Detail
An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump followed in 1768, the emotionally charged experiment contrasting with the orderly scene from The Orrery. The painting, which measures 72 by 94½ inches (183 by 244 cm), shows a white cockatoo fluttering in panic as the air is slowly withdrawn from the vessel by the pump. The witnesses display various emotions: one of the girls worriedly watches the fate of the bird, while the other is too upset to observe and is comforted by her father; two gentlemen (one of them dispassionately timing the experiment) and a boy look on with interest, while the young lovers to the left of the painting are absorbed only in each other.[12] The scientist himself looks directly out of the picture, as if challenging the viewer to judge whether the pumping should continue, killing the bird, or whether the air should be replaced and the cockatoo saved.[13] Aside from that of the children, little sympathy is directed toward the bird; David Solkin suggests the subjects of the painting show the dispassionate detachment of the evolving scientific society. Individuals are concerned for each other: the father for his children, the young man for the girl, but the distress of the cockatoo elicits only careful study.[14]
An earlier study showed the demonstrator in a more reassuring pose. The bird here was a common songbird.To one side of the boy at the rear, the cockatoo's empty cage can be seen on the wall, and to further heighten the drama it is unclear whether the boy is lowering the cage on the pulley to allow the bird to be replaced after the experiment or hoisting the cage back up certain of its former occupant's death. It has also been suggested that he may be drawing the curtains to block out the light from the full moon. Jenny Uglow believes that the boy echoes the figure in the last print of William Hogarth's The Four Stages of Cruelty by pointing out the arrogance and potential cruelty of experimentation,[11] while David Fraser also sees the compositional similarities with the audience grouped round a central demonstration.[15] The neutral stance of the central character and the uncertain intentions of the boy with the cage were both later ideas: an early study, discovered on the back of a self-portrait, omits the boy and shows the natural philosopher reassuring the girls. In this sketch it is obvious that the bird will survive, and thus the composition lacks the power of the final version.[16]
The cockatoo would have been rare at the time, as the bird did not become well-known until after it was shown in the illustrations of the voyages of Captain Cook in the 1770s. Prior to Cook's voyage, the birds had been imported in small numbers to decorate the houses of wealthy industrialists. Wright had painted a cockatoo in 1762 at the home of William Chase, featuring it both in his portrait of Chase and his wife (Mr & Mrs William Chase) and as a separate study, The Parrot.[17] In selecting such a rare bird for this scientific sacrifice, Wright not only chose a more dramatic subject than the "lungs-glass", but was perhaps making a statement about the values of society in the Age of Enlightenment.[6]
On the table are various other pieces of equipment that the natural philosopher would have used during his demonstration: a thermometer, candle snuffer and cork, and close to the man seated to the right is a pair of Magdeburg hemispheres, which would have been used with the air pump to demonstrate the difference in pressure exerted by the air and a vacuum: when the air was pumped out from between the two hemispheres they were impossible to pull apart. The air pump itself is rendered in exquisite detail, a faithful record of the designs in use at the time.[18] What appears to be a human skull in the large liquid-filled glass bowl would not have been a normal piece of equipment; William Schupbach suggests that it and the candle, which is presumably lighting the bowl from behind, form a vanitas—the two symbols of mortality reflecting the cockatoo's struggle for life.[17]
wikiworld @ 05:25 Tags: Detail
digg it
del.icio.us