Joseph Wright seems hampered by his soubriquet 'of Derby', which underlines his apparent provincialism and suggests an almost fairground freakery - a painter! from Derby! well, I never! The town is of course justifiably proud of their son and I would urge anyone who likes his work to go and visit the art gallery there (which will be hosting this exhibition later this summer), and there have over the years been attempts to redress this narrative with studies of the Midlands Enlightenment and the importance of early industrialist patronage. The reality, however, is that Wright trained, travelled and lived for periods elsewhere - Liverpool, Bath, London, Italy - whilst still always calling Derby home. Somewhere along the way he discovered the previous century's love of candlelit paintings and he was hooked.
This is the starting point for the National Gallery's little one room exhibition. Based as it is around one of their most popular paintings The Experiment on a Bird with an Air Pump, it seems a bit much to sub-title it 'from the shadows'. It is a show which does little to elucidate Wright's inspiration and motives, and its particularly narrow focus means the exclusion of other light-based works (the moon, volcanoes). But, boy, are there some wonderful paintings.
Wright's investigation of light is often presented as an anomaly - and, of course it is, in terms of both the eighteenth century and of British art. The reality, rather skimmed over here, is that seventeenth century Europe had lapped up dramatic light and shade images. Caravaggio is the much quoted instigator, but it was Dutch artists like Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick Terbrugghen who really took the idea and ran with it, and to whom Wright seems most obviously indebted. Coincidentally, across the Channel, a sell out show at the musée Jacquemart-André in Paris bringing Georges de la Tour 'from the shadows' as well.
The Dutch artists favoured tavern scenes, musicians, humour or moralising genre: Wright's Two Boys Fighting Over a Pigs Bladder has that Low Countries feel. Equally, however, there was a strand of religious art, exemplified by la Tour, which exploited the same tenebrist qualities - in terms of mood, Wright often follows this. Indeed, he seems to have two distinct styles, employed as subject demanded: a soft edged emotionalism which seems to evolve directly from the beautifully handled monochrome pastel of a self portrait on show; and a crisp, sometimes harsh observational edge.
The exhibition splits into what might be called an Enlightenment section and a genre section. Two beautiful studies of classical sculpture establish Wright as an educated, intellectual artist, among fellow intellectuals. Academy by Lamplight of allows him to explore a mixed group of observers - something he will go on to do so effectively in his two most famous works, Air Pump and Philosopher Giving a Lecture on an Orrery - but the real subject is art itself, personified by luminously pristine marble. The two big canvases are cleverly hung alongside the real instruments at their centre, the Orrery casting arc-ing shadows which Wright himself would have loved. They are extraordinary paintings, complex, subtle, ambiguous, which can be read as peaens to science, proto-Romantic explorations of the sublime, or Frith-like social commentaries, full of exchanged glances and gossipy subplots. They feel like they should be the grand finale of the show rather than the opening act as they are here.
The subsequent, smaller works and accompanying prints are inevitably a little anticlimactic. The Alchemist, for all its apparently similar subject matter has an element of, surely not unintentional, humour in its presentation of the elderly, heavily-bearded and portly scientist, and the detailed recreation of his instruments and feels like a homage to much earlier art. The classical ruin setting of the Blacksmith's Shop channels myth as much as it does contemporary life. Yet, disappointingly The Iron Forge, an obvious companion painting, is not included and the absence of Wright's industrial works (Arkwright's Cotton Mills by Night, for instance) seems a weakness.
Stuck round a corner as the last painting, Earth Stopper on the Banks of the Derwent is even more bereft: Wright was an enthusiastic landscapist and a painter of nature at night with a particular interest in juxtaposing the coolness of the moon with hot man-made light. The Earth Stopper has more in common with these than with the interior candle-lit scenes which dominate the show. Besides the consummate control of the earlier canvases, these works also have an unevenness, whether his unconvincing weight on the spade, or the oddly out of kilter perspective in Hermit Philosopher by Lamplight. The narrow focus and small number of works mean than these issues are amplified.
Wright is a bigger artist than this exhibition implies. His portraiture and landscapes are often unjustly neglected and if the National Gallery really wanted to bring him 'from the shadows' it could have produced a more interesting exhibition in which the famous candlelight scenes provided a springboard for a wider exploration of Wright's career. This, along with the lack of any real tenebrist context, feels like a missed opportunity. The show is travelling to Derby where it will be enveloped by their permanent collection of Joseph Wright's works - I can't help thinking that will prove to be a better place to see it.
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