Joseph Wright

Joseph Wright  (September 3, 1734 - August 29, 1797), in the style of Joseph Wright of Derby, was an English landscape painter and portrait painter. He was recognized as “the first professional artist to express the spirit of the industrial revolution”. Wright is known for his use of the Kiaroscuro effect, which emphasizes the contrast of light and darkness, as well as for his paintings of candlelit objects. His paintings of the birth of science from alchemy, often based on the meetings of the Birmingham Lunar Society, a group of scientists and industrialists living in the English Midlands, are significant evidence of the struggle of science with religious values ​​in that period. known as the Enlightenment. Many of Wright's paintings and drawings are the property of the Derby City Council and are exhibited at the Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Joseph Wright was born in Irongate, Derby, to a respectable family of lawyers. He was the third of five children of Hannah Brookes (1700–1764) and John Wright (1697–1767), an attorney and the town clerk of Derby. Joseph had two elder brothers, John and Richard Wright, Joseph Wright was born in Ironong, Derby, into a respectable family of lawyers. He was the third of five children of Hannah Brooks (1700–1764) and John Wright (1697–1767), a lawyer and city clerk for Derby. Joseph had two older brothers, John and Richard Wright. Having decided to become an artist, Wright went to London in 1751 and studied for two years with Thomas Hudson, the master of Joshua Reynolds. After painting portraits in Derby for a while, Wright again worked as Hudson's assistant for fifteen months. In 1753, he returned and settled in Derby. He varied his work in portraiture, creating objects with a strong charoskuro under artificial lighting, with which his name is mainly associated with landscape painting. Wright also spent a productive period in Liverpool, from 1768 to 1771, painting portraits. They included photographs of several prominent citizens and their families.