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His first known work is the Torrechiara Polyptich, of 1462, once housed in the San Nicodemo Chapel of the Castle of Torrechiara and later moved in the Art Gallery of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. Bembo was also responsible of the decoration of the Camera d'Oro ("Golden Chamber") in the same castle: it is a fresco cy... |
Sources |
Mazzini, Franco (1966). "Bembo, Benedetto". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Vol. 8. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. |
External links |
Page at Enciclopedia Treccani website |
Benjamin West (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 ... |
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 life |
West was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, in a house that is now in the borough of Swarthmore on the campus of Swarthmore College. He was the tenth child of an innkeeper, John West (1690–1776), and his wife, Sarah Pearson (1697–1756). The family later moved to Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, where his father was the p... |
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 excell... |
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 ... |
West was a close friend of Benjamin Franklin, whose portrait he painted. Franklin was the godfather of West's second son, Benjamin. |
Italian tour |
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.... |
In Rome he met a number of international neo-classical artists including German-born Anton Rafael Mengs, Scottish Gavin Hamilton, and Austrian Angelica Kauffman. |
England |
In August 1763, West arrived in England, on what he initially intended as a visit on his way back to America. 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 Londo... |
In 1765, he married Elizabeth Shewell, an American he engaged in Philadelphia, at St Martin-in-the-Fields. |
Dr Markham, then Headmaster of Westminster School, introduced West to Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol, James Johnson, Bishop of Worcester, and Robert Hay Drummond, Archbishop of York. All three prelates commissioned work from him. In 1766 West proposed a scheme to decorate St Paul's Cat... |
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. He said that "Art is the representation of human beauty, ideally perfect in design, graceful and noble in attitude." |
Royal patronage |
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. West was soon on good terms with the king, and the two ... |
In 1772, King George appointed him historical painter to the court at an annual fee of £1,000. He painted a series of eight large canvases showing episodes from the life of Edward III for St George's Hall at Windsor Castle, and proposed a cycle of 36 works on the theme of "the progress of revealed religion" for a chap... |
The Death of General Wolfe |
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 Woun... |
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 ... |
Later religious painting |
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 c. 1786 by West, now in the Dallas Museum of Art. It shows the Conversion of Paul. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Acad... |
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 25 by 14 ft (7.6 by 4.3 m) and illustrates the Acts of the Apostles: 27 & 28. West also p... |
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 ... |
Royal Academy |
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 involv... |
Pupils |
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, John Green, and Abraham Delan... |
Death |
West died at his house in Newman Street in London, on March 11, 1820, and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral. He had been offered a knighthood by the British Crown, but declined it, believing that he should instead be made a peer. |
Gallery |
Works |
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 |
Sources |
Angelo, Henry (1828). Reminiscences of Henry Angelo, with memoirs of his late father and friends, including numerous original anecdotes and curious traits of the most celebrated characters that have flourished during the last eighty years (Vol. 1). London: H. Colburn. |
Galt, John (1816). The life and studies of Benjamin West ... prior to his arrival in England. Philadelphia: Moses Thomas – via archive.org. |
Galt, John (1820). The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West, Esq., President of the Royal Academy of London. T. Cadell and W. Davies – via archive.org. |
Galt, John (1832). The progress of genius : or authentic memoirs of the early life of Benjamin West. Boston: Abridged for the use of young persons. Leonard C. Bowles – via archive.org. |
von Erffa, Helmut; Staley, Allen (1986). The Paintings of Benjamin West. New Haven, Connecticut.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) |
Abrams, Ann Uhry (1985). The Valiant Hero: Benjamin West and Grand-Style History Painting. Washington.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) |
Flexner, James Thomas (1952). "Benjamin West's American Neo-Classicism". New-York Historical Society Quarterly. 36 (1): 5–41. Reprinted in America's Old Masters (New York, 1967), pp. 315–40. |
Rather, Susan (June 2004). "Benjamin West, John Galt, and the Biography of 1816". The Art Bulletin. 86 (2): 324–45. doi:10.2307/3177420. JSTOR 3177420. S2CID 162301706. |
Sherman, Frederic Fairchild (1919). Benjamin West. American Painters of Yesterday and Today. New York – via archive.org.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) |
References |
External links |
"West, Benjamin" . Dictionary of National Biography. 1885–1900. |
Works by Benjamin West at Faded Page (Canada) |
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 Archived November 20, 2014, at the Wayback Machine. A New York Art Resources Consortium project. Annotations and a pencil sketch of a West painting in an exhibition catalog. |
103 artworks by or after Benjamin West at the Art UK site |
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Benozzo Gozzoli (pronounced [beˈnɔttso ˈɡɔddzoli, – ˈɡɔttsoli]; born Benozzo di Lese; c. 1421 – 4 October 1497) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. A pupil of Fra Angelico, Gozzoli is best known for a series of murals in the Magi Chapel of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, depicting festive, vibrant procession... |
Biography |
Apprenticeship |
Gozzoli was born Benozzo di Lese, son of a tailor, in the village of Sant'Ilario a Colombano around 1421. His family moved to nearby Florence in 1427. According to the 16th century Italian biographer Giorgio Vasari, Gozzoli was a pupil and assistant of Fra Angelico in the early part of his career. |
Gozzoli assisted Angelico in the execution of fresco decorations in the dormitory cells of the Convent of San Marco in Florence. Established contributions here include The Adoration of the Magi in Cosimo de' Medici's cell and the Women at the Tomb in a larger depiction of the Resurrection of Christ in cell 8. Like many... |
Between 1444 and 1447, he was therefore able to collaborate with Lorenzo Ghiberti on the famous Gates of Paradise of the Florence Baptistery. |
On 23 May 1447, Benozzo was with Fra Angelico in Rome, to where they were called by Pope Eugene IV to carry out fresco decorations in a chapel in the Vatican Palace. This chapel was later demolished, so nothing of these works remains. He then accompanied Angelico to Umbria, where they decorated a chapel vault in the Or... |
Due to political complications in the city, they completed only two of the four vault webs and were again summoned to the Vatican, where the pair worked for Nicholas V in the Niccoline Chapel until June 1448. Gozzoli is assumed to have made significant contributions in the chapel's frescoes. Furthermore, the attributio... |
Both Fra Angelico and Lorenzo Ghiberti were to influence much of Gozzoli's work for the rest of his life. From Ghiberti he learned precision in depicting the finest details and how to illustrate a story vividly, while from Fra Angelico, he took his bright color palette, transferring it to the art of fresco painting. |
In Umbria |
In 1449, Gozzoli left Angelico and moved to Umbria. In the hilltown of Narni there is an Annunciation from 1450, signed OPU[S] BENOT[I] DE FLORENT[IA]. In the monastery of San Fortunato, near Montefalco, Gozzoli painted a Madonna and Child between St. Francis and St. Bernardine of Siena, and three other works. One of t... |
In 1450, Gozzoli received his first major independent commission from the monastery of S. Francesco in Montefalco. There, he filled the choir chapel with three registers of episodes from the life of St Francis of Assisi and various accessories, including portrait heads of Dante, Petrarch and Giotto. These works were co... |
Gozzoli probably remained at Montefalco (with an interval at Viterbo) until 1456, employing Pier Antonio Mezzastris as an assistant. Then, he went to Perugia and painted a Virgin and Saints that is now in the local academy. |
Return to Florence |
That same year, Benozzo returned to his native city Florence, the epicenter of Quattrocento art. Between 1459 and 1461, Gozzoli painted what may be considered his most important works, the frescoes in the Magi Chapel of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. There, in his Journey of the Magi to Bethlehem and Angels in Adoration,... |
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