The sins of the world: Kenneth Bendiner argues that Robert Rauschenberg's 'combine' work Monogram is not a random assembly but a coherent whole that by alluding to Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat takes as its subject the sacrifice of Christ

Apollo, Oct, 2006 by Kenneth Bendiner

This untitled combine was in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition: it is illustrated in Schimmel, op. cit., plate 43. Charles Stuckey pioneered a close reading of the details of Rauschenberg's combines, and attempted specific interpretations of individual works. My essay here follows his example; see C. Stuckey, 'Reading Rauschenberg', Art in America, vol. LXV, no. 2 (March-April 1977), pp. 74-84. In the exhibition catalogue of the Metropolitans show referred to above, Stuckey's essay (pp. 199-209) has a different aim: be there seeks in place the combines in a broad artistic context.

(4) Photographs of Monogram in Rauschenberg's studio over the years and related drawings show the goat with various collage elements in several different configurations. Monogram was first exhibited in 1959 at the Leo Castelli Gallery, New York. See the illustrations in Walter Hopps (ed.), Robert Rauschenberg, exh. cat., National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1976, nos. 63-68.

(5) On Hunt's Scapegoat, see: K. Bendiner, 'William Homan Hunt's "The Scapegoat'", Pantheon, vol. XLV, 1987, pp. 124-28; Albert Boime, 'William Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat: Rite of Foregiveness/Transference of Blame', The Art Bulletin, vol. LXXIV, 2002, pp. 94-114; Judith Bronkhurst, entry in Alan Bowness (ed.), The Pre-Raphaelites, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1984, pp. 153-54, no. 84; J. Bronkhurst, '"An Interesting Series of Adventures to Look Back Upon": William Holman Hunt's Visit to the Dead Sea in November 1854', in Leslie Parris (ed.), Pre-Raphaelite Papers, London, 1984, pp. 111-25. See also J. Bronkhurst's forthcoming William Holman Hunt: A Catalogue Raisonne (Yale University Press).

(6) See K. Nolan, 'Capital Calves: Undertaking an Overview', Jacket 24 (an internet-only literary magazine), November 2003.

(7) Robert Hughes, Shock of the New, New York, 1980, p. 335.

(8) On Rauschenberg's fundamentalist upbringing and early religious leanings, see Walter Hopps and Susan Davidson (eds.), Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1997, p. 550; and Robert S. Mattison, Robert Rauschenberg; Breaking Boundaries, New Haven and London, 2003, p. 256.

(9) Andrew Ritchie (ed.), Masters of British Painting 1800-1950, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1956, p. 71.

(10) Hunt's serious Protestant outlook is best documented in his autobiography, William Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 2 vols., London, 1905-1906. Hunt's religious paintings often involve 'typological symbolism', where one Biblical event is understood as an ordained foretelling of another. For the most complete study of this method of symbolism in Hunt's work, and the influence of John Ruskin's writings with regard to this form of religious interpretation, see George P. Landow, Replete with Meaning: William Holman Hunt and Typological Symbolism, New Haven, 1979.

(11) On Rauschenberg's purchase of the stuffed goat from a used furniture store, see Hopps and Davidson, exh. cat., op. cit., p. 554.