The Art Of Gothic
Finally got round to watching part two of the Art Of Gothic on BBC 4 over the weekend.
We come to the period when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, and Thomas De Quincy wrote Confessions Of An English Opium Eater. Charles Dickens was mentioned , and in particular, his Bleak House, n which he depicts London as being that sordid Gothic underbelly of the respectable into the sewers of the debauched, mad and criminal.
Nothing is more Gothic than the Joseph Wright of Derby painting "An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768 oil-painting)".
A travelling scientist is shown demonstrating the formation of a vacuum by withdrawing air from a flask containing a white cockatoo, though common birds like sparrows would normally have been used. Air pumps were developed in the 17th century and were relatively familiar by Wright's day. The artist's subject is not scientific invention, but a human drama in a night-time setting lit by moonlight and candles.
The bird will die if the demonstrator continues to deprive it of oxygen, and Wright leaves us in doubt as to whether or not the cockatoo will be reprieved. The painting reveals a wide range of individual reactions, from the frightened children, through the reflective philosopher, the excited interest of the youth on the left, to the indifferent young lovers concerned only with each other.
The figures are dramatically lit by a single candle, while in the window the moon appears. On the table in front of the candle is a glass containing a skull,a momento mori of the passing of time, and the direction that life takes. I also think that the scientist looks more like a magi conjuring up tricks , casting a spell, and that sometimes science can lead us to dark places as much as horror does. That is why this painting is Gothic.
We come to the period when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, and Thomas De Quincy wrote Confessions Of An English Opium Eater. Charles Dickens was mentioned , and in particular, his Bleak House, n which he depicts London as being that sordid Gothic underbelly of the respectable into the sewers of the debauched, mad and criminal.
Nothing is more Gothic than the Joseph Wright of Derby painting "An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768 oil-painting)".
A travelling scientist is shown demonstrating the formation of a vacuum by withdrawing air from a flask containing a white cockatoo, though common birds like sparrows would normally have been used. Air pumps were developed in the 17th century and were relatively familiar by Wright's day. The artist's subject is not scientific invention, but a human drama in a night-time setting lit by moonlight and candles.
The bird will die if the demonstrator continues to deprive it of oxygen, and Wright leaves us in doubt as to whether or not the cockatoo will be reprieved. The painting reveals a wide range of individual reactions, from the frightened children, through the reflective philosopher, the excited interest of the youth on the left, to the indifferent young lovers concerned only with each other.
The figures are dramatically lit by a single candle, while in the window the moon appears. On the table in front of the candle is a glass containing a skull,a momento mori of the passing of time, and the direction that life takes. I also think that the scientist looks more like a magi conjuring up tricks , casting a spell, and that sometimes science can lead us to dark places as much as horror does. That is why this painting is Gothic.