Biographical Sketch of Benjamin WEST (1893); Chester County, PA

Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by John Morris <jmcdmorris@comcast.net>.

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Source: "Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsylvania,
comprising a historical sketch of the county", by Samuel T. Wiley and edited by
Winfield Scott Garner, Gresham Publishing Company, Philadelphia, PA, 1893, pp.
336-7.

"BENJAMIN WEST stands in the front rank of America's most honored sons, and as
the greatest of her world-renowned painters.  Of him, Lossing says:

" 'There have been more volumes written about this great painter in England,'
says Lester, 'than there have been pages devoted to him in the land of his
birth.'  Here he grew to young manhood, and chose the mother of his children;
in sunny Italy he achieved his first triumph in high art, and in England he
reigned and died.  His birth occurred at Springfield, in Chester, now Delaware
county, Pennsylvania, on the 10th of October, 1738.  He was the youngest of
nine children (born to John and Sarah (Pearson) West); and at seven years of
age, while keeping flies from the sleeping baby of his eldest sister, he
sketched her portrait so accurately with black and red ink, that his mother,
snatching the paper (which he modestly attempted to conceal) from his hand,
exclaimed, 'I declare he has made a likeness of little Sally!'  His parents
encouraged his efforts, and the Indians supplied him with some of the pigments
with which they painted their faces.  His mother's 'indigo bag' furnished him
with blue, and from pussy's tail he drew the material for his brushes.

"At the age of fifteen years, young West had learned the use of proper colors,
and was a popular portrait painter.  The pursuit of such art was contrary to
the discipline of the Quakers.  A meeting was called to consult upon the matter.
At length one arose and said, 'God hath bestowed on this youth a genius for art;
shall we question His wisdom?  I see the Divine hand on this; we shall do well
to sanction the art and encourage this youth.'  Then the sweet women of the
assembly rose up and kissed him.  The men, one by one, laid their hands on his
head, and thus Benjamin West was solemnly consecrated to the service of the
great art.  His pictures produced both money and fame, and wealthy men furnished
him  with means with which to go to Italy, to study the works of the great
masters.  There every step was a triumph, and he became the best painter in
Italy.  He crossed the Alps and went to England.  There prejudice and bad taste
met him, but his genius overcame both.  Among his earliest and best patrons
was Archbishop Drummond, who introduced him to the young King, George the Third.
His majesty was delighted, and ordered him to paint The Departure of Regulus,
that noble picture exhibited in the New York Crystal palace in 1853.  That
achievement placed him on the throne of English art.  The King, and Reynolds,
and West, founded the Royal academy; and he who in the face of every obstacle
created a public taste for high art, was properly appointed 'Painter to his
Majesty.'  He designed thirty grand pictures, illustrative of The Progress of
Revealed Religion, and completed twenty-eight of them, besides a great number
of other admirable works.  But when insanity clouded the mind of King George,
and his libertine son, the Prince of Wales, obtained power, the great painter
was neglected.  The king of art, who had ruled for fice and thirty years, was
soon an exile from the court of his excellent friend, and many cherished anti-
cipations of his prime were blighted in his declining years.  But when royalty
deserted him, the generous people sustained him.  He achieved great triumphs
in his old age; and finally on the 11th of March, 1820, when in the eighty-
second year of his life, he was laid by the side of Reynolds and Opie, in St.
Paul's cathedral.' "