Chiaroscuro, in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures. Similar effects in cinema, and black and white and low-key photography, are also called chiaroscuro.
Joseph Wright, styled Joseph Wright of Derby, was an English landscape and portrait painter. He has been acclaimed as "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the Industrial Revolution".
Derby Museum and Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery in Derby, England. It was established in 1879, along with Derby Central Library, in a new building designed by Richard Knill Freeman and given to Derby by Michael Thomas Bass. The collection includes a gallery displaying many paintings by Joseph Wright of Derby; there is also a large display of Royal Crown Derby and other porcelain from Derby and the surrounding area. Further displays include archaeology, natural history, geology, military collections and world cultures. The Art Gallery was opened in 1882.
Tenebrism, from Italian tenebroso, also occasionally called dramatic illumination, is a style of painting using especially pronounced chiaroscuro, where there are violent contrasts of light and dark, and where darkness becomes a dominating feature of the image. The technique was developed to add drama to an image through a spotlight effect, and is common in Baroque paintings. Tenebrism is used only to obtain a dramatic impact while chiaroscuro is a broader term, also covering the use of less extreme contrasts of light to enhance the illusion of three-dimensionality.
The Borghese Gladiator is a Hellenistic life-size marble sculpture portraying a swordsman, created at Ephesus about 100 BC, now on display at the Louvre.
An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump is a 1768 oil-on-canvas painting by Joseph Wright of Derby, one of a number of candlelit scenes that Wright painted during the 1760s. The painting departed from convention of the time by depicting a scientific subject in the reverential manner formerly reserved for scenes of historical or religious significance. Wright was intimately involved in depicting the Industrial Revolution and the scientific advances of the Enlightenment. While his paintings were recognized as exceptional by his contemporaries, his provincial status and choice of subjects meant the style was never widely imitated. The picture has been owned by the National Gallery in London since 1863 and is regarded as a masterpiece of British art.
The Engraving Copyright Act 1734 or Engravers' Copyright Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain first read on 4 March 1734/35 and eventually passed on 25 June 1735 to give protections to producers of engravings. It is also called Hogarth's Act after William Hogarth, who prompted the law together with some fellow engravers. Historian Mark Rose notes, "The Act protected only those engravings that involved original designs and thus, implicitly, made a distinction between artists and mere craftsmen. Soon, however, Parliament was persuaded to extend protection to all engravings."
A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, or the full title, A Philosopher giving that Lecture on the Orrery in which a lamp is put in place of the Sun, is a 1766 painting by Joseph Wright of Derby depicting a lecturer giving a demonstration of an orrery – a mechanical model of the solar system – to a small audience. It is now in the Derby Museum and Art Gallery The painting preceded his similar An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump.
Peter Perez Burdett was an 18th-century cartographer, surveyor, artist, and draughtsman originally from Eastwood in Essex where he inherited a small estate and chose the name Perez from the birth surname of his mather, his maternal grandfather was the clergyman there. He would have been notable just for his many appearances in Joseph Wright's pictures but he was also involved with numerous projects including surveying the route for one of the major projects of the industrial revolution, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, in 1769. He has been described as "if not in the centre at least in the penumbra of the Lunar Society of Birmingham". He spent the last years of his life in Karlsruhe, avoiding debtors, but still active in German society. His German daughter married a Count.
Italian Baroque art is a term that is used here to refer to Italian painting and sculpture in the Baroque manner executed over a period that extended from the late sixteenth to the mid eighteenth centuries.
The Midlands Enlightenment, also known as the West Midlands Enlightenment or the Birmingham Enlightenment, was a scientific, economic, political, cultural and legal manifestation of the Age of Enlightenment that developed in Birmingham and the wider English Midlands during the second half of the eighteenth century.
The Alchemist Discovering Phosphorus is a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby originally completed in 1771 then reworked in 1795. The full title of the painting is The Alchymist, in Search of the Philosopher's Stone, Discovers Phosphorus, and prays for the successful Conclusion of his operation, as was the custom of the Ancient Chymical Astrologers. It has been suggested that The Alchymist refers to the discovery of phosphorus by the Hamburg alchemist Hennig Brand in 1669. This story was often printed in popular chemical books in Wright's lifetime, and was widely known.
The Blacksmith's Shop is a recurring theme of five paintings by Joseph Wright of Derby. The version in his home town was originally completed in 1771.
A Philosopher by lamplight is a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby. It is not known when Wright painted the picture, but it was first exhibited in 1769 in London with the Society of Artists. This was one of the earliest of many lamplight or candlelight paintings and portraits for which Wright is famed.
Grotto in the Gulf of Salerno is the subject of at least four paintings completed by Joseph Wright of Derby following his visit there in 1774. The paintings show the different lighting at different times of the day.
Magdalene with the Smoking Flame is a c. 1640 oil-on-canvas depiction of Mary Magdalene by French Baroque painter Georges de La Tour. Two versions of this painting exist, one in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the other in the Louvre Museum.
The depiction of night in paintings is common in Western art. Paintings that feature a night scene as the theme may be religious or history paintings, genre scenes, portraits, landscapes, or other subject types. Some artworks involve religious or fantasy topics using the quality of dim night light to create mysterious atmospheres. The source of illumination in a night scene—whether it is the moon or an artificial light source—may be depicted directly, or it may be implied by the character and coloration of the light that reflects from the subjects depicted.
David Hersh Solkin, FBA is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, which he joined in 1986. In 2007, Solkin became the Institute's first Dean and Deputy Director. Solkin is an expert in the art of J. M. W. Turner.
Vesuvius from Posillipo by Moonlight was painted by Joseph Wright of Derby in 1774. It is an oil painting of Mount Vesuvius in the distance, from the coastal shores of Naples at night. Dark grey smoke spews from the glowing red crater of the volcano and fills up the top right of the canvas, in contrast to the pale glow of moonlight to the left. Known as a "Painter of Light," Wright liked to play with highlights and shadows in his works and was most well known for his "Candlelight Pictures," landscape or genre scenes depicting dramatic contrasts between light and dark. Through utilizing this technique, Joseph Wright exhibits the sublimity of nature in Vesuvius from Posillipo by Moonlight as well as his other paintings of Mt. Vesuvius.
Two Girls Dressing a Kitten by Candlelight is a "fancy painting" by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797). The painting is displayed at the Kenwood House Public Museum, located in the London Hampstead area.
