William Hunt was one of the most influential and respected artists in Boston during the late 19th century,ans was a leading proponent of the French Barbizon School of painting, the precursor of Impressionism. He was a landscape, genre, and portrait painter, a highly respected teacher, and widely read writer.His engaging personality combined with his talents to make him the leading arbiter of aesthetics in New England where he was one of the first artists to inject French influence