Benjamin West and the Struggle to be Modern

At the time of his death in 1820, Benjamin West was the most famous artist in the English-speaking world and celebrated throughout Europe. From humble beginnings in Pennsylvania, he had become the first American artist to study in Italy, and within a few short years of his arrival in London had been instrumental in the foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts and been appointed history painter to King George III. However, West's posthumous reputation took a critical mauling, and today he remains one of the most neglected and misunderstood of Britain's great 18th-century artists. As Loyd Grossman asserts in his new book, West was in the vanguard that created neoclassicism and romanticism, and among the first painters to represent the exciting and inspirational qualities of contemporary events, as opposed to events from the biblical, classical or mythological past. Most significantly, his best-known painting, The Death of General Wolfe, was a thrilling, revolutionary work that played a