Abstract
When Joseph Wright of Derby painted Experiment on a Bird in Air Pump in 1768, he created a scene defined by outdated technology and mercantile class amusement. The air pump at the centre of Wright's painting has less to do with vacuums than it does with modern forms of representation. Wright's painting, this essay argues, provides the viewer with a primer in the politics of seeing. His figures learn about interpretation; how to frame the world before them, how to manage what they see. In the process, Wright's painting explores the ideological underpinnings to sight in the late eighteenth century. Perception functions for Wright as an acculturative process tied to gender formation and class identity. Wright's presenter figure -part scientist, part showman- is a surrogate for the modern artist, an individual whose authority derives from his command of the machinery of representation.
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