Post #8

 

    Moonlight Landscape by Joseph Wright of Derby is one of the most enchanting pieces that I have stumbled across through my outside research.  After scrolling through a handful of his work, I was immediately drawn to this particular piece.  One thing that draws my attention to this artist is his unique use of candle-lit portraits and vast use of shades through these various dark centered pieces.  As it has been described through other historians, Wright was driven by the idea of creating lighting effects throughout his art and continued to follow through with his unique creative eye for making these images come to life.

                  One thing that made Wright a unique artist at the time was the fact that he was one of the only artists to base his work outside of London (where he originally was born and raised), due to his decision to relocate to Italy.  As he developed as an artist, he quickly became fascinated with the idea of using various lighting techniques in his works, making him an artist that quickly stood out amongst the crowd.  His other famous pieces of work also incorporate his idea of candle-lit or naturally light paintings, but nothing quite grabs you like the Moonlight Landscape.  It was mentioned in one of the sources I found, that his paintings had a more advanced element that incorporated more emotion into his paintings, which many found to be mysterious and dark.  Through this technique, he flourished, making his work very popular and demanding, as he had such patrons as Lord Melbourne, Lord Palmerston, and Catherine the Great of Russia.

                  In the Moonlight Landscape painting, the subject matter contains a man walking his donkey across a bridge, while you can notice another man fishing below.  Both of these figures seem rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things, as the painting has so much information that it is trying to convey.  Parts of this painting that make it so remarkable are the amount of hue/shade changes between the center point where the moon is radiating outwards, it just shows how carefully planned and close attention to detail was put into this specific piece.  An example of this detail would be to just simply take a look at the river below, notice how the reflection of the moonlight just shimmers off the water’s surface?  It almost strikes me as a painting too good to be true, almost as if it should be a photograph; this is truly an overall achievement towards the human race for being able to create such an accurate painting from only oils onto a canvas.

                  There is no doubt in my mind that Joseph Wright of Derby could have possibly been one of the most articulate romanticism artists of the eighteenth century.  His rich understanding of science helps illustrate how his knowledge truly captivated his expressive moods throughout his paintings, making them seemingly realistic, almost as if you could breathe in the air and experience the environment.  This research has helped me search for an appreciation in a piece of art that I was able to explore on my own, and this is honestly one of the most remarkable pieces of all time.

Sources:

http://www.ringlingdocents.org/moonlight.htm

http://www.oberlin.edu/amam/Wright.htm

http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg61/gg61-61397.html