Benjamin West

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(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.

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.

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.

For other persons named Benjamin West, see Benjamin West (disambiguation).

Benjamin West
Self Portrait of Benjamin West, ca. 1763
Born	October 10, 1738(1738-10-10) Springfield, Pennsylvania
Died	March 11, 1820 (aged 81) London
Field	historical painting
Patrons	William Henry King George III

Benjamin West RA (October 10, 1738 – March 11, 1820) was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence. He was the second president of the Royal Academy in London, serving from 1792 to 1805 and 1806 to 1820.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 References 4 Sources 5 External links

Early life

West was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, in a house that is now in the borough of Swarthmore on the campus of Swarthmore College,^[1] as the tenth child of an innkeeper. The family later moved to Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, where his father was the proprietor of the Square Tavern, still standing in that town. West told John Galt, with whom, late in his life, he collaborated on a memoir, The Life and Studies of Benjamin West (1816, 1820) that, when he was a child, Native Americans showed him how to make paint by mixing some clay from the river bank with bear grease in a pot. Benjamin West was an autodidact; while excelling at the arts, "he had little [formal] education and, even when president of the Royal Academy, could scarcely spell"(Hughes, 70).

From 1746 to 1759, West worked in Pennsylvania, mostly painting portraits. While in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1756, West's patron, a gunsmith named William Henry, encouraged him to design a "Death of Socrates" based on an engraving in Charles Rollin's Ancient History; the resulting composition, which significantly differs from West's source, has been called "the most ambitious and interesting painting produced in colonial America."^[2] Dr William Smith, then the provost of the College of Philadelphia, saw the painting in Henry's house and decided to patronize West, offering him education and, more important, connections with wealthy and politically-connected Pennsylvanians. During this time West met John Wollaston, a famous painter who immigrated from London. West learned Wollaston's techniques for painting the shimmer of silk and satin, and also adopted some of "his mannerisms, the most prominent of which was to give all his subjects large almond-shaped eyes, which clients thought very chic" (Hughes, 71).

Career

In 1760, sponsored by Smith and William Allen, reputed to be the wealthiest man in Philadelphia, West traveled to Italy where he expanded his repertoire by copying the works of Italian painters such as Titian and Raphael.

As painted by Gilbert Stuart, 1783-84

West was a close friend of Benjamin Franklin, whose portrait he painted. Franklin was also the godfather of West's second son, Benjamin.

In 1763, West moved to England, where he was commissioned by King George III to create portraits of members of the royal family. The king himself was twice painted by him. He painted his most famous, and possibly most influential painting, The Death of General Wolfe, in 1770, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1771. Although originally snubbed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the famous portrait painter and President of the Royal Academy, and others as over ambitious, the painting became one of the most frequently reproduced images of the period.

In 1772, King George appointed him historical painter to the court at an annual fee of £1,000. With Reynolds, West founded the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768. He was the second president of the Royal Academy from 1792 to 1805. He was re-elected in 1806 and was president until his death in 1820. He was Surveyor of the King's Pictures from 1791 until his death. Many American artists studied under him in London, including Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale, Gilbert Stuart, John Trumbull, and Thomas Sully. ^[3]

West is known for his large scale history paintings, which use expressive figures, colours and compositional schemes to help the spectator to identify with the scene represented. West called this "epic representation".

He died in London.

References

The Death of General Wolfe, 1770

1. ^ Benjamin West Explore Pennsylvania
2. ^ Allen Staley, “Benjamin West,” in Benjamin West: American Painter at the English Court (Baltimore, 1989), 28. For more on this painting, see Scott Paul Gordon, “Martial Art: Benjamin West’s Death of Socrates, Colonial Politics, and the Puzzles of Patronage.” William and Mary Quarterly 65, 1 (2008): 65-100.
3. ^ "The Joseph Downs Collection". Winterthur Library. http://findingaid.winterthur.org/html/HTML_Finding_Aids/COL0394.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-24. 

Sources

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Benjamin West

• John Galt, The Life and Studies of Benjamin West, Esq. (1816).
• Helmut von Erffa and Allen Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West (New Haven, 1986).
• Ann Uhry Abrams, The Valiant Hero: Benjamin West and Grand-Style History Painting (Washington, 1985).
• James Thomas Flexner, “Benjamin West’s American Neo-Classicism,” New-York Historical Society Quarterly 36, 1 (1952), 5–41, rept. in America’s Old Masters (New York, 1967), 315–40.

External links

• The Winterthur Library Overview of an archival collection on Benjamin West.

• Royal Academy Collections website Loyd Grossman talking about West's work

• Union List of Artist Names, Getty Vocabularies. ULAN Full Record Display for Benjamin West. Getty Vocabulary Program, Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California.

Cultural offices
Preceded by Joshua Reynolds	President of the Royal Academy 1792–1805	Succeeded by James Wyatt
Preceded by James Wyatt	President of the Royal Academy 1806–1820	Succeeded by Thomas Lawrence (painter)

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