National Gallery, London 7th November 2025 - 10th May 2026
This small exhibition which opened recently at the National Gallery is unusual in several ways. Most shows at the the large national institutions have themes which cover an entire career, from youthful experimentation to mature works, and thereby demonstrate the genius of our finest artists. This one is different in that the two best-known works by the artist known as ‘Wright of Derby’ are brought together for the first time in many years to show how they were produced, the artist’s influences and intentions. In addition, the subjects of these paintings are placed within their contemporary contexts, together with a few other paintings which demonstrate how Wright experimented with subject matter and the depiction of lighted interiors.
An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump was first exhibited at the Society of Artists of Great Britain in May 1768. It was immediately recognised as extraordinary: many critics and other artists admired the way that Wright was able to portray candlelit scenes with convincing accuracy. However, there is much more to this work than sheer virtuosity. We look at paintings in many different ways. With some, we absorb the work as a whole – Rothko’s Seagram murals are a good example –without having to look at the detail of the brushwork to grasp the artist’s intentions. With others the opposite is true, since they demand that we look for the fine details in order to understand them. For example, in Bruegel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, we initially see a mediaeval scene of a ploughman at the top of a high cliff. On second glance we see the setting sun, a shepherd tending his flock on the cliff edge, an angler casting his line into the sea, and then the legs of Icarus, one hand just visible as he disappears under the water. On the third viewing we realise that Icarus’s descent has largely gone unnoticed (except perhaps by the shepherd, gazing at the sky) — the ship sails on, the ploughman continues his work, the angler is focussed on his line. An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump is similar in its multi-layered construction. At first we see the brightly-lit centre with the little girl looking upwards at the strangely-shaped apparatus, but on more prolonged examination we begin to pick out the details and piece together the narrative in which each of the ten figures plays a part.
In the centre is the man who has set up the experiment —who would have been recognised at the time as a ‘natural philosopher’— with his finger on the air pump. Inside its glass bulb is the bird, a white cockatiel, already suffering from the lack of air. The man’s arm is poised to either continue the experiment and kill the bird or open the valve and allow the air back in time to save it, and part of the painting’s mystery is that we do not know which option he will choose. Cockatiels were rare and valuable birds, so that one is unlikely to have been sacrificed in such a way, but conversely the ‘philosopher’ does not look at the bird and may be unaware of the suffering that he is causing.
To the right are the family who have requested the experiment. The father hugs his eldest daughter close, as she is apparently crying, distraught at the bird’s plight, while the equally worried younger daughter holds her sister as she gazes up at the bird. Father seems to be trying to explain what is happening, but the distressed children are obviously being traumatised by their experience —this is one of those negative childhood memories that can last an entire lifetime. Wright is issuing a warning to us all: beware modern technologies and experiments, which may hold more terror than joy for our children. An older man sits below them, contemplating a skull-like shape inside the glass jar that occupies the middle foreground of the table.
There are four more figures on the left. The foremost is a middle-aged man who seems deep in thought. He appears to be looking at the children rather than the experiment, while behind him is a young boy who is transfixed by the event unfolding in front of him. He has twisted his head so that he can see the bird more clearly, and one wonders what he might be thinking: perhaps he would like to conduct experiments in the future, or is he, too, upset by the fate of the beautiful bird? Behind the boy are a young couple who only have eyes for each other, blissfully unaware of the tragedy taking place and its emotional toll on the children. Finally, high on the right is another child, a young servant boy holding the door to the birdcage, uncertain whether the bird is to be returned or not.
In this period of the eighteenth century the ‘conversation piece’ had become very popular. This genre usually depicted a scene of interaction between friends and family, either within the home or outdoors in a formal garden. Wright has added a moral perspective to this format by making the home a place of scientific experimentation, with a memento mori undertow provided by the subject matter, the symbolism of the glass jar and its contents, and the figures who together represent the seven ages of man. At the time scientists usually avoided using live animals or birds in air pump experiments, since this was thought to be too upsetting for the spectators (especially women and children), so with this scenario, Wright was clearly asking the viewer a question about ethics.
The painting shown next to this is an earlier candlelit work with a long title, A Philosopher Giving that Lecture on the Orrery, in which a Lamp is put in the Place of the Sun. An orrery is a mechanical construction which shows the movement of the planets around the sun. It was invented in the early 1700s, and became popular for home entertainment and its educational value. This painting was the beginning of Wright’s investigation of science, and one of the first works in which he depicted candlelight in the centre of the scene: here, it draws our immediate attention to the two small children who are fully absorbed by what they are witnessing. The family have gathered to watch the planets’ progress, complete with eclipses. As in the earlier painting, here a natural philosopher presides over the display. He has set up the orrery, lit the candle to represent the sun, and is in the process of demonstrating the movement of the planets. All of this would have been very new, not unlike someone using the latest 3D gaming console today for the very first time.
Both paintings owe much to the discoveries of Isaac Newton. He had published his Principia in 1687, in which he laid out the mathematical theory for the laws of gravity. Although few people could read the work (it was written in Latin), nor could they understand the dense, complicated equations which dominate the book, the idea that gravity holds the universe together was quickly assimilated by those interested in astronomy and science. The term ‘natural philosopher’ came to describe enquirers such as Newton, and some commentators have even suggested that these two portraits are actually representations of Newton himself, but there is no conclusive evidence to support this. Although religious conflict had roiled Europe in the Reformation throughout the sixteenth and into the seventeenth centuries, by the time of Wright’s paintings a more tolerant attitude was gaining momentum in which Newton’s theories, including the supposed symmetry and order of the planets, were viewed as proof that God had created an ordered universe out of chaos (as described in Genesis), which obeyed universal laws that could be discovered by scientists through experimentation.
Looking again at these pictures side by side, one can see how they can be read as a visual representation of this worldview: they share the same focal points, the candlelight and the children in the middle, with the natural philosopher in a Newtonian/Godlike position above, guiding the experiments. The candlelight may also be an allusion to the Biblical story of the first day of creation, when God said ‘Let there be light.’ However, the paintings are also significantly different, most obviously in the reactions of the witnesses to the experiments. In The Orrery wonder predominates at the machine and what it represents, but in An Experiment on a Bird it has been overtaken by horror.
The exhibition has gathered together other ‘candlelit’ pictures by Wright to show how he continued for a short time to further explore this theme, but none of these have the same power as the two discussed here. He finished his last ‘candlelit’ painting in 1773 and thereafter made his living painting portraits, particularly of individuals who lived around his home town of Derby. The show includes James Pether’s mezzotint prints of his most famous paintings, which served to further popularise them. In addition, the two scientific apparatuses featured in the paintings, the orrery and the air pump, are also on display, which allows us to appreciate the accuracy of Wright’s portrayals of them.
So what are we left with? Joseph Wright was a very talented painter who, in these two magnificent works, left us much to ponder. They ask questions of us on several levels. Must we accept that God made an ordered world which obeys universal rules? How far should we go in pursuit of new scientific knowledge? Should we consider the overwhelming importance of light in our lives, or acknowledge the immense power of simply looking? This is a small exhibition, perhaps, but one that is well worth the time and effort to consider the considerable achievements of this fine and often underrated artist.--Paul Flux
