Soon in a future post I will write more on the book Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death; but I must say now that within the first few pages of reading it – when Laura Cumming speaks of her once upon a time daily visitations to the National Gallery to see a particular Dutch painting that “became a staging post…on a specific journey across London” – I was instantly reminded of my own staging post painting in the same gallery, in Room 34.
It is a natural pull, navigating to this room to meet my 18th century friends in the painting by Joseph Wright of Derby – An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump– at once alluring and haunting, that long haired wizard philosopher staring out at me, inviting me into the age of enlightenment when the exploration of all things scientific was in full swing. Wright was about light shining out of the darkness, a perspective he shared with companions in the Lunar Society of Birmingham.
On every visitation to the National Gallery, after some concentration on two to three other rooms, (for that’s all my mind’s eye can take in), I make my way to Room 34, and then after being overwhelmed by the welcome from Whistlejacket by George Stubbs I slowly make my way to Wright’s Experiment. First up close, examine the competing reactions of those gathered around the bird and the wizard, then shift eyes right to the moon through the window, the pull is complete.
For what seems like an episode in time travel, I need to sit on the leather couch and ponder from a distance, for while the long 18th century had its share of unpleasantness much as we have today, there is that fascination with challenging thinking, experimentation, questioning, mystery, wonder and discomfort with change, much as we have today or at any time. And with this painting the longer I look at the animated faces the more I seem to know them – in the here and now.
What deepened my interest in Wright’s Experiment painting? It was during the time of my first pull in 2002 that I was also reading volumes about 18th century history and in that year there came the book The Lunar Men by Jenny Uglow. Can’t change the facts, it was a largely man’s world then and The Lunar Societyled by Erasmus Darwin included among the twelve prominent members – Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley and James Watt.
Only one time did my 18th century friends elude me. On an evening visitation the day before I was to leave London, Wright’s Experiment painting was missing. Asking the custodian of Room 34 about this unexpected absence, I learned that the painting was on loan to, of all places, the Tate Gallery. Sadly though just a short cab ride away, it was too late to arrange a rendezvous.
Yet the pull led me back to Room 34 on my next visitation and later I think I caught a glimpse of a man stepping off of a train car on the Tube who looked just like the wizard with the air pump. And as to the passage of time, the Lunar Society continues to this day.
