Light-Dark

An experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768
Joseph Wright of Derby (1737-1797)
Oil on canvas
183 x 244 cm.
National Gallery, London

We got a catalog in today about Darwin, natural science and the visual arts and I started looking for art with connections to science (and started up a bibliography of it for a display at the library :). After a bit of searching, I remembered this wonderful painting by Joseph Wright (and happily remembered his name, though not the title despite its straightforwardness).

While my mind made direct connections to science, science may only serve as a cursory subject base for the painting as a whole. Everyone is watching a man demonstrate the air pump, but Wright's focus is on emotion and mood and style (the pump had been invented in previous century). The nighttime setting enables Wright to use very strong chiaroscuro (light-dark) to create dramatic affect. The people crowded around the demonstration have a wide range of reactions to the spectacle, fascination, horror, boredom, contemplation, all stemming from the same centralized source. This is the most well-known painting of Wright's, inspiring discussion of morality, science and enlightenment. Note that if you link to the image on the nga website you can access some awesome zooming capabilities.

I shared something from the fantastic Transcriptions LFS Shorts collaborative project at the National Gallery, London in a previous post and discovered Transcriptions: Animation this time around (there are also a couple of short films connected to this painting). I can't embed the animation but I highly recommend linking over to the website to see The Poison Tree inspired by Wright's painting. I get very excited when I discover all the wonderful collaborations happening between museums and schools, museums are still often a fantastic world of untapped possibilities, so much innovation still awaits!

Doubt

Doubting Thomas
1602-1603
Caravaggio
oil on canvas, 107x146 cm
Stiftung Schlosser und Garten, Sanssouci, Potsdam
image courtsey of wikimediacommons


I tend to stay away from discussing much about biblical scenes as they expose my lack of knowledge so I am going to share some quotes from The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich, one of the most popular histories of art written, reprinted at least 16 times (my copy is from 1995, originally published in 1950). Its popularity stems from its personal and conversation style of writing. Unfortunately it is severely lacking in the work of women artists, as are many still but now that I've recently taken up reading it again, I see the draw.

"He (Caravaggio) was one of the great artists, like Giotto and Durer before him, who wanted to see the holy events before his own eyes as if they had been happening in his neighbor's house. And he did everything possible to make the figures of the ancient texts look more real and tangible." (Gombrich, E.H. The Story of Art. Phaidon (1995) 393.) Caravaggio is secured in the history of art not only for his 'naturlism' but for his use of light. "His light does not make the body look graceful and soft: it is harsh and almost glaring in its contrast to the deep shadows. But it makes the whole strange scene stand out with an uncompromising honesty wihcih few of his contemporaries could appreciate, but which had a decisive effect on later artists." (Gombrich 393) This use of light is called chiaroscuro, one of my favorite art terms, vanitas and others soon to come. In Italian it means bright-dark, and that is esssentially its meaning in art, the strongly contrasting effects of light and dark. It is predominantly associated with 17th century artists such as Caravaggio and Rembrandt but was pioneered by Leonardo da Vinci.

For those interested art related to the bible, I came across a site that posts biblical scene paintings along with the verses with which they are associated. It is a pretty straightforward site, and its interesting to see the religious google ads that accompany it. Artbible
and for the longest and shortest of it all... the bible concordance