Joseph Wright of Derby

My favourite artist is Joseph Wright who was born in Derby in 1734. His father John was an attorney and the Town Clerk of Derby for ten years from the 1750’s.

Many, many years ago there was an exhibition of Joseph’s work at the Tate in London; it was before I was married and I travelled down on my own to see it; I fell in love with Joseph… Since then I have seen Wright’s work many times in different places and in different exhibitions and I just love it.

He was a portrait painter, a recorder of the industrial and scientific revolution, a friend and portrayer of the movers and shakers of eighteenth century Britain. He was fascinated by science and recorded it splendidly. He painted unusual landscapes, literary and classical subjects. He also travelled abroad widely and painted what he saw, including Vesuvius erupting, but his gift was the use of light in his paintings.

This is one of his most famous paintings.

Scan joe 1 — *‘An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump’*,1768

This is a quote from the catalogue:

An Iron Forge: The hero of this picture is partly the iron-founder himself, pausing to cast a proud eye towards his wife and children, and partly the power-driven machinery of the forge, which makes the ‘Blacksmith’s Shops’ look already old-fashioned. The huge drum,turned by a water-wheel outside the forge, drive the tilt-hammer and saves much of the effort seen in the two earlier pictures in the swing of the blacksmiths’ hammers…
The man’s relaxed attitude, even his faintly dandyish striped waist coat,suggests that revolutionary changes in his forge have brought about a lightening of his load. The presence of his wife and children, one of whom has run to the elderly man seated (this time) on the left, suggests that… Wright may have introduced (in a subtle, understated manner) a ‘three generations’ motif. The elderly man… may be the smith’s father,perhaps once himself a smith, but now the old order and in this picture, hardly able to take in the new machinery.
Forge viewed from without: Wright has broken open the outside wall in order that the spectator should be allowed to glimpse inside;… just as in any treatise on hydraulics one might find engravings where for the purpose of elucidation,sections have been laid bare to reveal the hidden mechanism.
The revolving drum which drives the tilt-hammer is clearly seen; and outside the walls, on the left, is the river which provides the power to drive it.