The Art Hero Made International --Benjamin West Constructs Wolfe＇s Death on the Plains of Abraham

Globalization is a topic much discussed today with the explosion of cell phones and instant messaging. This exchange of information causes the art historian to ponder the speed with which ideas spread in past centuries. The eighteenth was a century of colonial expansion made possible through the ships that sailed the great oceans Sea travel between Europe and North America drastically increased the spread of populations and their ideas between the old and new world. A good way to trace the exchange of ideas in picture painting in the eighteenth century would be to follow an artist like Benjamin West from his Quaker background in Pennsylvania to the center of the neoclassical style in Rome and a prolific career in London at the Royal Academy. West＇s travels and career offer an example of how an American pursued the artistic style of contemporary Rome to make images of North American history from a base in England. It was globalization eighteenth-century-style made possible by an ambitious artist connecting across the sea-lanes of international travel