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 painting depicts a natural philosopher, a forerunner of the modern scientist, recreating one of Robert Boyle's air pump experiments, in which a bird is deprived of air before a group of onlookers. The group members exhibit a variety of reactions, such as grief, disbelief, and dismay, but for most of the audience, scientific curiosity overcomes concern for the bird. The central figure looks out of the picture as if inviting the viewer's participation in the outcome.
The painting was featured in the 1980 BBC Two series 100 Great Paintings.
Historical background
In 1659, Robert Boyle commissioned the construction of an air pump, then described as a "pneumatic engine", which is known today as a "vacuum pump". The air pump was invented by Otto von Guericke in 1650, though its high cost deterred most contemporary scientists from constructing the apparatus. Boyle, the son of the Earl of Cork, had no such concerns—after its construction, he donated the initial 1659 model to the Royal Society, and had a further two redesigned machines built for his personal use. Aside from Boyle's three pumps, there were probably no more than four others in existence during the 1660s: Christiaan Huygens had one in The Hague, Henry Power may have had one at Halifax, and there may have been pumps at Christ's College, Cambridge, and the Montmor Academy in Paris.Shapin 1984, pp. 481–520. Boyle's pump, which was largely designed to Boyle's specifications and constructed by Robert Hooke, was complicated, temperamental, and problematic to operate. Many demonstrations could only be performed with Hooke on hand, and Boyle frequently left critical public displays solely to Hooke—whose dramatic flair matched his technical skill.Jardine 2004, pp. 104–106.
Despite the operational and maintenance obstacles, construction of the pump enabled Boyle to conduct a great many experiments on the properties of air, which he later detailed in his New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air, and its Effects, (Made, for the Most Part, in a New Pneumatical Engine). In the book, he described in great detail 43 experiments he conducted, with occasional assistance from Hooke, on the effect of air on various phenomena. Boyle tested the effects of "rarified" air on combustion, magnetism, sound, and barometers, and examined the effects of increased air pressure on various substances. He listed two experiments on living creatures: "Experiment 40", which tested the ability of insects to fly under reduced air pressure, and "Experiment 41," which demonstrated the reliance of living creatures on air for their survival. This attempt was intended to discover something "about the account upon which "respiration" is so necessary to the "animals" that Nature hath furnished with Lungs." Boyle conducted numerous trials, during which he placed a large variety of different creatures, including birds, mice, eels, snails, and flies, in the vessel of the pump and studied their reactions as the air was removed.West 2005, pp. 31–39. Here, he describes an injured lark:
By the time Wright painted his picture in 1768, air pumps were a relatively commonplace scientific instrument, and itinerant "lecturers in natural philosophy"—usually more showmen than scientists—often performed the "animal in the air pump experiment" as the centerpiece of their public demonstration.Elliott 2000, pp. 61–100. These were performed in town halls and other large buildings for a ticket-buying audience, or were booked by societies or for private showings in the homes of the well-off, the setting suggested in both of Wright's demonstration pieces.Egerton, 1998, pp. 337–38. One of the most notable and respectable of the travelling lecturers was James Ferguson FRS, a Scottish astronomer and probable acquaintance of Joseph Wright (both were friends of John Whitehurst). Ferguson noted that a "lungs-glass" with a small air-filled bladder inside was often used in place of the animal, as using a living creature was "too shocking to every spectator who has the least degree of humanity".Baird 2003.
The full moon in the picture is significant, as meetings of the Lunar Circle (renamed the Lunar Society by 1775) were timed to make use of its light when traveling.
Wright met Erasmus Darwin in the early 1760s, probably through their mutual connection, John Whitehurst. In 1767, Wright first consulted Darwin regarding health concerns, and stayed with the Darwin family for a week. The energy and vivacity of both Erasmus and Mary (Polly) Darwin impressed Wright. In the 1980s, Eric Evans (of the National Gallery) suggested that Darwin is the figure in the left foreground who holds a watch. As this composed timekeeper is not consistent with Darwin's flamboyant character, it is more likely that this is Dr William Small. The attention to timekeeping fits with Dr Small's role as the social secretary for the Lunar Circle. Small returned from Virginia in 1764, and established his practice in Birmingham in 1765, consistent with this being a meeting in 1767. The profile and wig of this figure are consistent with a contemporary portrait of Small by Tilly Kettle.
Painting
Background
During his apprenticeship and early career, Wright concentrated on portraiture. By 1762, he was an accomplished portrait artist, and his 1764 group portrait, James Shuttleworth, his Wife and Daughter, is acknowledged as his first true masterpiece. British art historian Benedict Nicolson suggests that Wright was influenced by the work of Thomas Frye; particularly the 18 bust-length mezzotints which Frye completed just before his death in 1762. It was perhaps Frye's candlelight images that tempted Wright to experiment with subject pieces. Wright's first attempt, A Girl reading a Letter by Candlelight with a Young Man looking over her shoulder, from 1762 or 1763, is a trial in the genre, and is fetching though uncomplicated.Nicolson 1968, p. 39. Wright's An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump forms part of a series of candlelit nocturnes that he produced between 1765 and 1768.
There was a long history of painting candlelit scenes in Western art, although as Wright had not travelled abroad at this date, there remains uncertainty as to what paintings he might have seen in the original, as opposed to prints. Nicolson, who made studies of both Wright and other candlelight painters, such as the 17th-century Utrecht Caravaggisti, thought their paintings, among the largest in the style, those to be most likely to have influenced Wright. However, British art historian and curator Judy Egerton questions if Wright could have seen any, referring to influences of the far smaller works of the Leiden fijnschilder Godfried Schalcken (1643–1706), whose reputation was much greater in the early 18th century than later. Schalcken had worked in England from 1692 to 1697, and several of his paintings can be placed in English collections.Egerton (1998), pp. 334–335, and Nicolson (1968), pp. 39–40 and 47. Waterhouse (1978), p. 285, says Wright "must have seen some works by Honthorst or Schalken".
Although he was the leading expert writing in English, Nicolson does not suggest that Wright is likely to have known of the 17th-century candlelit narrative religious subjects of Georges de La Tour and Trophime Bigot, which, in their seriousness, are the closest works to Wright that are lit only by candle. The Dutch painters' works and other candlelit scenes by 18th-century English painters such as Henry Morland (father of George) tended instead to exploit the possibilities of semi-darkness for erotic suggestiveness. Some of Wright's own later candlelit scenes were by no means as serious as his first ones, as seen from their titles: Two Boys Fighting Over a Bladder and Two Girls Dressing a Kitten by Candlelight.Egerton (1998), p. 336.
The first of his candlelit masterpieces, Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight, was painted in 1765, and showed three men studying a small copy of the "Borghese Gladiator". Viewing the Gladiator was greatly admired; but his next painting, A Philosopher giving that Lecture on the Orrery, in which a Lamp is put in place of the Sun (normally known by the shortened form A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery or just The Orrery), caused a greater stir, as it replaced the Classical subject at the center of the scene with one of a scientific nature. Wright's depiction of the awe produced by scientific "miracles" marked a break with traditions in which the artistic depiction of such wonder was reserved for religious events;Brooke 1991, p. 178. to Wright, the marvels of the technological age were as awe-inspiring as the subjects of the great religious paintings.Nicolson 1968, p. 40.
In both of these works, the candlelit setting had a realist justification. Viewing sculpture by candlelight, when the contours showed well and there might even be an impression of movement from the flickering light, was a fashionable practice described by Goethe.Guilding, p. 83. In the orrery demonstration, the shadows cast by the lamp representing the sun were an essential part of the display, used to demonstrate eclipses. However, there seems no reason, other than heightened drama, to stage the air pump experiment in a room lit by a single candle, and the lighting is normal in two later paintings of the subject by Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo.Egerton, 1998, 342.
The painting was one of a number of British works challenging the set categories of the rigid, French-dictated hierarchy of genres in the late 18th century, as other types of painting aspired to be treated as seriously as the costumed history painting of a Classical or mythological subject. In some respects, the Orrery and Air Pump subjects resembled conversation pieces, then largely a form of middle-class portraiture, though soon to be given new status when Johann Zoffany began to paint the royal family in about 1766. Given their solemn atmosphere, however, and as it seems none of the figures are intended to be understood as portraits (even if models may be identified), the paintings can not be regarded as conversation pieces.Waterhouse (1978), pp. 215–216, 270, 285–286. The 20th-century art historian Ellis Waterhouse compares these two works to the "genre serieux" of contemporary French drama, as defined by Denis Diderot and Pierre Beaumarchais, a view endorsed by Egerton.Waterhouse (1978), pp. 285–286, and Egerton (1998), p. 334.
An anonymous review from the time called Wright "a very great and uncommon genius in a peculiar way."Solkin 1994, p. 234. The Orrery was painted without a commission, probably in the expectation that it would be bought by Washington Shirley, 5th Earl Ferrers, an amateur astronomer who had an orrery of his own, and with whom Wright's friend, Peter Perez Burdett, was staying while in Derbyshire. Figures thought to be portraits of Burdett and Ferrers feature in the painting: Burdett taking notes, and Ferrers seated with his son next to the orrery. Ferrers purchased the painting for £210, but the 6th Earl sold it, and it is now in the Derby Museum and Art Gallery.Uglow 2002, p. 123.
Detail