Joseph Wright of Derby

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The Alchemist in Search of the Philosophers Stone, by Joseph Wright, 1771

Joseph Wright (September 3, 1734 - August 29, 1797), styled Wright of Derby, was an English landscape and portrait painter — he has been acclaimed as "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the industrial revolution."^[1]

He was born in Derby, the son of an attorney, who was afterwards town-clerk. Deciding to become a painter, he went to London in 1751 and for two years studied under Thomas Hudson, the master of Joshua Reynolds. After painting portraits for a while at Derby, he again worked as an assistant to Hudson for fifteen months. He then settled in Derby and varied his work in portraiture by the production of the subjects with strong chiaroscuro under artificial light, with which his name is chiefly associated, and by landscape painting.

He married in 1773, and in the end of that year he visited Italy, where he remained till 1775. While at Naples he witnessed an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which formed the subject of many of his subsequent paintings. On his return from Italy he established himself at Bath as a portrait-painter; but meeting with little encouragement he returned to Derby, where he spent the rest of his life.

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, by Joseph Wright, 1768

He was a frequent contributor to the exhibitions of the Society of Artists, and to those of the Royal Academy, of which he was elected an associate in 1781 and a full member in 1784. He, however, declined the latter honour on account of a slight which he believed that he had received, and severed his official connection with the Academy, though he continued to contribute to the exhibitions from 1783 until 1794.

Wright is seen at his best in his candlelit subjects of which the Three Gentlemen observing the 'Gladiator' (1765), his Orrery (1766), the property of the Corporation of Derby (now Derby City Council), and An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768), in the National Gallery, (illustration, left) are excellent examples. His Old Man and Death (1774) is also a striking and individual production.

Joseph Wright of Derby also painted Dovedale by Moonlight, capturing the rural landscape at night with a full moon. It hangs in Houston's Museum of Fine Arts. Its companion piece, Dovedale by Sunlight (circa 1784-1785) captures the colors of night. In another Moonlight Landscape, in the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota Florida, equally dramatic, the moon is obscured by an arched bridge over water, but illuminates the scene, making the water sparkle in contrast to the dusky landscape.

Cave at evening, by Joseph Wright, 1774, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts

Cave at evening, (illustration, right) is painted with the same dramatic chiaroscuro for which Joseph Wright is noted. The painting was executed during 1774, while he was staying in Italy,

Wright had extensive contacts with the new industrialists of the Midlands; two of his most important patrons were Josiah Wedgwood and Richard Arkwright (pottery and cotton, respectively). He also had connections with Erasmus Darwin and other members of the Lunar Society. The subjects of his paintings could be overtly scientific, as with the aforementioned, "Orrery" and "Experiment on a Bird," or industrial, as in his paintings The Forge and A Blacksmith's Shop.