Joseph Wright Of Derby

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An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump, 1768

The central figure stares out at us, will he save the bird by letting in air or will it die?  If he saves it the bird will live but all knowledge is lost, and with it civilization.  It is up to us to make that decision.  The man with the watch has been speculatively identified as Erasmus Darwin, but Wright never gave the names of his models.  The full moon is a reference to the Lunar Society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Society_of_Birmingham  The couple at the left are only interested in each other.  The boy on the right by the window and birdcage may be alluding to this:


The Reward Of Cruelty, 1751

Tom Nero getting anatomized after killing his pregnant girlfriend.  The man in the left background is pointing at the skeleton of James Field in a none too subtle reminder of the reward for fucking up, and the aforementioned boy in the air pump pic may be a visual quote from this very well known masterpiece.  The other skeleton is James MacLaine, and the two sets of bones are mocking each other, the artist's way of calling such men fools.  MacLaine was a highwayman, and Field was a boxer who was executed for aggravated robbery.  The composition of The Air Pump is very close to this, including the two men on the left talking and the left foreground scribe.  There is, of course, a diseased skull in the middle of the Air Pump.  There is a pulley holding Tom's head, and there is a pulley in the Wright painting holding the cage whose former occupant is currently dying in a cruel experiment, the outcome of which is in no doubt.  What is a skull but a cage for the spirit? Both these wonderful scenes turn around a central figure who oversees the proceedings.  Symbolism meant everything to artists such as these, Wright and Hogarth being at the top of their field.
Hogarth rocks!


 A Philosopher Lecturing On The Orrery In Which A Lamp Is Put In The Place Of The Sun, 1766.

The men's faces refer to the phases of the moon, new moon, half moon, gibbous moon and full moon and the central figure might be Sir Isaac Newton, or it could be John Whitehurst.
https://www.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/a-portrait-of-john-whitehurst/ 


Three Persons Viewing The Gladiator By Candlelight, 1756.

The statue is a reproduction of the Borghese Gladiator, by Agasius of Ephesus.  The older man shoves the model of classical knowledge, and savagery, into the light for a new generation to see.


Not too bad.


Two Girls Dressing A Kitten By Candlelight, 1768 - 70.

This picture shows a male cat, see the tail, being tortured by two sadistic little bitches who are enjoying themselves thoroughly.  Look at the doll with its skirt hiked up, look at the expressions of the girls. The position of the kitten's tail is no accident, nothing in these paintings ever is.  The one girl points to the other, she is doing this, not me.  What a little whore this girl is, Dear Viewer, I am just a bystander.  Women can never show solidarity, the artist tells us, they are betrayed by their greed and selfishness. Girls are here to toy with men, and men are here to do this:


Two Boys Fighting Over A Bladder By Candlelight, 1767 - 68.

Men fight over hollow offal in darkness and soon that candle is going to go galleywest and set everything on fire.  Politics by other means.  Ambition.  Competition for place.  War.  Pointless stupidity.  That's how I read this, and I am as correct as anyone else.  All of Wright's pictures are subject to endless analysis, not at all a hard thing to understand.  This guy was really good.

And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

I don't think Wright had the highest opinion of humanity in general, no I don't.


 Self - Portrait At The Age Of About Fifty, c.1782

Joseph Wright, Genius.  1734 - 1797. 

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