FEINBERG/WHITMAN                     LITERARY FILE      Prose "On Benjamin West's 'The Death of Wolfe' (1870's?)  A. MS. draft

Box__33_____   Folder____14____511
1870's [1871 ?]  On Benjamin West's 'The Death of Wolfe': prose. A. MS. (1p. 
25 1/4 x 20 1/2 cm.) 
Written in purple pencil, with some of the corrections and the additions 
in ink, on a sheet of rough paper, 127 words: 
Not much over a hundred years ago, (1771) [Sir] Benjamin West 
painted [a picture] "the Death of Wolfe", in which he deliberately 
and ruthlessly violated the prevailing (so=called) classical rules 
by giving every figure the costume or uniform belonging to it. [The] 
Up to that time the settled rule had been [up to that time] to [give] 
put [the] Greek or Roman dresses, or something equivalent to them, [in] 
on all the figures in subjects of paintings assuming to be first class. 
Even Reynolds thought [the] West's innovation a bad one, & was opposed 
to it till carried away & converted by the technical and general 
excellence of [the painting] "the Death of Wolfe," & doubtless by his 
own latent sense of rectitude in art. 
Garrick's example (Macbeth &c)Not much over a hundred years
ago, (1771) [Sir] Benjamin West painted
[a picture] "the Death of Wolfe" in which
he deliberately and ruthlessly violated the prevailing (so = called) classical rules
by giving every figure the costume or 
uniform belonging to it.  Up to that time the settled [the] rule had
been [up to that time] to [give] put [the] Greek
or Roman dresses, or something equivalent to them on all figures in subjects of paintings
assuming to be first class.  Even Reynolds
thought [the] West's innovation a bad one, & was 
opposed to it till carried away & converted 
by the technical and general excellence of [the painting] "the Death of Wolfe" & doubtless
by his own latent sense of rectitude in art.

Garricks example (Macbeth etc)