Benjamin West’s A Bacchante
2008; American Medical Association; Volume: 10; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1001/archfaci.10.4.296
ISSN1538-3660
Autores Tópico(s)History of Medicine Studies
ResumoArchives of Facial Plastic SurgeryVol. 10, No. 4 Free AccessBenjamin West’s A BacchanteLisa Duffy-ZeballosLisa Duffy-ZeballosSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Jul 2008https://doi.org/10.1001/archfaci.10.4.296AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Benjamin West (1738-1820) was the first American artist to achieve an international reputation as an academic history painter. He was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, into a nonobservant Quaker family. West began his artistic career as a portraitist working in the dry, flat portrait style of his colonial contemporaries. However, in 1756 he painted the Death of Socrates (private collection), an awkward, amateurish first attempt at a heroic subject. The wooden figures gesture affectedly, and the awkward rendering of the figures' anatomy betrays West's lack of formal artistic training. Nevertheless, the painting earned West the esteem of Rev William Smith of the College of Philadelphia, who mentored the young painter in classics. While in Philadelphia, he met several important patrons, who financed his 3-year trip to Italy in 1760. In Rome, West became acquainted with the leading Neoclassical painters of the day, including Anton Raphael Mengs, who encouraged West to study classical sculpture and the works of the Venetian and Bolognese masters. On his return to America in 1763, West stopped in England, where he showed several of his Neoclassical history paintings at the Society of Artists in London. The positive reception of these works influenced West's decision to remain in England, where he hoped to secure a position at the court of King George III. In 1768 he painted his majestic Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut) for the Archbishop of York. This scene, described in Tacitus's early history of the Roman Empire, shows the young widow Agrippina disembarking in Italy with the ashes of her fallen husband, the commander and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius. West's friezelike procession, led by the sorrowing Agrippina, is a model of quiet, dignified female grief and demonstrates his assimilation of the high classical style of Nicolas Poussin and the Scottish painter Gavin Hamilton, whom West met on his trip to Rome. George III admired the painting, and in 1769, he commissioned West to paint another heroic episode from the Roman Republic, the Departure of Regulus from Rome (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II), depicting the Roman consul Regulus, resolutely returning to Carthage to face certain death after persuading the Senate to refuse the terms of his release. The king awarded West the position of history painter to the king and awarded him several important commissions. West was also one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in London and later succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as its second president.Benjamin West (1738-1820). A Bacchante, 1797. Oil on canvas, 50 × 40 in. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Gift of Philip and Muriel Berman, 2004.In 1771, West exhibited his greatest historical painting, the Death of General Wolfe (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario), at the Royal Academy. This work, which depicts the heroic death of Major-General James Wolfe at the Battle of Quebec, shows the young general swooning in the arms of his comrades. West took the unusual step of representing the figures, many of whom are identified, in contemporary rather than classical dress, thus elevating modern historical events to the level of classical moralizing epics.Although West was a supporter of the American Revolution, George III favored him, and West retained his position at court throughout the war. However, his republican sympathies incurred the distrust and dislike of Queen Charlotte, and during the years of George III's madness, the queen began alienating West from the court. With the advent of the French Revolution and its aftermath, democratic sympathizers were no longer welcome at court, and West was finally dismissed in 1811.In his later years, West largely abandoned his Neoclassical manner and embraced the Romantic sensibility of the sublime with paintings like the apocalyptic Death on a Pale Horse (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia) and the frenzied King Lear: Act III (Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland). In these paintings, West adopted a warmer palette and free brushstrokes to heighten the emotional drama of the scene inspired by the works of the 16th century Venetian masters Titian and Tintoretto.West's painting of a female bacchante is an early experiment in his late Romantic style. West depicts the figure in three-quarter length in the foreground holding a pair of cymbals above her head, turning to regard the viewer. A drapery on the left has been drawn back to reveal a secondary scene of Bacchus's satyrs and nymphs in a drunken revelry at the bottom right side of the canvas. The composition is taken directly from Titian's Girl with a Platter (Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany), which depicts a bejeweled young woman in a gold silk dress holding a large tray of fruit over her head as she turns to address the viewer. West transformed the figure into a bacchante, sometimes referred to as a maenad, or a female worshipper of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. According to mythology, the bacchantes were frenzied, often violent women who celebrated drunken revelries in honor of Bacchus.West depicts his bacchante poised at the center of the composition, which is composed of 2 distinct halves. The left half is hung with a wine-colored drapery with a young satyr crowned with grape leaves and holding a basket of grapes at the bottom left of the canvas. To the right, one sees a group of satyrs and maenads dancing wildly and making burnt offerings to a herm of Bacchus. West's bacchante seems about to join the group, she raises her cymbals and simultaneously lifts her left leg to move toward the revelers, looking over her shoulder as if inviting the viewer to partake in the orgiastic rite. However, in contrast to the background figures that are naked or in classical garb, the bacchante in the foreground wears contemporary costume. Her delicate individualized features suggest that West's painting may be an allegorical portrait of a contemporary lady in the guise of a bacchante, a popular conceit in 18th century English portraits.In contrast to his Neoclassical paintings, A Bacchante illustrates West's rediscovery of the works of the Venetian masters in his later career. West not only derived the subject of his painting from Titian's Girl with a Platter and his famous Bacchus and Ariadne (National Gallery, London), he also adopted the warm, jewel-toned Venetian palette and painterly technique using thick impasto highlights in rendering the figure's costume. West painted this canvas using a technique invented by the Provis family in 1795, dubbed “the process” or “the Venetian secret.” The process imitated the Venetian technique of using a combination of dark absorbent pigments for the ground that created a sense of depth in the shadows and a luminous hue to the figure.ref-qbe80003-1 However, despite its obvious quotations from the 16th century Venetian masters, West's bacchante, with her porcelain complexion, doll-like features, and finely tapered fingers, is clearly a creature of 18th century aesthetic sensibilities. REFERENCEJohnston S, Waters T. Benjamin West: American Painter at the English Court.. Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Museum of Art;1989:96-97. Exhibition catalog Google ScholarFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 10Issue 4Jul 2008 InformationCopyright 2008 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved. Applicable FARS/DFARS Restrictions Apply to Government Use.To cite this article:Lisa Duffy-Zeballos.Benjamin West’s A Bacchante.Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery.Jul 2008.296-296.http://doi.org/10.1001/archfaci.10.4.296Published in Volume: 10 Issue 4: July 1, 2008PDF download
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