Saturday, November 19, 2016

Benjamin West paintings and drawings

Benjamin West
Omnia Vincit Amor
1809
oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Benjamin West
Nude Youth with Drapery
early 19th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Benjamin West
Victory of Waterloo
1815
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Benjamin West
Victory of Waterloo
c. 1815
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

The painter Benjamin West (1738-1820) made a sensation when he arrived in England and began to show his work in the 1760s. He was born in rural Pennsylvania, but the greater part of his life and all of his success took place in Europe. The works that made West so popular in his day  formal mythologies and history paintings  now look distinctly quaint. The drawings and loosely painted sketches, by contrast, retain their vigor and still reveal the original current of intensity that brought them into existence.  

Benjamin West
Figures in a Colonnade
late 18th century
oil on paper
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Benjamin West
A Gathering
late 18th century
oil on paper
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Benjamin West
Feast Scene with Angel
late 18th century
oil on paper
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Benjamin West
Crowd with Angel
late 18th century
oil on paper
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Benjamin West
Military Scene
late 18th century
oil on paper
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Benjamin West
Achilles with the Armor of Thetis
early 19th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Benjamin West
Fright of Astyanax
1796
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Benjamin West
Fright of Astyanax
1797
drawing
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Benjamin West
Goddess bringing woman to man
early 19th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Benjamin West
Choice of Hercules between Virtue & Pleasure
1764
oil on canvas
Victoria & Albert Museum, London