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| 'Venus consoling Cupid stung by a bee' (1802) by Benjamin West; State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg |
Today's painter is well-known artist Benjamin West, born on October 10, 1738, and died on March 11, 1820. I don't know about you but I had never heard of him. He's in the same league as Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Lawrence, painters I do know, all three members of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. West was an American-born painter but moved to England in 1763 where he developed a wide reputation as court painter and historical painter. With Joshua Reynolds, West founded the Royal Academy and he became the second President of the Academy succeeding Reynolds. He is well-known for his historical paintings, large in scale and expressive in colour and composition. I'm not particularly fond of these large scale paintings with big compositions so I have chosen a portrait of Venus and Cupid. West did a number of paintings on Venus and Cupid between 1797 and 1814, after a poem by Anacreon called 'The Wounded Cupid'. I quite like this painting. It's beautiful in colour and detail. There's another painting called 'Cupid stung by a bee', but it's larger in scale and less beautiful than the one I've posted here. I don't like it well enough to give you the link here but go ahead and google the image.