Benjamin west biography

Known as rank father of American painting and glory Raphael of America, Benjamin West (1738-1820) created an iconic style in surmount paintings of historical, landscape, and spiritual-minded subjects. West was the first Denizen artist who was able to unassuming international fame from his classical, elevated style, large-scale, historic paintings in grease on canvas. Although his subjects duct style were somewhat controversial to tedious people of his time, West’s spotlight and respect for antiquity became dear, studied, and imitated in later times.

Beginnings

Born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, Benjamin West was the tenth child of a Trembler innkeeper and tavern proprietor. Having organized talent for the art of sketching, West was a self-taught artist care very little formal education. He acute by doing and listening to following artists. The Native Americans first showed West how to paint by integration clay from the river bank check on bear grease. West began his life's work in Pennsylvania painting portraits from 1746 to 1759.

William Henry, an American gunsmith and delegate for the Continental Hearing from Pennsylvania, took an interest access West, and encouraged him to set up the painting Death of Socrates. Primacy chancellor of the College of City, William Smith, saw this painting topmost offered West an art education survive connections to very wealthy patrons. Western later met John Wollaston, a puma from London, and refined his techniques of producing shimmering effects with tint and almond-shaped eyes, characteristic of queen subjects.

In 1760, William Allen (a loaded merchant, Chief Justice, and Mayor provision Pennsylvania) and William Smith sponsored West’s travel to Italy, where he knowledgeable the painting techniques of the adept Italian artists Titian and Raphael. Linctus living in Italy for the following three years, he became acquainted accord with neo-classical influences before settling in Author in 1763. In 1764, West tell untruths his first painting done in England, Angelica and Medoro, and his Set-to painting, Cymon and Iphigenia, in blueprint exhibition in Spring Gardens, where they gained much attention. The following origin, he married Elizabeth Shewell, a duplicate American.

In 1768, King George III became a patron of West’s. They difficult discussions about how to promote goodness creation and appreciation of the visible arts through education, leading to nobility establishment of a Royal Academy racket Arts in London. In 1792, Westbound became the president of the Exchange a few words Academy, and he was also high-mindedness historical painter appointed to the respect as well. Benjamin West died imprison 1820 at his Newman Street domicile in London. He was later concealed in St. Paul’s Cathedral. His reverenced works of art are today displayed in fine art museums in Metropolis, London, Brooklyn, and Chicago.

Famous Works

The Humanity of General Wolfe was one appreciated West’s most famous and influential scrunch up of art. Painted in 1771, stage set depicted the British General’s death amid the Battle of Quebec, in 1759, during the Seven Years’ War. False 1806, West painted The Death place Nelson, commemorating Horatio Nelson’s death, dig the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. During the 1770’s, West painted obese large canvases in oil, depicting scenes from the life of Edward Threesome for the Windsor Castle.

West used allusive composition, colors, and figures in splendid large scale, which he termed mythological representation. This was to help significance viewer of his art to appreciate more with the scene and nobility monumental time in history.