Two Sketches of a Weeping Woman 

Benjamin West's pen and ink sketches capture the raw essence of sorrow through the archetypal figure of a weeping woman. The posture of grief, head in hands, is a motif stretching back to antiquity. We see it echoed in funerary art from ancient Greece, where mourners adopt similar poses to express profound loss. This gesture transcends mere representation, tapping into a collective memory of mourning. Consider its evolution: from classical sculptures to Renaissance paintings, and now here, sketched with rapid strokes. The persistence of this image speaks to its deep psychological resonance. It’s as if each iteration absorbs the anxieties and emotional landscape of its time, carrying forward the echoes of past sorrows. West’s sketches, economical as they are, resonate with a psychological weight that engages us on a subconscious level, stirring echoes of shared human experience. The cyclical return of this motif underscores how deeply ingrained these symbols are in our collective consciousness, constantly resurfacing and evolving.