Style
The powerful central light source creates a chiaroscuro effect. The light illuminating the scene has been described as "so brilliant it could only be the light of revelation".[19] The single source of light is obscured behind the bowl on the table; some hint of a lamp glass can be seen around the side of the bowl, but David Hockney has suggested that the bowl itself may contain sulphur, giving a powerful single light source that a candle or oil lamp would not.[20] In the earlier study a candle holder is visible, and the flame is reflected in the bowl. Hockney believes that many of the Old Masters used optical equipment to assist in their painting, and suggests that Wright may have used lenses to transfer the image to paper rather than painting directly from the scene, as he believes the pattern of shadows thrown by the lighting could have been too complicated for Wright to have captured so accurately without assistance.[20]
Wright's Air Pump was unusual, in that it depicted archetypes rather than specific people, though various models for the figures have been suggested. The young lovers may have been based on Thomas Coltman and Mary Barlow, friends of Wright's, whom he later painted in Mr and Mrs Thomas Coltman after their marriage in 1769; Erasmus Darwin has been suggested as the man timing the experiment on the left of the table, and John Warltire, whom Darwin had invited to help with some air pump experiments in real life, as the natural philosopher;[21] but Wright never identified any of the subjects or suggested they were based on real people.[6] In The Orrery, all the subjects have been identified apart from the philosopher, who has physical similarities to Isaac Newton but differs enough to make positive identification impossible. Nicholson detects the strong influence of Frye throughout the picture. Particularly striking is the similarity between Frye's mezzotint Portrait of a Young Man of 1760–1761 and the figure of the boy with his head cocked staring intently at the bird. In 1977, Michael Wynne published one of Frye's chalk drawings from around 1760, An old man leaning on a staff, which is so similar to the observer in the right foreground in Wright's picture to make it impossible that Wright had not seen it. There are other hints of Frye's style in the painting: even the figure of the natural philosopher has touches of Frye's Figure with Candle. Though Henry Fuseli would later also develop on the style of Frye's work there is no evidence of him having painted anything similar until the early 1780s. So, although he had already been in England at the time the Air Pump was produced, it is unlikely that he was an influence on Wright.[22]
Wright's scientific paintings adopted elements from the tradition of history painting but lacked the heroic central action typical of that genre. While ground-breaking, they are regarded as peculiar to Wright, whose unique style has been explained in many ways. Wright's provincial status and ties to the Lunar Society have been highlighted, as well as his close association with and sympathy for the advances made in the burgeoning Industrial Revolution. Other critics have emphasized a desire to capture a snapshot of the society of the day, in the tradition of William Hogarth but with a more neutral stance that lacks the biting satire of Hogarth's work.[23]
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