(b. Oct. 10, 1738, near Springfield, Pa., U.S.--d. March 11, 1820, London, Eng.)
American-born painter of historical, religious, and mythological subjects who had a profound influence on the development of historical painting in Britain. He was historical painter to George III (1772-1801), a founder of the Royal Academy (1768), and in 1792 he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as its president.
One of the first American artists to win a wide reputation in Europe, Benjamin West exerted considerable influence on the development of art in the United States through such young American painters as Gilbert Stuart, Charles Willson Peale, and John Singleton Copley. West abandoned the tradition of painting people in Greek and Roman dress, the first major artist working in England to do so.
West was born on Oct. 10, 1738, of Quaker parents in Springfield (now Swarthmore) in the Pennsylvania colony. Young West was encouraged to draw, and it was said that he got his first paints from his Indian friends. When he was 16 his Quaker community approved art training for him. For a time West studied in Philadelphia and New York City. He also served as a militia captain in Indian campaigns in Pennsylvania. Then he went to Italy for three years of study. In 1763 he went to England and remained there for life.
Known in London as "the American Raphael," he became a friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds, England's leading painter. Soon other influential Londoners, Samuel Johnson for one, took an interest in the young American. King George III commissioned him to paint several pictures, and in 1772 he appointed West historical painter to the king with an annual allowance of 1,000 pounds. By another royal appointment West was made a charter member of the Royal Academy, succeeding Reynolds as president in 1792.
West painted historical and religious subjects on huge canvases. Among his famous works are Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus (1768); The Death of General Wolfe (1771), the controversial painting in which he broke away from classical costumes; Penn's Treaty with the Indians (1772); and Death on a Pale Horse (1817), which anticipated developments in French romantic painting. Modern critics regard West's figures as somewhat stiff, his colors harsh, and his themes uninspired, but they respect his leadership and influence on later artists. West died on March 11, 1820, in London.
Список литературы
Для подготовки данной работы были использованы материалы с сайта http://www.ibiblio.org/louvre/paint/
Похожие работы
... changing his name from Maury, the name of a Bascomb, will somehow avert the disastrous fate that the Compson blood seems to bring. This overwhelming sense of an inescapable family curse will resurface many times throughout the book. Summary of June Second, 1910: This section of the book details the events of the day of Quentin's suicide, from the moment he wakes in the morning until he leaves ...
... frequent use of dashes, sporadic capitalization of nouns, off-rhymes, broken metre, unconventional metaphors have contributed her reputation as one of the most innovative poets of 19th-century American literature. Later feminist critics have challenged the popular conception of the poet as a reclusive, eccentric figure, and underlined her intellectual and artistic sophistication. Emily Dickinson ...
... does not tend to displace the first. Both settings, so necessary for proper contrastive analysis, are thus available simultaneously. Chapter2 Listening techniques in translation The following three techniques used in the training of translators and interpreters at the Monterey Institute seem especially suitable for advanced language study: 1. Conceptualization . One of the basic premises ...
... of the IP, the authors plan a special stage of approbation and expansion of the information about the basic conception by means of its publication as a separate edition (in Ukrainian, Russian, and English), as articles in the domestic sociological journal of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine and others, in Russian and Polish social-political journals, and on the special site ( ...
0 комментариев