Joseph Wright of Derby

Joseph Wright of Derby RA ( born September 3, 1734 Derby; † August 28, 1797 ) was an English painter.

Life

Joseph Wright of Derby was born on September 3, 1734 in Derby. He remained his home city life closely connected. Showed early interest in science, which can be seen in his most famous works, such as "The Experiment with a Bird in the Air Pump ". Above all, these works established his fame, who wore the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the natural sciences account. At age 17 (1751 ), Wright came to Thomas Hudson, a prominent portrait painter in teaching. He took over his portrait style. This was the first influence of a style neighbors. Now he began his career as a portrait painter.

In 1760 he traveled through central England to get there orders. He was disappointed with his first attempts in this subject. But over time, he was well on his way to becoming a popular and well-known painter. Wright took but soon the work on a new type of images in attack. So he painted pictures with natural philosophical and scientific topics in which he experimented with special lighting effects. Decisive impulses in his work with artificial and natural light, Wright received by the Caravaggisti, particularly the Dutch representatives of this style. He imitated the chiaroscuro painting.

Work

The Dutch paintings from the 17th century that show alchemists in dark workshops, you can most likely see as a precursor of Wright's paintings. 1772, just two years after Joseph Wright had the first of these images painted, the artist colleague Joseph Northcote described him as the most famous living painter of " candlelight pictures". The peculiarity of these images is less in effective lighting effects, but rather in their subject matter. While the earliest candlelight images, also called night pictures, one or two characters in a dark room when reading or viewing of statues show sat Wright such dramatic lighting soon for scientific topics. With " A philosopher gives a lecture about the Planetarium " and " The Experiment with a Bird in the Air Pump " Wright created the first English painter representations of contemporary science. In 1768 he went for three years to Liverpool, where he found many patrons that could be portrayed. One of them was Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin. He received a unique order from a certain Colonel Pale. Wright decorated an entire room in Radburne Hall by candlelight images.

In July 1773 married the painter Anne Swift. With it, he then traveled to Rome. There he spent whole days with the production of watercolor studies by the frescoes of Michelangelo and copied ancient sculptures. These sketches should serve him throughout his life as templates. A colorful source of inspiration to lighting effects, the artist found in the magnificent fireworks in Rome. For a stay in Naples, he witnessed an eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Wright kept this natural event determined in a rapid oil study. His later paintings reveal quite a romantic view and draw attention to the following generation of English landscape painter. Even before his return to England, Wright had turned increasingly to literary themes.

Last years

In 1775 he returned to Derby. Just two months later, he moved to Bath, there to fill those gaps in portraiture, had left his colleague Thomas Gainsborough. This did not work. The high society was flattering, idealized portraits usual and did not think much of Wright's more sober style of portraiture, which had its patrons in central England so very satisfied. Then he returned to Derby, where he would eventually remain the rest of his life. In 1784 he became a full member of the Royal Academy. There was a dispute with the institution. His friends included mostly people from the scientific field, which he also portrayed as Thomas Gisbourne, Brooke Boothby and Jean -Jacques Rousseau. Wright suffered from hypochondria, rheumatism, asthma and dropsy. Finally, he died on 28 August 1797 in Derby.