Comparing Benjamin West's Fidelia And Speranza

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The painting I chose today is called ‘Fidelia and Speranza’, part of Putnam collection, by Benjamin West and was painted in 1776. The Fidelia and Speranza painting is Oil on canvas painting. ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬The current location of this painting is in the Timken Museum in San Diego, California. Benjamin West worked mainly in London, Roma, and Philadelphia. Benjamin was an American- British painter and was born in October 1738 and died in March of 1820; born in Pennsylvania but lived his entire life in England from the year of 1763. This painting has dimensions of about 54 by 43 inches. Fidelia and Speranza mean Faith and hope. The painting of Fidelia and Speranza comes from a poem description by Edmund Spenser who is the Elizabeth poet. This poem is …show more content…

The text also describes that West worked more deliberately on the faces than the things around the girls; people believed that it was a sort of portrait painting. Also in the text it says that, “ Smith (1883) has suggested that Fidelia may be a portrait of a Miss Hall, whom he identifies as the model for West’s Una” (American Paintings, 209). Fidelia is wearing a long white heavy drapery with a blue undergarment. She is holding a large brown book with gold clasp that is known to be the New Testament and she is also holding the gold chalice with a skinny green snake sneaking up but shows no fear to the snake and we know this because of her facial expression, she is just staring away. The text from the Timken Museum also informs us that the New Testament and chalice she was holding are ideas from Christian values, the chalice is supposed to be holding wine and water. However, for this painting the chalice is holding the snake to resemble poison that was meant to kill St. John. Apart from Fidelia, Speranza is wearing purplish long and heavy drapery with a greenish mantle wrapped around her legs and to the back of her, she is standing a bit behind her sister as well as holding onto Fidelias’ arm with a worried face while holding her hand up on her chest on her heart. Speranza is also holding a brown anchor on her left arm that is bent. Fidelia and Speranza are

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