ANALYSIS Discuss the Formal elements: Line, shape, form, value, texture, space, color. Discuss the principles of art: Balance, emphasis,...

There are many questions asked here, so this response will essentially be a summary and an analysis of the work in question. This painting, The Death of General Wolfe, was painted by Benjamin West. It depicts the death of British General James Wolfe at the moment of his greatest triumph—the defeat of French forces on the Plains of Abraham outside the city of Quebec in 1759. The battle was a decisive moment in the...

There are many questions asked here, so this response will essentially be a summary and an analysis of the work in question. This painting, The Death of General Wolfe, was painted by Benjamin West. It depicts the death of British General James Wolfe at the moment of his greatest triumph—the defeat of French forces on the Plains of Abraham outside the city of Quebec in 1759. The battle was a decisive moment in the Seven Years War, known as the "French and Indian War" in the American colonies, and Wolfe died a hero. Stylistically, the painting is a sort of mixture of classical and emerging Romantic elements. It was criticized in its own time, as the historian Simon Schama points out, because the general was depicted in his army uniform rather than allegorically in classical Roman garb, as was typical of neoclassical painting. In any case, the central drama of the painting is the death of Wolfe itself. Wolfe is expiring from his wounds, surrounded by figures that represented the British Empire. He seems bathed in light amid the smoke and chaos of the battle, and his pose seems reminiscent of Christ being brought down from the cross. Several British officers in their red coats stand around the fallen Wolfe. Isaac Barre, his second-in-command, clutches his chest in grief and shock on the left, and the general's closest advisor and aide-de-camp holds his right arm. Behind them the battle rages, and Schama claims that most English viewers of the painting assumed that Wolfe was receiving news that a British volley had broken a last-ditch French assault. While it is unknown whether West intended this, it does heighten the drama of the painting. Another fascinating element of this painting is the Native American man to the left. A Mohawk allied with the British, he is stoically contemplating the death of Wolfe. This was intended to invoke the raw, unspoiled, uncorrupted nature of Britain's American empire (West himself was American). This painting, with its heroic depiction of Wolfe's death, is intended to invoke the combination of Old and New World sensibilities that characterized the British Empire.