BENJAMIN WEST (1738--1820) was born of Quaker parentage at Springfield, Pa., and was successfully engaged, at the age of eighteen, as a portrait-painter in Philadelphia. In 1760 he went to Rome, and it is believed that he was the first American artist who ever appeared there. Three years later he removed to London, where he became the leading historic painter, the favourite of the King, and President of the Royal Academy. His great scriptural and historic compositions, of which comparatively few are to be seen in his native country (_King Lear_, in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; _Death on the Pale Horse_ and _Christ Rejected_, at the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia), show him in the light of an ambitious and calculating rather than inspired painter, with a decided feeling for colour. His influence on art in general made itself felt in the refusal to paint the actors in his _Death of Wolfe_ in classic costume, according to usage. By clothing them in their actual dress, he led art forward a step in the realistic direction, the only instance to be noted of a directing motive imparted to art by an American, but one which is quite in accordance with the spirit of the New World. West's influence upon the art of his own country was henceforth limited to the warm interest he took in the many students of the succeeding generation who flocked to England to study under his guidance. [Illustration: DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE. _By_ WEST. A.D. 1817. _In the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia._ _Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.] SECOND, OR REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. The Revolutionary Period is, in many respects, the most interesting division, not only in the political, but also in the artistic history of the United States. It is so, not merely because it has left us the pictorial records of the men and the events of a most important epoch in the development of mankind, but also because it brought forth two painters who, while they were thoroughly American in their aspirations, were at the same time endowed with artistic qualities of a very high order. Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull, the two painters alluded to, have a right to be considered the best of the American painters of the past, and will always continue to hold a prominent place in the history of their art, even if it were possible to forget the stirring scenes with which they were connected. [Illustration: GENERAL KNOX. _By_ GILBERT STUART _Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]