The title of this painting is purely descriptive and the artist has made no attempt to conceal the subject from us. As we look at the painting, the experiement in question dominates the picture space, it is right in the centre of the composition with both the bird and the air pump being immediately obvious. We can also see a group of people engaged in various ways with each other and the experiment they are watching. It is also immediately obvious that it is night time as we look into this scene; the moon is shining brightly into the candlelit room.
The airpump was invented in the 1650s by a German scientist named Otto von Guerick. It was an expensive piece of apparatus that would pump air out of whichever sealed chamber it was connected to, producing a vacuum. Due to its cost, the air pump was not readily available. The Irish Scientist Robert Boyle was very interested in experimenting with it and since he was the son of the Earl of Cork, the cost of the air pump was no obstruction to him. He experimented widely with the pump and in 1660, 9 years after he had established the Royal Society with 11 others, he published New Experiments, a volume detailing 43 experiments on the effects of different air pressure on various phenomena such as combustion, magnetism and even living creatures.
About a hundred years after Boyle’s experiments, when Joseph Wright painted this picture, air pumps were readily available and lectures and scientists would use them in public demonstrations, at fairs and in town halls and even, as Wright shows us in his painting, for middle class private audiences in their own home.
The experiment with the bird in the air pump was often the centrepiece for such shows, but was horrific to watch. Boyles book details the experiment and describes the bird’s slow suffocation as similar to watching poultry have its neck wrung.
This questions the importance of scientific discovery over the sanctity of life. Should the bird die so that people can learn about air pressure? Wright cleverly uses the audience of the experiment to raise society’s anxieties at the time over the impact of science.
The age of enlightenment, or the long 18th-century as it is sometimes known- refers to the period of rational and more secular thinking, teamed with scientific discover that occurred throughout the 1700s. Philosophers such as Locke would not accept any truths other than those which could be empirically proven to be true. He relied on what could be touched and seen. Scientists such as Isaac Newton were working to create theories that could be tested using science. People were worried about the impact of this on their lives and also on religion. Wright paints the young girls looking anxious for the bird, whilst the gentleman in the foreground comtemplate the outcome of the experiment. One can be seen timing how long it will take for the bird to die.
Wright has picked a crucial moment in the experiment. If it continues the girls’ fears will be realised and the bird will die, but if the experiment ends, then the bird will live. Write heightens the drama by giving the audience no real clue as to which outcome to expect. The bird pictured is a rare and expensive cockatoo. Usually a sparrow would have been used for such an experiment, so that maybe hints at the bird’s survival. However, we can also see the boy on the far right holding a pulley rope. It is impossible to tell whether this lowers the cage for the bird to be returned to it, or shuts the curtains on nature; blocking the natural light of the moon, leaving only illumination by science and a dead bird!
Some scholars have also hinted that this bowl of liquid holding a skull, through which the solitary candle can just be seen, acts as a vanitas, a technique of using objects which hint at the inevitability of death. Others have drawn attention to the image of the holy trinity in the painting made by the father character, the scientist and the bird. It is similar in composition to a holy trinity with Christ as the caring figure, tending to humans, the dove as the holy spirit and God the father, looking out at us and pointing to heaven.
In his looking out the figure of the scientist invites us in to the painting. Should the bird live or not, he appears to ask us. Testing on animals for scientific gain still causes contention between various religious, animal rights and scientific groups today.
Some art historians are less interested in the socio-political readings of the painting and focus on Wright’s technique. The dramatic subject lends itself well to the dramatic light in which Wright has made this painting. The stark contrast between light and dark, known in art historical terms as ‘chiaroscuro’ gives a definite realism to the painting. If we compare it to the Gainsborough just next to it, we can see how the painting is brought to life by the sharp contrasts in light and shadow.
I personally think that the fact Wright quite literally used science to enlighten the audience shows us that this painting does reflect the interest in science at the time it was painted.
Wright is referred to as Joseph Wright of Derby quite simply because that was the part of England he was from. He also studied in London, became an associate of the Royal Academy and painted portraits and landscapes in Liverpool and Italy. He had famous patrons such as Richard Arkwright and Josiah Wedgewood, showing him to be a thoroughly modern man. He was also famous for painting conversation pieces, popular in the 18th century with the middle classes, these paintings were portraits of recognisable people in real settings. Although Wright never claimed this painting was a conversation piece nor identified any of the characters in it, if you go through those doors into room 35 and turn left you will see a portrait of Wright’s friends Mr and Mrs Thomas Coltman who I think look suspiciously like the young couple here, who are a lot more interested in each other than this experiment.
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