‘It is a wonderful picture’, said Keats of Benjamin West’s painting ‘Death on the Pale Horse’, which he saw in December 1817. ‘But there is nothing to be intense upon; no women one feels mad to kiss; no face swelling into reality. The excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with Beauty & Truth’ (22 December, 1817).
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Painted while west was PRA.
Lots of Info here.https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/death-on-the-pale-horse-1
Did Keats like this painting?
I prefer Turners later painting of the same name.
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Painted 1825-30, maybe unfinished. There is speculation that he was mourning his fathers death at the time. What ever the reason I feel this painting resonates where as the other by comparison is clinical and grandiose. Which is probably exactly what was intended.
Sarah Chalkie Cloonan 