Ombres et lumières croisées : l’appropriation prométhéenne de la lumière dans les peintures de Wright of Derby (1734-97) et John Martin (1789-1854)

Abstract

In the very disparate paintings of John Martin (1789-1854) and Wright of Derby (1734-97), whether it be the scenes of scientific experimentation, the forges, the engineering projects, the candlelight paintings, the Italian paintings or the landscapes, what seems to link them is a strong attention to light effects. Wright of Derby’s first night pieces are often suggestive of the stock forms of religious iconography. However, these paintings continuously glorify human labour and effort and the new control of technical and scientific progress. Religious allusions seem hijacked so to say as if to underline the secularization of light and the increased prestige of man who is initiated with the mysteries of the universe and seeks to take control.In the same spirit, the later Italian paintings do not hesitate to outperform the drama of night light, by magnifying or exaggerating the pictorial scenography of the night performances, undoubtedly influenced by the contemporary staging devices which exploit new knowledge in light, mainly the diorama, the transparencies, and soon enough the eidophusikon. In a similar promethean vein, the mythological connotations of Wright’s Italian paintings also tend to extol mankind, in that the viewers can easily identify with the mythological deities associated with the depicted light shows. In so doing, viewers of these paintings can take on the metaphorical attributes of light, traditionally reserved for sacredness and the Christian God. Beneath the terrestrial, and even telluric topoï that flatter human hubris, the privileged place of pictorial representations is the pandemonium, domain of Lucifer, the light-carrying angel but also the ruler of the kingdom of shades. Technical appropriation of light thus converges with benighted reflexes (let alone black arts) in the chosen pictures, giving way to metapictorial comments on shadow as both artistic and scientific inspiration.