(b Springfield [now Swarthmore], PA, 10 Oct 1738; d London, 11 March 1820). American painter and draughtsman, active in England. He was the first American artist to achieve an international reputation and to influence artistic trends in Europe. He taught three generations of his aspiring countrymen. His son Raphael Lamar West (1769-1850) was a history painter.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

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Benjamin West (1738-1820), the first of America's emigré artists, became one of Europe's most important neoclassic painters.

Benjamin West was born on Oct. 10, 1738, in Springfield Township, Pa., to a struggling innkeeper who had emigrated from England. Though the Wests lived among Quakers, who habitually frowned upon art, Benjamin seems to have been encouraged by all about him from the time he began to draw at the age of six years. He gained a reputation in eastern Pennsylvania as a child prodigy. At first he was self-taught, but later, before his departure for Italy in 1759, he knew the paintings of William Williams and Gustavus Hessalius, whose work he soon surpassed.

Among West's American works produced during the 1750s were the Death of Socrates, forecasting his later neoclassic work; a somewhat fantastic Landscape with Cow (1748), revealing his early dreams of storybook castles; and a lustrous portrait of the young Thomas Mifflin. While in Pennsylvania, West aspired to be the companion of emperors and kings. He sought, then, the social opportunities which Europe offered.

Absorbing Neoclassicism

Because of his quaint charm and the remoteness of his origins (in the eyes of the Italians), West interested important patrons, critics, and literati in Rome. Cardinal Albani introduced him to the treasures of the Vatican; and the English painter Gavin Hamilton, the German painter Anton Raphael Mengs, and the esthetician Johann Joachim Winckelmann schooled West in the niceties of neoclassic art, which was then supplanting the more frivolous rococo style. Excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum had fostered the growth of neoclassicism, and partisans of the new nationalisms saw in the glories of the ancient world pretexts for their own ambitions.

When West arrived in London in 1763, he was prepared by temperament and training for the success he would enjoy. He was immediately encouraged by Joshua Reynolds and was deluged by portrait commissions. But he aspired to history painting, which he saw as a higher art form than portraiture. He wished to choose lofty themes, idealize figures, and dramatize scenes according to the principles he had learned in Rome. Robert Hay Drummond, Archbishop of York, commissioned West to paint Agrippina with the Ashes of Germanicus (1767), a story, of faithfulness and self-sacrifice based on a theme from Tacitus. West endowed his figures with a grave dignity, clearly stratified his space in the manner of Nicolas Poussin, and took his composition, in part, from the ancient reliefs of the Ara Pacis in Rome.

Relations with the King

King George III heard of West through Archbishop Drummond and commissioned from West a painting on a theme of nobility, Regulus Leaving Rome (1769). The painter and the King became intimate friends, and not even West's sympathy with the American colonists marred the friendship. The Death of Wolfe (1771), a major painting and one of George's favorites, marked a temporary break with neoclassic formulas. In this scene from the battle of the English and French for Quebec in 1759, West used contemporary costumes rather than Roman togas because the event had not taken place in Europe. To ennoble Wolfe, West showed the general in the attitude of a dying Christ with his lieutenants neatly placed beside him like attendant saints.

In 1788 it was obvious that the King was suffering from madness, and West lost his support. In 1792, upon the death of Joshua Reynolds, West was elected president of the Royal Academy, a position that was made increasingly difficult because of George's capricious behavior. Moreover, West's financial position became precarious, as he had lent large sums of money to the Crown and was unable to recover these. Royal commissions dwindled, then disappeared.

Yet West's reputation had not really suffered, and the public continued to support him. His Christ Healing the Sick (1811), commissioned by the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, was bought by the British Institute for 3, 000 guineas before its completion (the largest sum paid in England up to that time for a contemporary work), and a replica was sent to Philadelphia.

West's Style

West's work has been classified as being in three modes: stately, pathetic, and dread. The stately mode includes classicizing, elevating ancient themes, featuring idealized forms and gravity of demeanor, as in the Agrippina. Christ Healing the Sick, showing milder sentiments and more relaxed figures, falls within the pathetic mode. Subjects stirring the astonishment and awe of the beholder, like Death on the Pale Horse (1802), are in the dread mode.

Death on the Pale Horse, which was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1802, marked a departure from the staidness of neoclassicism and forecast the emotionality of romanticism. The painting was an apocalyptic subject of terror and sublimity. Space, rather than being clearly stratified (as in the stately mode), was here vast and unmeasurable; and color, rather than being applied to neat outlines, was handled in a free, Rubenesque manner.

West died in London on March 11, 1820. He played a fundamental role in the history of American art by encouraging and training the most gifted younger American painters of his time. In spite of his position, he was friendly and helpful to any artist, American or English, who stopped at his studio.

Further Reading

John Galt, The Life and Studies of Benjamin West (2 vols., 1816-1820), is an amusingly anecdotal biography by a contemporary Scottish novelist and the source for later studies. Also useful is Henry E. Jackson, Benjamin West: His Life and Work (1900). Grose Evans, Benjamin West and the Taste of His Times (1959), groups West's work into the stately, pathetic, and dread modes.

Additional Sources

Alberts, Robert C., Benjamin West: a biography, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978.

Flexner, James Thomas, America's old masters, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982, 1980.

For more information on Benjamin West, visit Britannica.com.

West, Benjamin (1738-1820). History and portrait painter. West was born a British subject in Pennsylvania, remaining a loyalist all his life. He learned to paint in America, and studied for three years in Italy before settling in London in 1763. He was a founder member of the Royal Academy, becoming the second president on the death of Reynolds. His Death of Wolfe (1771) broke with the tradition of painting heroes in classical costume and showed contemporary dress.

1738–1820, American historical painter who worked in England. He was born in Springfield, Pa., in a house that is now a memorial museum at Swarthmore College. After some instruction from a local artist named William Williams, he set up as a portrait painter in Philadelphia at 18, subsequently moving to New York City. In 1760 he went to Europe, where he remained for the rest of his life. For three years he studied in Italy. Working under the tutelage of Anton Mengs, he was also inspired by the classical research of Johann Winckelmann. He then settled in London, becoming a leader of the neoclassical movement. Under the patronage of George III, commissions came to him in great numbers, and in 1772 he was appointed historical painter to the king. A founder of the Royal Academy, he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as its president in 1792. West executed more than 400 canvases, chiefly historical, mythological, and religious subjects painted on a heroic scale. He had many pupils and was a generous friend and adviser to younger artists, particularly American painters studying in England, among whom were Washington Allston, Samuel Morse, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and John Singleton Copley. His influence on American painting of the period was predominant. Among West's best-known works are Death of General Wolfe (Grosvenor Gall., London) and Penn's Treaty with the Indians (Pa. Acad. of the Fine Arts). In these paintings he created a new departure in historical painting by clothing his figures in the costume of their period instead of the traditional classical garb. At the same time, he maintained the balanced compositional elements of the neoclassical painters. Sometimes his paintings were more turbulent and colorful and indeed prefigured romanticism, such as Death on a Pale Horse (Pa. Acad. of the Fine Arts).

Bibliography

See study by H. Von Erffa and A. Staley (1986).

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