In its early days, American painting was derived from Europe and
especially from the mother country, England. The early XVIII century
portraits of prominent Colonials and their families, though valuable as
historical documents and not without a naive charm, are halting and
provincial as works of art.
The first American painter to win a widely recognized position in the
world of art was Benjamin West. In his twenty-second year he went to
study in Rome, where he worked for several years in the “grand manner.”
Moving to England in 1768, he won favor at once, was appointed historical
painter to the King in 1772, and twenty years later, on the death of
Reynolds, was elected president of the Royal Academy. The Institute’s
painting, Death on the Pale Horse, is a study for his grandiose canvas in
the Pennsylvania Academy. When it was first exhibited, the artist was
acclaimed a second Michelangelo. It is painted mostly in subdued bronze
and dull red tones, and shows Death as a splendid youth seated upon a
white horse, charging out of the sky at the head of a troop of heroic
horsemen. Below him crowds of terrified human beings are fleeing before
the vision, idols fall, and wild beasts snarl and cower. The subject is
taken from Revelation VI, 8: “And I looked and beheld a pale horse and his
name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was
given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and
with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”
[Large Embroidered Hanging. French, Early XVIII Century
Subject, Spring: from a set representing the Four Seasons, in memory of
Mrs. Thomas Lowry by Mrs. Gustav Schwyzer, Mrs. Percy Hagerman and Horace
Lowry]
Large Embroidered Hanging. French, Early XVIII Century
Subject, Spring: from a set representing the Four Seasons, in memory of
Mrs. Thomas Lowry by Mrs. Gustav Schwyzer, Mrs. Percy Hagerman and Horace
Lowry
[Needlepoint, Reticello. Italian, Early XVII Century]