Wright of Derby

Am I the British Caravaggio?
He's fifteen sev'nty-three to sixteen ten!
A murderer to boot. I'm much much later -
eighteenth century. Okay, I know
it's all about the light, chiaroscuro,
tenebrism, light and shade which he 
and I explored. I called my early paintings 
'candlelights', my later works 'night pieces',
but my attitude to light was born 
in industry, the power generated
by the mills and forges in north England.
I was born in Derby in the reign
of George the Second. We were at the centre
of th'industrial revolution. Water
power from the River Derwent running
down the Pennines drove the silk and cotton
mills which Richard Arkwright the inventor 
made good use of. He was called the 'richest
commoner in England' and I painted
his three children in my later years.
In time the coalfields gave us energy.
John Whitehurst the inventor made near us
thermometers, barometers and clocks. 
We were the HQ for the Midland Railway.
Rolls Royce started here in nineteen sev'n.
Crown Derby manufactured porcelain  
from sev'nteen fifty and is strong as ever. 
That's the year I came to London 
aged sixteen to study art with Reynolds'
teacher Thomas Hudson, moving back
to Derby sev'n years later to establish 
my career. They called me Wright of Derby
as the name had resonance which might not
be the case today. It also linked me 
with my subject matter which was industry
invention, science, education - themes
appropriate to the Age of Reason, the 
Enlightenment with emphasis on 'light'. 
An Iron Forge is genre painting as 
it shows a scene from ordinary life
and all the figures are anonymous. 
The light is magical, theatrical, 
a golden radiance from the white hot iron,
kernel of industrial production. 
In the glow the blacksmith statuesque
with muscly biceps under rolled-up sleeves
stands tall and proud and gazes at his fam'ly
while a minion does the work. The children 
come to learn, to see his honest labour
and the source of all their wealth in national 
and in personal terms. The wie is tender
and protective, bare neck vuln'rable. 
A workmate bottom left looks on, his daughter 
on his thigh and even, on the right, 
the animal's transfixed. I showed this at
Society of Artists in The Strand
in sev'nteen sev'nty-two and then commissioned 
an engraver Richard Earlsom to
convert it to a mezzotint, a printing
methodcaturing the light and dark 
effects and the gradations in between.
This was standard practice with my work.

I'dshown my paintings in The Strand before.
The first, Three Persons View The Gladiator,
sev'n years earlier, depicts a trio
studying a sculpture replicated
from an ancient Greek original
collected by the Cardinal Borghese.
I'm the fellow sitting on the right.
The middle figure with his red lapels
is Peter Perez Burdett the surveyor 
of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.
He's in a number of my candlelights.
The man in glasses on the left is 'Old John'
as we called John Wilson who was poor
as well as old. An almshouse was his home. 
The light source is unseen - a glow within -
and all around is dakness, deepening
the silent awe and rev'rence of the group.
Engraver William Pether reproduced it -
and the next in sev'nteen sixty-eight,
The Orrery, which I exhibited 
at the Society that year as both
my oil-and-canvas prototype and Pether's
mezzotint. An orrery, a working
model of the Solar System, teaches
us how planets move around the sun.
In seventeen thirteen, Charles Boyle Fourth Earl
of Orrery paid clockmaker George Graham
to create one and 'to give to all
the joys of science'. My work shows a group
of children criwding round an orrery
together with some older chaps, a teacher 
with his tricorn tucked beneath his arm
and writing something with a pencil, and
an oversized divine in red, a godlike 
figure pointing at the model. I have 
painted faces half in shadow like
celestial bodies lit up by the sun.