View source for Joseph Wright of Derby

{{Short description|English painter (1734–1797)}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2014}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Joseph Wright
| image              = Joseph Wright of Derby - self-portrait c.1780 - Google Art Project.jpg
|image_size=220
| caption            = Self-portrait {{circa|1780}}, oil on canvas,<br>in the [[Yale Center for British Art]]
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1734|09|03|df=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Derby]], England
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1797|08|29|1734|09|03|df=y}}
| death_place        = Derby, England
| nationality        = [[English people|English]]
| other_names        = Wright of Derby
| occupation         = [[Painting|Painter]]
| works              = ''[[An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump]]''
| spouse             = {{marriage|Ann Swift|28 July 1773|17 August 1790|end=her death}}
| children           = 6
| resting_place      = [[St Alkmund's Church, Derby]]
}}

'''Joseph Wright''' {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|ARA}} (3 September 1734 – 29 August 1797), styled '''Joseph Wright of Derby''', was an English painter who specialised in [[portrait painting]] and [[landscape art]]. He has been acclaimed as "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the [[Industrial Revolution]]".<ref>[[Francis Klingender|F. D. Klingender]]; quoted in Ellis Waterhouse, ''Painting in Britain 1530 to 1790,'' Fourth Edition, New York, Viking Penguin, 1978; p. 285.</ref>

Wright is notable for his use of [[tenebrism]], an exaggerated form of the better known [[chiaroscuro]] effect, which emphasizes the contrast of light and dark, and for his paintings of candle-lit subjects. His paintings of the birth of science out of [[alchemy]], often based on the meetings of the [[Lunar Society of Birmingham]], a group of scientists and industrialists living in the English Midlands, are a significant record of the struggle of science against religious values in the period known as the [[Age of Enlightenment]].

Many of Wright's paintings and drawings are owned by [[Derby City Council]], and are on display at the [[Derby Museum and Art Gallery]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Kennedy |first1=Maev |title=Restoration of Joseph Wright of Derby paintings reveals hidden details |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/feb/23/restoration-joseph-wright-derby-paintings |access-date=30 March 2019 |work=The Guardian |date=23 February 2012}}</ref>

== Life ==
[[File:Joseph Wright of Derby - Self-portrait - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright|Self-portrait as a young man, 1765–1768, [[National Gallery of Victoria]], Melbourne]]

Joseph Wright was born in Irongate, [[Derby]], to a respectable family of lawyers. He was the third of five children of Hannah Brookes (1700–1764) and John Wright (1697–1767), an attorney and the town clerk of Derby. Joseph had two elder brothers, John and Richard Wright.

Deciding to become a painter, as a seventeen-year old youth Wright went to [[London]] in 1751 and for two years studied under [[Thomas Hudson (painter)|Thomas Hudson]], the master of [[Joshua Reynolds]].<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Wright, Joseph|volume=28|page=846}}</ref> Wright acknowledged that he was also influenced by [[Alexander Cozens]] and applied his composition ideas to paintings.

After painting portraits for a while in Derby, the young Wright again worked as an assistant to Hudson for fifteen months. In 1753 he returned to, and settled in Derby. He varied his work in portraiture by the production of subjects with strong tenebrism under artificial light, with which his name is chiefly associated, and by landscape painting.<ref name="EB1911"/> Wright also spent a productive period in [[Liverpool]], from 1768 to 1771, painting portraits. These included pictures of a number of prominent citizens and their families.

Having established himself in his profession Wright married Ann (also known as Hannah) Swift, the daughter of a Derbyshire lead miner, on 28 July 1773.<ref name="biograph">{{cite web | title = Joseph Wright of Derby Biograph | url = http://www.mezzo-mondo.com/arts/mm/wright/wright.html | access-date = 1 December 2007 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080114003238/http://www.mezzo-mondo.com/arts/mm/wright/wright.html | archive-date = 14 January 2008 | url-status = dead | df = dmy-all }}</ref>

Wright set off in 1773 with [[John Downman]], a newly pregnant Ann Wright, and [[Richard Hurleston]] for Italy. Their ship took shelter for three weeks in [[Nice, France|Nice]] before they completed their outward voyage in [[Livorno]] in Italy in February 1774.<ref name="tate">{{cite web|last=Lyles|first=Anne|title=Inside the Arcade of the Colosseum|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wright-inside-the-arcade-of-the-colosseum-t08590/text-exhibition-catalogue-text|work=Catalogue entry from British Watercolours from the Oppé Collection|publisher=The Tate|access-date=7 September 2013|display-authors=etal}}</ref> Downman returned to Britain in 1775.<ref>Jane Munro, "Downman, John (1750–1824)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7984, accessed 7 Sept 2013]</ref> Although he spent a great deal of productive time in [[Naples]], Wright never witnessed any major eruption of [[Mount Vesuvius]]. However, it is possible that he witnessed smaller, less impressive eruptions, which may have inspired many of his subsequent paintings of the volcano.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wright-vesuvius-in-eruption-with-a-view-over-the-islands-in-the-bay-of-naples-t05846/text-summary|title='Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the Islands in the Bay of Naples', Joseph Wright of Derby: Summary – Tate|work=Tate|access-date=11 February 2015}}</ref>

On his return from his working sojourn in Italy he again established himself in England as a portrait-painter, this time at the fashionable spa resort of [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]]. But he met with little encouragement there, and in 1777 returned to Derby where he spent the rest of his life.<ref name="EB1911"/> Over the years he became increasingly asthmatic and nervous about the house, and for these complaints he was treated by his friend and leading medical doctor [[Erasmus Darwin]]. His friendship with Darwin had brought him and his works into the orbit of the [[Lunar Society of Birmingham]], and although he was not a formal member of the Society he can be considered a key artistic influence on the men of the [[Midlands Enlightenment]].

In his latter years Wright was a frequent contributor to the exhibitions of the [[Society of Artists of Great Britain]], 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 that he believed that he had received, and severed his official connection with the Academy, although he continued to contribute to the exhibitions from 1783 until 1794.<ref name="EB1911"/>

His wife Ann Wright died on 17 August 1790, having borne six children from the marriage, three of whom had died in infancy. On 29 August 1797 Wright himself died at his new home at No. 28 Queen Street, Derby, where he had spent his final months with his two daughters.<ref name="biograph"/>

== Career and works ==
[[File:An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768.jpg|thumb|''[[An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump]]'' (1768)]]

Wright is seen at his best in his candlelit subjects of which the ''[[Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight]]'' (1765), his ''[[A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery]]'' (1766), in the [[Derby Museum and Art Gallery]], and ''[[An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump]]'' (1768), in the [[National Gallery]] are excellent examples. His ''Old Man and Death'' (1774) is also a striking and individual production.<ref name="EB1911"/>

He painted ''[[Dovedale by Moonlight]]'', capturing the rural landscape of a narrow valley called [[Dovedale]], 14 miles northwest of Wright's home town of Derby, at night with a full moon. The painting hangs in the [[Allen Memorial Art Museum]] at [[Oberlin College]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oberlin.edu/amam/Wright.htm|title=Wright|work=oberlin.edu|access-date=11 February 2015}}</ref> Its companion piece, ''Dovedale by Sunlight'' ({{Circa|1784–1785}}) captures the colours of day. In another painting, ''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. Another memorable image from his tour of the [[Lake District]] is ''Rydal Waterfall'' of 1795.

''Cave at Evening'' (above) is painted with the same dramatic [[chiaroscuro]] for which Wright is noted. The painting was executed during 1774, while he was staying in Italy. There are similarities to the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]'s holding, ''Grotto by the Seaside in the Kingdom of Naples with Banditti, Sunset'' (1778).

=== Painting the British Enlightenment ===
[[File:Joseph Wright of Derby The Alchemist.jpg|thumb|''[[The Alchemist Discovering Phosphorus]]'' (1771)]]
[[File:Joseph Wright - An Iron Forge - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[An Iron Forge]]'', (1772)]]

Wright had close contact with the pioneering industrialists of the English Midlands. Two of his most important patrons were [[Josiah Wedgwood]], credited with the [[industrial process|industrialization]] of the manufacture of [[pottery]], and [[Richard Arkwright]], regarded as the creator of the [[factory system]] in the [[Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution|cotton industry]]. One of Wright's students, [[William Tate (painter)|William Tate]], was uncle to the eccentric gentleman tunneller, [[Joseph Williamson (philanthropist)|Joseph Williamson]], and completed some of Wright's works after his death. Wright also had connections with Erasmus Darwin and other members of the [[Lunar Society]], which brought together leading industrialists, scientists, and philosophers. Although meetings were held in or near Birmingham, Darwin, grandfather of [[Charles Darwin]], lived in Derby, and some of the paintings by Wright, which are notable for their use of brilliant light on shade, are of, or were inspired by, Lunar Society gatherings.

''A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery'' (1766) shows an early mechanism for demonstrating the movement of the planets around the Sun. The Scottish scientist [[James Ferguson (1710–1776)|James Ferguson]] (1710–1776) undertook a series of lectures in Derby in July 1762<ref>
{{cite web
 |title=Joseph Wright of Derby: Art, the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution 
 |url=http://www.search.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/engine/resource/exhibition/standard/default.asp?resource=5230 
 |access-date=23 November 2007 
 |url-status=dead 
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080108215955/http://www.search.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/engine/resource/exhibition/standard/default.asp?resource=5230 
 |archive-date= 8 January 2008 
}}</ref><ref name="Baird">{{cite web | last1 = Baird | first1 = Olga | first2 = Malcolm | last2 = Dick | title = Joseph Wright of Derby: Art, the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution | url = http://www.search.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/content/files/81/76/355.rtf | access-date = 23 November 2007 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070316172422/http://www.search.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/content/files/81/76/355.rtf | archive-date = 16 March 2007 | df = dmy-all }}.</ref> based on his book ''Lectures on Select Subjects in Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Optics &c''. (1760). To illustrate his lectures, Ferguson used various machines, models, and instruments. Wright may have attended these talks, especially as tickets were available from John Whitehurst, Wright's close neighbour, a clockmaker and a scientist. Wright could have drawn on Whitehurst's practical knowledge to learn more about the orrery and its operation.

''[[An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump]]'' (1768) shows people gathered to observe an early experiment into the nature of air and its ability to support life.

''[[The Alchemist in Search of the Philosopher's Stone]]'' (1771) depicts the discovery of the element [[phosphorus]] by German alchemist [[Hennig Brand]] in 1669. A flask in which a large quantity of [[urine]] has been boiled down is seen bursting into light as the phosphorus, which is abundant in urine, ignites spontaneously in air.

These factual paintings are considered to also have metaphorical meaning, the bursting into light of the phosphorus in front of a praying figure signifying the problematic transition from faith to scientific understanding and enlightenment, and the various expressions on the figures around the bird in the air pump indicating concern over the possible inhumanity of the coming age of science.<ref name="Baird"/>

These paintings represent a high point in scientific enquiry that began to undermine the power of religion in Western societies. Some ten years later, scientists would find themselves persecuted in the backlash to the [[French Revolution]] of 1789. [[Joseph Priestley]], a member of the Lunar Society, left Britain in 1794 after his Birmingham laboratory was smashed and his house burned down by a mob objecting to his outspoken support for the French Revolution. In France, the chemist [[Antoine Lavoisier]] was executed by the [[guillotine]] at the height of the [[Reign of Terror|Terror]]. The politician and philosopher [[Edmund Burke]], in his famous ''Reflections on the Revolution in France'' (1790), tied natural philosophers, and specifically Priestley, to the French Revolution; he later wrote in his ''Letter to a Noble Lord'' (1796) that radicals who supported science in Britain "considered man in their experiments no more than they do mice in an air pump".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/burkee/tolord/index.htm |title=Letter To A Noble Lord |first=Edmund |last=Burke |work=ourcivilisation.com |year=1795–1796 |access-date=9 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110520081802/http://ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/burkee/tolord/index.htm |archive-date=20 May 2011 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref> In light of this comment, Wright's painting of the bird in the air pump, completed more than twenty years earlier, seems particularly prescient. It was against this background that [[Charles Darwin]], grandson of Erasmus Darwin, would add to the conflict between science and religious belief, half a century later, with the publication of his book ''[[The Origin of Species]]'' in 1859.

== Memorials ==
[[File:Joseph Wright of Derby Orrery.JPG|thumb|upright|The [[armillary sphere]] memorial in Irongate, [[Derby]]]] 

Wright's birthplace at 28 Irongate, Derby, is commemorated with a representation of an [[armillary sphere]] on the pavement nearby.

Joseph Wright was buried in the grounds of [[St Alkmund's Church, Derby]]. The church was demolished in 1968 to make way for a major new section of the inner ring road cutting through the town centre, and its site now lies beneath the road. Wright's remains were removed to [[Nottingham Road Cemetery]]. In 1997, his tombstone was placed at the side of [[Derby Cathedral]], and in 2002, it was brought inside and wall-mounted in a prominent place near the well-visited memorial to [[Bess of Hardwick]].<ref>{{cite web | title = Photographs around Iron Gate & Sadler Gate in Derby City Centre, England | url = http://www.derbyphotos.co.uk/areas_city/irongate.htm | access-date = 1 December 2007 }}</ref>

Wright's name has been given to the sixth-form centre situated on Cathedral Row, Derby (not far from Iron Gate). The Joseph Wright Centre was opened in 2005 as the new flagship site for [[Derby College]]. The building is named after the eighteenth-century painter because his "artwork captured the many scientific and technological advances of the Industrial Revolution."<ref>{{cite web | title = Website, with photos, of the Joseph Wright Centre, Derby College | url = http://www.derby-college.ac.uk/college-sites/the-joseph-wright-centre2 | access-date = 8 June 2009 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090709130614/http://www.derby-college.ac.uk/college-sites/the-joseph-wright-centre2 | archive-date = 9 July 2009 | df = dmy-all }}</ref>

In early 2013 Derby City Council and Derby Civic Society announced they would erect a [[blue plaque]] on his home at 27 Queen Street in Derby.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/LIST-DERBEIANS-HONOURED/story-18125437-detail/story.html#axzz2KjCUpLKV|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130423203413/http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/LIST-DERBEIANS-HONOURED/story-18125437-detail/story.html%23axzz2KjCUpLKV|url-status=dead|title=LIST OF DERBEIANS TO BE HONOURED|work=Derby Telegraph|access-date=11 February 2015|archive-date=23 April 2013}}</ref>

== Other works ==
*''[[Vesuvius from Posillipo by Moonlight]]'' (1774)
* ''Grotto by the Seaside in the Kingdom of Naples with Banditti, Sunset'' (1778) [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/grotto-by-the-seaside-in-the-kingdom-of-naples-with-banditti-sunset-34993|title=Grotto by the Seaside in the Kingdom of Naples with Banditti, Sunset|date=5 January 2017|access-date=30 July 2017}}</ref>
* ''[[Peter Labilliere]]'' (1780) Dorking Museum, UK<ref>{{cite web|url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/major-peter-labilliere-d-1800-12319|title=Portrait of Peter Labilliere|publisher= Art UK|access-date=11 October 2019}}</ref>
* ''[[Indian Widow]]'' (1784)
* ''Miss Mary Tunaley''<!--aka ''Mrs. Francis Boott'' --> (1790–93) [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/miss-mary-tunaley-33448|title=Miss Mary Tunaley|date=5 February 2017|access-date=30 July 2017}}</ref>
* ''[[Romeo and Juliet: the Tomb Scene]]'' (1790) [[Derby Museum and Art Gallery]]
* ''[[Virgil's Tomb (Joseph Wright paintings)|Virgil's Tomb]]'' (three versions, 1779 to 1785)
* ''[[The Lady in Milton's Comus]]'' (1785) [[Walker Art Gallery]]
* ''[[Moonlight, Coast of Tuscany]]'' (1790) [[Tate Britain]]
* ''[[Portrait of Jedediah Strutt]]'' (1790) [[Derby Museum and Art Gallery]]

== See also ==
* [[Georges de La Tour]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Barker, Elizabeth and Alex Kidson. ''Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool''. Yale University Press, 2007.
*Bemrose, William. ''The Life and Works of Joseph Wright, Commonly called 'Wright of Derby''. Bemrose and Sons 1885.
*Busch, Werner. ''Joseph Wright of Derby. Das Experiment mit der Luftpumpe: eine heilige Allianz zwischen Wissenschaft und Religion''. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1986.
*Craske, Matthew. ''Joseph Wright of Derby, Painter of Darkness''. Yale University Press, 2020.
*Daniels, Stephen. Joseph Wright. Princeton University Press, 1999.
*Edgerton, Judy. ''Wright of Derby''. Exh. cat. Tate Gallery, 1990.
*Fraser, David. ''Wright in Italy: Joseph Wright of Derby's Visit Abroad, 1773–5''. Gainsborough's House, 1987.
*Graciano. Andrew. "Art, Science and Enlightenment." PhD dissertation, University of Virginia, 2002.
* Graciano, Andrew. ''Joseph Wright, Esq., Painter and Gentleman''. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012.
* Graciano, Andrew. "'The Book of Nature is Open to All Men': Geology, Mining and History in Joseph Wright's Derbyshire Landscapes." ''Huntington Library Quarterly'' 68, no. 4 (2005): 583–600.
* Graciano, Andrew. "Shedding New Botanical Light on Joseph Wright's ''Portrait of Brooke Boothby'': Rousseauian Pleasure versus Medicinal Utility." ''Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte'' 67 no. 3 (2004): 365–380.
* Nicolson, Benedict. "Addenda to Wright of Derby." ''Apollo'' 88 (November 1968), suppl. Notes on British Art 12, 1–4.
* Nicolson, Benedict. "Wright of Derby: addenda and corrigenda." ''Burlington Magazine'' 130, no. 1,027 (October 1988): 745–58.
* Nicolson, Benedict. ''Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light'', 2 vols. Pantheon, 1968.
* Solkin, David H. ''Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England''. Yale University Press, 1993: pages 214–46. 
* Rosenblum, Robert. "Wright of Derby: Gothick Realist." ''Art News'' 59, no. 1 (March 1960): 24–7, 54.
*Wallis, Jane. ''Joseph Wright of Derby''.  Derby Museum And Art Gallery, 1997.
*Wright, Amina. ''Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond''. Exh. cat. Holburne Museum, 2014.

== External links ==
{{Commons}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20100830092959/http://www.derby.gov.uk/LeisureCulture/MuseumsGalleries/ArtTreasuresJosephWrightGallery.htm Gallery of Joseph Wright paintings at Derby Museum and Art Gallery]
*[http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=697&page=1 Getty Museum profile]
*[http://www.racollection.org.uk/ixbin/indexplus?_IXACTION_=file&_IXFILE_=templates/full/person.html&_IXTRAIL_=Academicians&person=5995 Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections]
*{{Art UK bio}} 
* {{librivox book | title=The Life and Works of Joseph Wright | dtitle=''The Life and Works of Joseph Wright'' by William Bemrose| author=Bemrose}}

{{Joseph Wright of Derby|state=expanded}}
{{Derby Museum}}
{{Authority control (arts)}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Joseph}}
[[Category:1734 births]]
[[Category:1797 deaths]]
[[Category:18th-century English painters]]
[[Category:18th-century English male artists]]
[[Category:English male painters]]
[[Category:English landscape painters]]
[[Category:English portrait painters]]
[[Category:Artists from Derby]]
[[Category:People educated at Derby School]]
[[Category:Collection of Derby Museum and Art Gallery]]
[[Category:Associates of the Lunar Society of Birmingham]]
[[Category:Paintings by Joseph Wright of Derby| ]]
[[Category:Associates of the Royal Academy]]