In the mid-18th century, a number of artists, especially in Britain, sought to revive military art with large works centred on a heroic incident that would once again bring the genre to the fore in history painting, as it had been in the Renaissance. The standard contemporary battle scene tended to be grouped in the lowly category of topographical painting, covering maps and views of country houses. "The Death of General Wolfe" (1771) by Benjamin West, "The Death of Captain James Cook" (1779) by Johann Zoffany, "The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782" and "The Death of Major Pierson" (1784) by John Singleton Copley are leading examples of the new type, which ignored complaints about the unsuitability of modern dress for heroic subjects. However such works had more immediate influence in France than in Britain.