Benjamin West
Template:Short description {{#invoke:Other people|otherPeople}} Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox artist Benjamin West Template:Post-nominals (October 10, 1738 – March 11, 1820) was a British-American artist who painted famous historical scenes such as The Death of Nelson, The Death of General Wolfe, the Treaty of Paris, and Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky.
Entirely self-taught, West soon gained valuable patronage and toured Europe, eventually settling in London. He impressed King George III and was largely responsible for the launch of the Royal Academy, of which he became the second president (after Sir Joshua Reynolds). He was appointed historical painter to the court and Surveyor of the King's Pictures.
West also painted religious subjects, as in his huge work The Preservation of St Paul after a Shipwreck at Malta, at the Chapel of St Peter and St Paul at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, and Christ Healing the Sick, presented to the National Gallery.
Early lifeEdit
Template:External media West was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, in a house that is now in the borough of Swarthmore on the campus of Swarthmore College.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He was the tenth child of an innkeeper, John West (1690–1776), and his wife, Sarah Pearson (1697–1756). <references group="Tall Oaks From Little Acorns, William Andrus Alcott" /> 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 the novelist 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. 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".<ref>Hughes, Robert (1997). American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 70. Template:ISBN</ref> One day, his mother left him alone with his little sister Sally. Benjamin discovered some bottles of ink and began to paint Sally's portrait. When his mother came home, she noticed the painting, picked it up and said, "Why, it's Sally!", and kissed him. Later, he noted, "My mother's kiss made me a painter".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He received further art training by the artisan painter William Williams.
From 1746 to 1759, West worked in Pennsylvania, mostly painting portraits. While West was in Lancaster in 1756, his patron, a gunsmith named William Henry, encouraged him to paint a Death of Socrates based on an engraving in Charles Rollin's Ancient History. His resulting composition, which significantly differs from the source, has been called "the most ambitious and interesting painting produced in colonial America".<ref>Template:Cite book For more on this painting, see: Template:Cite journal</ref> Dr William Smith, then the provost of the College of Philadelphia, saw the painting in Henry's house and decided to become West's patron, offering him education and, more importantly, connections with wealthy and politically connected Pennsylvanians. During this time West met John Wollaston, a famous painter who had 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".<ref>Hughes (1997), American Visions, p. 71</ref>
West was a close friend of Benjamin Franklin, whose portrait he painted. Franklin was the godfather of West's second son, Benjamin.
Italian tourEdit
Sponsored by Smith and William Allen, then reputed to be the wealthiest man in Philadelphia, West traveled to Italy in 1760 in the company of the Scot William Patoun, a painter who later became an art collector. In common with many artists, architects, and lovers of the fine arts at that time he conducted a Grand Tour. West expanded his repertoire by copying works of Italian painters such as Titian and Raphael direct from the originals. In Rome he met a number of international neo-classical artists including German-born Anton Rafael Mengs, Scottish Gavin Hamilton, and Austrian Angelica Kauffman.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
EnglandEdit
In August 1763, West arrived in England,<ref name=galt1>Galt, vol. 2, p. 1</ref> on what he initially intended as a visit on his way back to America.<ref name=galt1/> In fact, he never returned to America. He stayed for a month at Bath with William Allen, who was also in the country, and visited his half-brother Thomas West at Reading at the urging of his father. In London he was introduced to Richard Wilson and his student Joshua Reynolds.<ref>Galt, vol. 2, p. 2</ref> He moved into a house in Bedford Street, Covent Garden. The first picture he painted in England, Angelica and Medora, along with the Portrait of Robert Monckton,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and his Cymon and Iphigenia, painted in Rome, were shown at the exhibition Society of Artists in Spring Gardens in 1764.
In 1765, he married Elizabeth Shewell, an American he engaged in Philadelphia, at St Martin-in-the-Fields.<ref name=cyclo/>
Dr Markham, then Headmaster of Westminster School, introduced West to Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke,<ref>Galt, vol. 2, pp. 6–7</ref> Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol, James Johnson, Bishop of Worcester, and Robert Hay Drummond, Archbishop of York. All three prelates commissioned work from him.<ref>Galt, vol. 2, p. 9</ref> In 1766 West proposed a scheme to decorate St Paul's Cathedral with paintings. It was rejected by Richard Terrick, the Bishop of London, but his idea of painting an altarpiece for St Stephen Walbrook was accepted.<ref name=galt15/> At around this time he also received acclaim for his classical subjects, such as Orestes and Pylades and The Continence of Scipio.<ref name=galt15>Galt, p. 15</ref><ref>Now in the collections of the Tate Gallery and the Fitzwilliam Museum respectively</ref>
West was known in England as the "American Raphael". His Raphaelesque painting of Archangel Michael Binding the Devil is in the collection of Trinity College, Cambridge.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He said that "Art is the representation of human beauty, ideally perfect in design, graceful and noble in attitude."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Royal patronageEdit
Drummond tried to raise subscriptions to fund an annuity for West, so that he could give up portraiture and devote himself entirely to more ambitious compositions. Having failed in this, he tried—with greater success—to convince King George III to patronise West.<ref>Galt, vol. 2, p. 20</ref> West was soon on good terms with the king, and the two men conducted long discussions on the state of art in England, including the idea of the establishment of a Royal Academy.<ref>Galt, vol. 2, pp. 33–34</ref> The academy came into being in 1768, with West one of the primary leaders of an opposition group formed out of the existing Society of Artists of Great Britain; Joshua Reynolds was its first president. In the same year, he was elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society.<ref>Bell, Whitfield J., and Charles Greifenstein, Jr. Patriot-Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society. 3 vols. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1997, 2:193–200.</ref> In a story related by Henry Angelo I (1756–1835) in his book of reminiscences, the actor David Garrick, who was a friend of Angelo's father, the Italian sword master Domenico Angelo, memorably sketched for the teenaged Henry the following exchange: one day the painter Francesco Zuccarelli, on one of his visits to Domenico, got into a dispute with his fellow royal academician Johan Zoffany about the merit of West's 1769 painting The Departure of Regulus, his first commission for the king. Zuccarelli exclaimed, "Here is a painter who promises to rival Nicolas Poussin", while Zoffany tauntingly replied, "A figo for Poussin, West has already beaten him out of the field."<ref>Angelo (1828), pp. 360–61.</ref>
In 1772, King George appointed him historical painter to the court<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> at an annual fee of £1,000.<ref name=cyclo/> He painted a series of eight large canvases showing episodes from the life of Edward III for St George's Hall at Windsor Castle,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and proposed a cycle of 36 works on the theme of "the progress of revealed religion" for a chapel at the castle, of which 28 were eventually executed.<ref name=cyclo/> The largest group of paintings (seven) from the series is currently in Greenville, SC.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He also painted nine portraits of members of the royal family,<ref name=cyclo/> including two of the king himself. He was Surveyor of the King's Pictures from 1791 until his death.
The Death of General WolfeEdit
West painted his most famous, and possibly most influential painting, The Death of General Wolfe, in 1770 and it exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1771. The painting became one of the most frequently reproduced images of the period. It returned to the French and Indian War setting of his General Johnson Saving a Wounded French Officer from the Tomahawk of a North American Indian of 1768. When the American Revolution broke out in 1775 he remained ambivalent, and neither spoke out for or against the Revolutionary War in his land of birth.
West became 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". His 1778 work The Battle of the Boyne portrayed William of Orange's victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and strongly influenced subsequent images of William. In 1806 he produced The Death of Nelson, to commemorate Horatio Nelson's death at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Later religious paintingEdit
St Paul's Church, in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, has an important enamelled stained glass east window made in 1791 by Francis Eginton, modelled on an altarpiece painted Template:Circa by West, now in the Dallas Museum of Art.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It shows the Conversion of Paul. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1791.<ref name=AAAS>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
West is also well known for his huge work in the Chapel of St Peter and St Paul which now forms part of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London. His work, The Preservation of St Paul after a Shipwreck at Malta, measures Template:Cvt and illustrates the Acts of the Apostles: 27 & 28. West also provided the designs for the other paintings executed by Biagio Rebecca in the chapel.
Following a loss of royal patronage at the beginning of the 19th century, West began a series of large-scale religious works. The first, Christ Healing the Sick was originally intended as a gift to Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia; instead he sold it to the British Institution for £3,000, which in turn presented it to the National Gallery.<ref name=cyclo/><ref>This first version was transferred to the Tate Gallery where it was destroyed in a flood in 1928.</ref> West then made a copy to send to Philadelphia. The success of the picture led him to paint a series of even larger works, including his Death on the Pale Horse, exhibited in 1817.<ref name=cyclo>Template:Cite book</ref>
Royal AcademyEdit
Though initially snubbed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, founding President of the Royal Academy, and by some other Academicians who felt he was over-ambitious, West was elected President of the Royal Academy on the death of Reynolds in 1792. During his time as president, he fell victim to the Venetian secret, a scandal involving a supposedly secret set of materials and techniques used by Renaissance painters in Venice.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He resigned in 1805, to be replaced by a fierce rival, architect James Wyatt. However West was again elected president the following year, and served until his death. In 1810 West was painted by his future successor Thomas Lawrence as president of the Royal Academy and the Portrait of Benjamin West was exhibited at the 1811 Summer Exhibition.<ref>Levey, Michael. Sir Thomas Lawrence. Yale University Press, 2005. p.168</ref>
PupilsEdit
Many American artists studied under him in London, including Ralph Earl and later his son, Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl, Samuel Morse, Robert Fulton, Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale, Matthew Pratt, Gilbert Stuart, John Trumbull, Samuel Lovett Waldo, Washington Allston, Thomas Sully,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> John Green, and Abraham Delanoy.<ref name="SaundersMiles1987">Template:Cite book</ref>
DeathEdit
West died at his house in Newman Street in London, on March 11, 1820, and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He had been offered a knighthood by the British Crown, but declined it, believing that he should instead be made a peer.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
GalleryEdit
- Robert Moncton Martinique.jpg
- Benjamin West - Mary Hopkinson - 1926.6.1 - Smithsonian American Art Museum.jpg
Mrs Mary (Hopkinson) Morgan, 1764
- Benjamin West - Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicu - 1947.16 - Yale University Art Gallery.jpg
- Benjamin West - Cleombrotus Ordered into Banishment by Leonidas II, King of Sparta - Google Art Project.jpg
Cleombrotus Ordered into Banishment by Leonidas II, King of Sparta, 1768
- Benjamin West (1738-1820) - The Departure of Regulus - RCIN 405416 - Royal Collection.jpg
The Departure of Regulus, 1769
- Francis Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds by Benjamin West.jpg
Portrait of the Duke of Leeds, 1769
- Benjamin West (1738-1820) - The Oath of Hannibal - RCIN 405417 - Royal Collection.jpg
The Oath of Hannibal, 1770
- Treaty of Penn with Indians by Benjamin West.jpg
- Benjamin West (1738-1820) - The Death of Chevalier Bayard - RCIN 407525 - Royal Collection.jpg
- Erasistratus the Physician Discovers the Love of Antiochus for Stratonice - Benjamin West - Google Cultural Institute.jpg
Erasistratus the Physician Discovers the Love of Antiochus for Stratonice, 1772
- Portrait of Joseph Banks (West).png
Portrait of Joseph Banks, 1772
- Benjamin West (1738-1820) - The Wife of Arminius brought captive to Germanicus - RCIN 405683 - Royal Collection.jpg
- Benjamin West - Isaac's servant tying the bracelet on Rebecca's arm - Google Art Project.jpg
Isaac's Servant Tying the Bracelet on Rebecca's Arm, 1775
- Benjamin West - Helen Brought to Paris - Google Art Project.jpg
Helen Brought to Paris, 1776
- Sheridan family, Benjamin West.jpg
The Sheridan Family, 1776
- Benjamin West (1738-1820) - George IV, when Prince of Wales, with Frederick, Duke of York, when Prince Frederick - RCIN 403399 - Royal Collection.jpg
The Prince of Wales and Duke of York, 1777
- 1777, West, Benjamin, Two Officers and a Groom in a Landscape.jpg
Two Officers and a Groom in a Landscape, 1777, Princeton University Art Museum
- Benjamin West, The Battle of La Hogue, c. 1778, NGA 45885.jpg
- William III at the Battle of the Boyne.jpg
The Battle of the Boyne, 1778
- Benjamin West - The Death of Chatham - Google Art Project.jpg
The Death of Chatham, 1778
- Benjamin West (1738-1820) - George III (1738-1820) - RCIN 405407 - Royal Collection.jpg
Portrait of George III, 1779
- Benjamin West (1738-1820) - Queen Charlotte (1744-1818) - RCIN 405405 - Royal Collection.jpg
- Oliver Cromwell Dissolving the Long Parliament.png
- General Monck Receiving Charles II on the Beaches of Dover (Benjamin West).png
General Monck Receiving Charles II on the Beaches of Dover, 1782
- Treaty of Paris by Benjamin West 1783.jpg
Treaty of Paris depicts the American delegation at the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The British delegation refused to pose, and the painting was never completed, Template:Circa.
- Dr Richard Price, DD, FRS - Benjamin West.jpg
Welsh moral philosopher Richard Price, 1784
- Benjamin West - Alexander III of Scotland Rescued from the Fury of a Stag by the Intrepidity of Colin Fitzgerald ('The Death of the Stag') - Google Art Project.jpg
- Benjamin West (1738-1820) - The Institution of the Order of the Garter - RCIN 407521 - Royal Collection.jpg
- Benjamin West King Lear Act III scene 4.jpg
King Lear, 1788
- Benjamin West (1738-1820) - Edward III with the Black Prince after the Battle of Crécy - RCIN 407523 - Royal Collection.jpg
Edward III with the Black Prince after the Battle of Crécy, 1788
- Benjamin West (1738-1820) - Edward, The Black Prince, receiving King John of France after the Battle of Poitiers - RCIN 407522 - Royal Collection.jpg
Edward, The Black Prince, receiving King John of France after the Battle of Poitiers, 1788
- Benjamin West - Edward III Crossing the Somme - WGA25552.jpg
- Benjamin West (1738-1820) - Queen Philippa at the Battle of Neville's Cross - RCIN 404926 - Royal Collection.jpg
- The Burghers of Calais 1789 Benjamin West.jpg
The Burghers of Calais, 1789
- King Lear and Cordelia (West, 1793).jpg
King Lear and Cordelia, 1793
- Benjamin West - Gentlemen Fishing - Google Art Project.jpg
Gentlemen Fishing, 1794
- West, Benjamin - Woodcutters in Windsor Park - Google Art Project.jpg
Woodcutters in Windsor Park, 1795
- Harvesting at Windsor by Benjamin West, PRA.jpg
Harvesting at Windsor, 1795
- Benjamin West, Maria Hamilton Beckford (Mrs. William Beckford), 1799, NGA 34071.jpg
Portrait of Maria Beckford, 1799
- Benjamin West - Joshua passing the River Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant - Google Art Project.jpg
Joshua passing the River Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant, 1800
- Benjamin West - Milkmaids in St. James's Park, Westminster Abbey Beyond - B2014.2 - Yale Center for British Art.jpg
Milkmaids in St. James's Park, 1801
- Robert Fulton, 1806, London, England, painted by Benjamin West, American, 1738-1820 Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, N.Y. N0218.1961.jpg
- Benjamin West - The Death of Nelson - Google Art Project.jpg
The Death of Nelson, 1806
- Benjamin West - Cupid and Psyche - 2010.44 - Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.jpg
Cupid and Psyche, 1808
- Benjamin west omnia vincit amor 1809.jpg
Omnia Vincit Amor, 1809
- Reception of the American Loyalists.jpg
Reception of the American Loyalists by Great Britain in the Year 1783, Template:Circa, engraving by Henry Moses of the now-lost original
- Study for Christ Rejected.pdf
Christ Rejected, Study, 1811, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
- Benjamin West - John Eardley Wilmot - Google Art Project.jpg
John Eardley Wilmot, 1812, with a replica of the Reception of the American Loyalists in the background
- Benjamin West, English (born America) - Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky - Google Art Project.jpg
- Shah 'Alam conveying the grant of the Diwani to Lord Clive.jpg
The signing of the Treaty of Allahabad, 1765, between the British Governor of Bengal Robert Clive and Mughal Emperor Shah Alam, 1818, British Museum
- Benjamin West - Self-Portrait - Google Art Project.jpg
Self-portrait, 1819
WorksEdit
- John Sedley, view
- Portrait of a Gentleman, view
- Presentation of the Queen of Sheba at the Court of King Solomon, view
- The Envoys Returning from the Promised Land, view
SourcesEdit
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite journal Reprinted in America's Old Masters (New York, 1967), pp. 315–40.
- Template:Cite journal
- Template:Cite book
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
Template:Commons and category Template:EB1911 poster
- Template:Cite DNB
- Template:FadedPage
- 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.
- The Benjamin West Drawings Collection, including 33 of his drawings and sketches, is available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
- Documenting the Gilded Age: New York City Exhibitions at the Turn of the 20th Century Template:Webarchive. A New York Art Resources Consortium project. Annotations and a pencil sketch of a West painting in an exhibition catalog.
- Template:Art UK bio
Template:S-start Template:S-culture Template:S-bef Template:S-ttl Template:S-aft Template:S-bef Template:S-ttl Template:S-aft Template:S-end Template:Benjamin West Template:Authority control
.