Tinguely Homage to New York

Jean Tinguely was born on March 22, 1925, in Switzerland. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, known as metamechanics. Tinguely's art satirized the mindless overproduction of material goods in advanced industrial society. His best-known structure is title Homage to New York and is partially self-destructed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Chagall I and the Village

I like nice looking things and I like well written things. So I decided to combine the two here. Chagall painting I and the Village is very abstract. It shows a quaint French village and a person looking on. I don't exactly know what the other thing is (a sheep perhaps), but I love the scene. This is what someone said about Chagall experience in Paris:

Chagall was exhilarated, intoxicated, as he strolled through the streets and along the banks of the Seine. Everything about the French capital excited him: the shops, the smell of fresh bread in the morning, the markets with their fresh fruit and vegetables, the wide boulevards, the cafe′s and restaurants, and above all the Eiffel Tower.

I think the painting and that paragraph go very well together. A nice pair.

Klee Twittering Machine

I can't help but love the original German title: Die Zwitschermaschine. German is such a harsh, long winded language. Die Zwitschermaschine is the 1922 work of Paul Klee. It can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Paul Klee was also a poet. I really like this painting, even though I am not quite sure what it is. I feel like I could have a print of it on my wall for about 25 years and then maybe have some sort of an idea of what is going on. This is the type of art that I like. The art that gets you thinking.

Dali The Persistence of Memory

The Persistence of Memory is a 1931 painting by Salvador Dali. It is one of his most recognizable works. The painting has been on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City since 1934. As Dawn Ades wrote, "The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order." The orange clock at the bottom left of the painting is covered in ants. Dali often used ants in his paintings as a symbol for death, as well as a symbol of female genitalia.

This painting has a special meaning for me. My grandmother's coffee table book has this on the cover. The book itself is a book on Dali that is written in Spanish. So, I never could actually read the words, but I was often caught staring; perplexed at the melting clocks. I didn't even know the title of the work until just now. Wherever she moved, the same book with the same painting was on the same table.

Persistent memory? I think so.

Ernst Two Children are Threatened

Two Children are Threatened by a Nightingale is a 1924 painting of Max Ernst. It is oil on wood with wooden elements and can be found on display in the Museum of Modern Arts in New York City. Its title can be found, in French, on the front. This adds emotion and causes anticipation of the possible horror ahead. The viewer is more frightened or threatened than the children are, as the nightingale is a harmless bird soaring in the distance. Ernst created radically different artwork than was popular before his time. He became a pioneer of dada and surrealist art.

De Chirico The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street

The Mystery and Melancholy of the Street was completed in 1914 by Giorgio de Chirico. It is oil on canvas. We talked about this image in class. I think it is very interesting. The girl in the foreground, playing, is not actually real, she is just shadow. The shadow coming from the square is quite scary. The evening sun has cast the shadow in a very long way. The colors also create an ominous feeling. Yellow is a color of fear and the color of the sky is not entirely normal, for when are skies green? As the title says, the entire painting is quite mysterious.

Grosz Fit for Active Service

Fit for Active Service is a drawing by the 20th century German artist George Grosz. It was created between the years 1916 and 1917. It is considered a seminal part of the post-World War I movement. It depicts a dead skeleton being judged as physically fit for conscription. All of the German doctors around him have looks of indifference or smiles on their faces. There are also smokestacks in the background windows. This is symbolic of the social disillusion of rapid industrialization and urbanization.

Grosz himself initially avoided conscription, but was deemed fit in 1917. He was discharged after attempting suicide.

Grosz on his war experience:

Of course, there was a kind of mass enthusiasm at the start. But this intoxication soon evaporated, leaving a huge vacuum... And then after a few years when everything bogged down, when we were defeated, when everything went to pieces, all that remained at least for me and most of my friends, were disgust and horror.

Hoch Cut With the Kitchen Knife

Hoch is recognized as a pioneer of photomontage. This photomontage was crafted from images and text printed in German newspapers. This collage protests high culture by recontextualizing found images and framing them in a different way. It can also be called anti-art. One male figure in the collage appears to be wearing a skirt. Another has a donkey resting on the top of his head.

Duchamp Fountain

I thought that I would just insert the essay that I wrote on Duchamp for French class two semesters ago. It sheds a little light on my lack of art education (that has now been partially fulfilled):

When Dr. Dalia began speaking, I was immediately captivated by her interesting accent and genuine excitement about Marcel Duchamp. Her accent sounded kind of French, but not exactly. Eventually, she informed the audience that her first language was Hungarian. This alleviated my intense curiosity. Also, Dr. Dalia excitement about Duchamp was entirely genuine. This genuine and earnest excitement about learning was something that I was introduced to by my parents, but rarely collided with in my education before I got to Oglethorpe. Here, I get to see my professors truly excited about their subject matter. I think it is because they are still learning, unlike many middle and high school teachers.
Dr. Dalia’s speech about Duchamp was my first real introduction to Art History. As a history major, one might find that fact surprising, but I attended a rural high school in South Georgia, where football is more highly valued than education. I was incredibly interested in the concept of the viewer’s involvement in art. It is interesting to think that one person could change the direction of an entire field so dramatically.
Dr. Dalia said one additional fact that I believe it is important to mention. She said that the last institution to the affected by the recent economic crisis was art. So, DO NOT invest in real estate, invest in art instead.

Jean Arp Collage

This piece was completed in 1916-1917. Arp claimed that in making this work, he tore pieces of paper and allowed them to remain where they fell, creating a composition more on chance than on his conscious control. People say that in some of the pieces you can see glue from where he moved the paper, so they call his works "assisted chance."

I like the sound of that. I need some assisted chance in my life.

Picasso Three Musicians

Three Musicians is the title of two collage and oil painting by Pablo Picasso. They were both completed in 1921. They exemplify the Synthetic Cubist style. One is owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Each painting shows a Harlequin, a Pierrot, and a Monk. There is also a dog laying behind the musicians.

In class one day, someone played the Clarinet while we all stared at this painting. I thought it was quite a nice class period.

Delaunay The Red Tower

Robert Delauny's 1911-1912 painting The Red Tower is a unique view of the Eiffel Tower. Robert Delaunay was a Cubist painter born in Paris, though he also worked in Abstract and Impressionistic styles. Delaunay would often use the Eiffel Tower as a theme in his work, a trademark that he became known for. During his lifetime, Delaunay created not only oil paintings and costume design, but murals, decoration and even architectural designs for the 1937 Worlds Fair. Delaunay also left behind numerous sketches. He is an influence for many Abstract artists.

Kandinsky Improvisation 28

Vasily Kandinsky's Improvisation 28 is an oil painting completed in 1912. It is in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Kandinsky went on a crusade against conventional aesthetic values of his dream of a better, more spiritual future through the transformative powers of art.

I'm not exactly sure that is going on in this painting. It looks like it is in a city (because of the spires).

Kachina dools

Kachinas are stylized religious icons carved from cottonwood root and painted to represent figures from the mythology of the Hopi. These "dolls" have been used for generations to teach children about their religion. Hopi children have never taken a Kachina to bed. They dolls are made ONLY by Hopi artists.

Klimt The Kiss

The Kiss was painted by Gustav Klimt and is his most famous work. When The Kiss was painted Klimt was 45 and lived at home with his mom and two unmarried sisters. Some say that he was a man with a "ferocious sexual appetite." He was supposedly obsessed by women, especially redheads. The focus of the painting is a couple locked in embrace. The rest of the painting is shimmering, extravagant flat pattering.

Munch The Scream

The Scream shows an agonized figure against a blood red sky. It was completed in 1893 by Edvard Munch. The enviornment of The Scream is often compared to that of which an individual suffering from Depersonalization disorder experiences, such as a feeling of distortion of the environment and one's self.

In a page in his diary, Munch described his inspiration for the image thus:

I was walking along a path with two friends — the sun was setting — suddenly the sky turned blood red — I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence — there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city — my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety — and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.

Rousseau Sleeping Gypsy

The Sleeping Gypsy is an oil painting by French artist Henri Rousseau. It was completed in 1897 and is one of the most recognizable pieces of modern times. Rousseau actually tried unsuccessfully to sell the painting to the mayor of his hometown. It depicts a lion musing over a sleeping woman on a moonlit night. It is depicted often in popular culture.

Redon The Cyclps

Redon describes his work as ambiguous and undefinable:

"My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined."

I'm not doing to define it.

But I am inspired, so Redon did his job.

Such a cute little cyclops.

Moreau Jupiter and Semele

Moreau on abstraction:

"I am dominated by one thing, an irresistible, burning attraction towards the abstract. The expression of human feelings and the passions of man certainly interest me deeply, but I am less concerned with expressing the motions of the soul and mind than to render visible, so to speak, the inner flashes of intuition which have something divine in their apparent insignificance and reveal magic, even divine horizons, when they are transposed into the marvellous effects of pure plastic art."

I think this is an awesome painting (in the true, not popular, definition of awesome). The romantic woman lying across the lap of the aztec-like king truly identifies with his words on the abstract.

Van Gogh Night Café

The Night Cafe is an oil painting created in Arles in September 1888, by Vincent van Gogh. The cafe itself really existed: it was run by Joseph-Michel and his wife Marie Ginoux.

In a letter to his brother, van Gogh says,
Today I am probably going to begin on the interior of the café where I have a room, by gas light, in the evening. It is what they call here a “café de nuit” (they are fairly frequent here), staying open all night. “Night prowlers” can take refuge there when they have no money to pay for a lodging, or are too drunk to be taken in.

Millais Ophelia

Ophelia is a painting by the British artist Sir John Everett Millais. It was completed between 1851 and 1852. It depicts Ophelia, a character from Shakespeare's Hamlet, singing before she drowns in a river.

I really like Hamlet. I really like this piece. I think it is a very good interpretation of Ophelia's feelings.

Delacroix The Death of Sardanapalus

Sardanapalus is an oil painting completed in 1827 by Eugene Delacroix. It is in the Louvre. Its focus is a large bed on which a nude is prostrating herself and is asking the apathetic Sardanapalus for mercy. He had ordered his possessions destroyed and sex slaves murdered before immolating himself, once he learned that he was faced with military defeat. The painting is based on the tale of Sardanapalus, the last king of Assyria.

The painting is full of movement, emotion, and a little bit too much stuff.

Gericault Insane Woman

Insane Women is an oil painting completed in 1822 by Gericault. He did a series on the mental insane and this was included. He examined the influence of mental states on the human face. He also believes that a face more accurately revealed character while in madness or at the moment of death. He made many studies of inmates in hospitals or institutions. He also studied of guillotine victims.

Nasty, but interesting (Kind of like "Slime, yet satisfying").

Goya Saturn Devouring His Son

Saturn Devouring His Son depicts the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus who ate his kids because he feared that they would one day become more powerful than, and overthrow, him. It was painted directly on the wall of Goya's house. Goya may have been inspired by Ruben's 1636 picture of the same name. Rubens' painting, also held at the Museo del Prado, is a brighter, more conventional treatment of the myth: his Saturn exhibits less of the cannibalistic ferocity portrayed in Goya's rendition.

Goya The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

The etching was made by the Spanish painter and print maker Goya. The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters is plate 43 of 80 sketches. It consists of a self-portrait of the artist with his head on a table. Owls and bats surround him, assailing him. Also poised to attack are owls (which represent folly) and bats (which represent ignorance). It seems to be a portrayal of what emerges when reason is suppressed.

Blake Ancient of Days

Ancient of Days is a name for God in Aramaic. It denotes the Creator's aspects of eternity combined with perfection. Ancient of Days is the most well known of English poet/painter/printer William Blake. Most of Blake's paintings, such as this one, were actually prints made from copper plates. He etched in a method he claimed was revealed to him in a dream. He and his wife colored this prints with water colors.

Fuseli Nightmare

The Nightmare is a 1781 oil painting by the Swiss artist Fuseli. Since its creation, it was remained his best known work. Interpretation had varied widely. The canvas portrays both a dreaming woman and the content of her nightmare. The incubus and the horse's head supposedly refer to the contemporary belief about nightmares. They have been ascribed more specific meanings by theorists. Critics were suprised by the sexuality of the painting.

Clodion Nymph and Satyr

Clodion's career spanned the last decades of the ancient regime through the French Revolution and Napoleon's reign. He embraced his era's taste for antiquity. This work is one of the most minutely studied of all the Bacchic orgies that were Clodion's specialty. The front and back show deliberate adjustments of angles, openings, and masses, all checked and balanced as the model passed under his fingers on his trestle table. Clodion's work was steeped in the imagery of Greek and Roman art, but the deliciously charged rhythms seen here are entirely his own.

Gentileschi Judith Slaying Holofernes

The seventeenth-century painter Artemisia Gentileshchi was mistreated at the hands of an older male artist. The court eventually convicted him. This sheds light on the way rape victims are regarded today. Judith Slaying Holofernes is her best known work. It shows the vision and skill that she had. The painting was created at a time when few women dared attempt to represent historical or biblical scenes.

Correggio Assumption of the Virgin

The Assumption of the Virgin is a fresco by the Italian late Renaissance artist Antonio da Correggio. It decorates the dome of the Cathedral of Parma, Italy. He signed the contract 8 years before it was completed. It was completed in 1530. Below the feet of Jesus, the uncorrupted virgin is seen robed in red and blue. She is lofted upward by a vortex of singing angels. The Apostles ring the base of the dome. At the center of the dome is a beardless Jesus descending to meet his mom.

Chimera of Arezzo

The sculpture by the title of Chimera of Arezzo is one of the best known examples of Etruscan art. It was found in Arezzo, an ancient Etruscan and Roman city in Tuscany. In Greek mythology, the Chimera ravaged its homeland until it was slain by Bellerophon. The bronze was at first identified as a lion by its discoverers in Arezzo. Its tail, which would have taken the form of a serpent, was missing. The current tail is an 18th century restoration.

Laocoon Group

The Laocoon Group is a monumental sculpture in marble. It is now housed in Rome. The statue shows the Trojan priest Laocoon and his sons being strangled by serpents. Laocoon influenced such great artists such as Michelangelo. The influence is clear in some of his later works, such as Rebellious Slave and Dying Slave.

Great Sphinx

The Great Sphinx is a statues that is on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Egypt. It is the largest monolith statue in the world. It is also the oldest known monumental structure. It's amazing that it has lasted this long. I think it is truly beautiful. Maybe when I am in Turkey, I can paddle across the Medit and up the Nile to take a peek.

Maya Ying Lin Vietnam Veterans Memorial

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is one of my favorite places in DC. It ranks just behind Java Green, an AMAZING vegan lunch spot, and laying under the oak trees on the lawn watching the city squirrels do their city squirrel thing. There are always people there that are there for good reason. They're finding people they know, remembering things or pretending to remember things. The Vietnam Memorial does far more than many other war memorials do. It actually speaks for the people that are no longer with us. Its sharp lines show both grace and almost anger; the beauty of death.

Kiefer Nigredo

Kiefer's Nigredo was completed in 1984 and is housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Kiefer's landscapes show the centuries of conflict and devastation on German soil. The word nigredo refers to alchemy. Alchemy is the medieval science that sought to transform earth into gold through a process of burning. Nigreda was the first stage of the transformation and was characterized by blackening, followed by the emergence of a glowing light.

Tatlin Monument for the 3rd International

Tatlin's Tower is a monumental building envisioned by the Russian artist Tatlin. It was never build. It was planned to be erected in Petrograd (aka St. Peterburg) after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, as the headquarters of the third international. The tower was to be build from industrial materials: iron, glass, and steel. It would have dwarfed the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The main form of it was a twin helix which spiraled up to 400 meters. Visitors would be transported around. At the base was a cube, designed as a venue for meetings. The entire structure would complete a rotation at different times.

Migrant Mother

How Lange described her experience:
I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).

Picasso Guernica

Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was painted in response to the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian warplanes during the Spanish Civil War. It was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government. Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts on individuals, particularly innocent civilians. The work has become incredibly well-known and is know as a reminder of the tragedies of war.

Easter Island Moai

Moai are monolithic figures carved from rock on the Polynesian island of Easter Island. Easter Island is in Chile. They were created between the years of 1250 and 1500. Half are still at the man quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the island. Almost all of the moai have overly large heads that take up about three fifths of their bodies. They are living faces of deified ancestors.

Asmat Bisj Poles

A Bisj Pole is an artifact used by the Asmat people of south-western New Guinea. Similar objects are found used by the people of the South Pacific islands. The poles are carved out of a single piece of nutmeg tree and can reach up to 25 feet. They consist of lots of items: human figures, animal figures, and phallic symbols. Bisj poles were carved by religious carves after a member of the tribe had been killed by an enemy tribe.

Daumier Rue Transnonain

From Art and Politics Paper: Honore Daumier, a defender of the urban working class, created a lithograph entitled Rue Transnonain that had as shocking of an impact as Goya’s The Third of May. The title refers to a street in Lyon where an unknown sniper killed a civil guard in an area where the government force was trying to repress a demonstration by the people. The shot had come from a workers’ housing black. The remaining guards stormed the building and killed everyone inside.

With power similar to Goya’s, Daumier created a view of the violence from a sharp angle of vision. He did not depict the moment of execution, but chose rather to depict the aftermath. The lines themselves are broken and scattered, much like the bodies themselves. This print follows the trend of the period: using facts as subject (Kleiner 858).

Rude La Marseillaise

From Art and Politics Paper: The Romantic spirit influenced all media during the early 19th century. Sculptors, just like the painters of the period, produced a combination of Neoclassical and Romantic work. The large group La Marseillaise is placed on the infamous Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It was created by Francois Rude and displays an allegory of the national glories of France. La Marseillaise depicts the volunteers of 1792 departing to defend the nation’s borders against the foreign enemies of the revolution.

The Roman goddess of war, Bellona, soars above the patriots of varying ages, rallying them on with her thundering battle cry. The violence of motion and dense mass of bodies relate closely to the compositional method of dramatic Romanticism. La Marseillaise is very similar to Gericault and Delacroix in this way. The allegorical figure in La Marseillaise is the “sister” to Delacroix’s Liberty. The two figures are wearing the same patriotic cap. The two works are incredibly similar, besides the costumes and time period in focus (Kleiner 836).

Delacrois Liberty Leading the People

From Art and Politics Paper: In Liberty Leading the People Eugene Delacroix, another leading French Romantic artist, depicts the passion and energy of the Revolution of 1830. The painting is based on an uprising in Paris against the rule of Charles X. Liberty is portrayed allegorically by defiantly thrusting the flag forward, urging the masses to fight on. The red hat that Liberty wears reinforces the urgency of the battle. It was a symbol of a freed slave in antiquity. All around her at the typical Parisian folk with weapons: a street kid with a gum, a peasant with a sword, and a intellectual with a musket (Kleiner 834).

Just like in Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa, dead bodies are strewn about. In the background the national symbol of Notre Dame rises through the smoke. The inclusion of this landmark announces the specific location of the event. This painting is very similar to Raft of the Medusa in that Delacroix attempts to balance contemporary historical fact with poetic allegory (Neret 25).

Gericault Raft of the Medusa

From Art and Politics Paper: The French artist Theodore Gericault is one of the two French artists most closely associated with the Romantic Movement. His most ambitious project was the large-scale painting Raft of Medusa. It measured 16 by 23 feet and is a depiction of an actual historic event. The subject of the painting is a shipwreck that took place in 1816 off the coast of Africa. The French warship Medusa wrecked on a reef due to the incompetence of the captain, who was appointed by the French government. As a last effort to survive, 150 of those who survived build a raft from the destroyed ship. The raft drifted for 12 days and only 15 people survived. When the raft was finally spotted the starved survivors were rescued. The event itself stirred the public once it reached their ears (Kleiner 823).

Gericault was attempting to confront viewers with the horror, chaos, and emotion of the tragedy at hand. It depicts the few survivors as they try to wave down a ship that is far away on the horizon. The jumble of bodies reflects a departure from straightforward organization of the neoclassical works. The piles of bodies, both living and dead, display every feeling of dying and death. The bodies themselves are arranged in an X shape that creates a lot of power and dynamic. Some of the bodies even seem like they are sliding off of the raft, out of the view of the viewer, and into the ocean (Magi 49).

Gericault also inserted a comment on the practice of slavery. He was an abolitionist group that tried to find ways to end the slave trade in the colonies. Given his antipathy to slavery, it is amazingly appropriate that he placed Jean Charles, a black soldier and one of the few soldiers, at the top of the pyramid of bodies.

Goya The Third of May

From Art and Politics Paper: The Third of May is a Romantic work by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. In the early 19th century, Romantic artists like Goya began to incorporate dramatic action into their works. The action in The Third of May can definitely be described as such. The painting portrays men being shot by executioners. The story of the painting is incredibly political. The Spanish people finally recognized the French as invaders and sought a way to expel them. On May 2, 1808, the Spanish attacked the Napoleonic soldiers in a violent clash. In retaliation, and as a display of their power, the French responded by executing Spanish citizens the next day (Kleiner 830).

In a very emotional way, Goya anonymously depicts the French soldiers. They are facing away from the viewer and are wearing hats that cover their faces. They are also very dark, displaying the bleakness of war. Goya also encourages empathy for the Spanish victims by portraying their horrified expressions and faces full of anguish. They are given a humanity that the firing squad does not have. Most interestingly, one of the peasants that is about to be shot has his hands throw up in a cruciform gesture. This is reminiscent of Christ’s position on the cross.

Goya also uses light to enhance the drama of this event. The only portion of the painting with significant light and color is the portion containing the Spanish victims. Even the blood of the already dead Spaniards is painted vividly and in the light. The lives and pain of the Spanish victims are brought to the forefront through Goya’s use of light and color. The other parts of the painting are dark and grim, like the very idea of war. The sky itself is black.

It is important to know why and for whom paintings are created. It gives a much-needed context to the work of art. The Third of May was painted in 1814 for Ferdinand VII, who had been restored to the throne after the French where forced to leave. It was painted in order to depict the resistance and patriotism of the Spanish people in whatever situation. The Third of May’s content, presentation, and emotional force secure its status as a groundbreaking image of the horrors of war (McNeese 120).

David Coronation of Napoleon

The Coronation of Napoleon is a painting that was complete in 1807 by Jacques-Louis David. David was the official painter of Napoleon at this time. The painting is 20 feet by 32 feet. The coronation of Napoleon took place at Notre-Dame de Paris. The composition of the painting is organized around several axes. One axis is that which passes through the cross and has a vertical orientation. All eyes are on Napoleon.

David Death of Marat

The Death of Marat is a 1793 painting in the Neoclassical style by Jacques-Louis David. It is one of the most famous images of the French Revolution. The work refers to the assassination of radical journalist Marat, killed in 1793 by Corday, a French Revolutionary. Corday blamed Marat for the September Massacres and feared an all out civil war. He claimed that "I killed one man to save 100,000."

David Oath of the Horattii

The Oath of the Horattii is a 1784 painting by Jacques-Louis David, before the French Revolution. It depicts the Roman salute and grew to be considered one of the greatest pieces of neoclassical art. It increased David's fame. The painting shows the three sons of Horatius. They are swearing on their swords, that their father is holding, that they will defend Rome TO THE DEATH. The source of this story is Livy, one of my favorite.

Benjamin West Death of General Wolfe

The Death of General Wolfe is a 1771 painting by the Anglo-American artist Benjamin West. It depicts the final moments of British general James Wolfe during the Battle of Quebec. The Battle of Quebec happened during the Seven Years' War. It is oil on canvas. West depicts General Wolfe as a Christ-like figure. The painting has a triangular composition, made by the top of the flag and the placement of the men. The Native American in the painting has been analyzed in various ways. He looks like Rodin's The Thinker.