Gallery Edition – King Lear by Benjamin West – 59×44 Interior Architectural Study

Curatorial Narrative In the late 18th century, Benjamin West’s “King Lear” (ca. 1788) exemplifies the Baroque style’s penchant for dramatic tension and emotional intensity. Through his masterful use of impasto brushwork, West crafts a sense of textured, almost three-dimensional volume that immerses the viewer in the tragic scene. The palette, characterized by dark reds, deep browns, muted yellows, and subtle highlights of light, conjures an atmosphere of foreboding and decay, underscoring the play’s themes of power, madness, and mortality. West’s technique, rooted in the figurative tradition, imbues each figure with a sense of gravitas, their faces and bodies rendered with a level of psychological nuance that borders on the cinematic.When enlarged to 59×44, “King Lear” assumes an architectural scale, its chromatic structure and spatial depth behaving like a built environment. The dark, muted hues, reminiscent of Baroque Interior Des