed. (London, 1905), 155, claimed that "Holman Hunt represents the best that has been done by Protestant Christianity in the way of Art. It is Art inspired by the spirit of the Resurrection rather than that of the Crucifixion." According to this admiring critic, Hunt's career, particularly his "exuberant realism," reveals that he worked in an essentially optimistic spirit, the spirit of the Resurrection. From this point of view, The Triumph of the Innocents makes explicit the attitudes implicit in his earlier religious paintings, making a fitting culmination of them.
Last modified December 2001