Artist of the Enlightenment

There are receptive painters and enquiring painters, and Joseph Wright of Derby was one of the latter. He could almost be said to be the artist who best represents the Age of Enlightenment. In every sense. For what Wright painted was light and he used it in both its literal and symbolic sense. He was not the first to endeavour to capture the effects of light – Caravaggio was a notable exponent (it is possible that Wright knew the work of the northern Caravaggisti and Rembrandt) – and light had been used as long ago as the Renaissance to depict moments of spirituality. But what Wright depicted in his two greatest paintings was the illumination of our world by scientific knowledge and the excitement of scientific experiment.