Joseph Wright ‘of Derby’: 'An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump': A Longer Look

Excellent study morning at the National Gallery focusing on Wright of Derby’s picture “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” led by Jacqui Anselm.

We began by looking at the picture in the gallery but went a long way round so we could look at other narrative pictures and think and how they told a story. I have done a few study mornings with Jacqui now and she is great at making you look at the picture carefully and think about the position of the people and what they are looking at. We talked about lots of things including the ages of the people in the picture and the light sources.

Back in the seminar room we discussed how this picture fitted Enlightenment thinking and the idea of “Learning through Looking”. We looked at the fashion for scientific experiments in the home and talked about whether we thought the main protagonist was a travelling showman or the master of the house. We also talked about whether the picture was saying that the laws of God gone out of the window now people believe in the laws of nature or whether it showed light shining into the dark corners of religion.

As often as I’d looked at the picture I’d never twigged that the moon in the right hand corner represented the Lunar Club, the great Enlightenment group, and that Wright was a member as well as Erasmus Darwin who is shown in the foreground. You always learn something new at these mornings!