An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump – cut to length line Manufacturer – China slitting machine

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(4322, ‘Historical background Title page of Robert Boyle s New Experiments of 1660 in which he detailed how to perform the experiment In 1659 Robert Boyle commissioned the construction of an air pump then described as a pneumatic engine which is known today as a vacuum pump The air pump was invented by Otto von Guericke in 1650 though its cost deterred most contemporary scientists from constructing the apparatus Boyle the son of the Earl of Cork had no such concernsfter its construction he donated the initial 1659 model to the Royal Society and had a further two redesigned machines built for his personal use Aside from Boyle s three pumps there were probably no more than four others in existence during the 1660s Christian Huygens had one in The Hague Henry Power may have had one at Halifax and there may have been pumps at Christ s College Cambridge and the Montmor Academy in Paris Boyle s pump which was largely designed to Boyle s specifications and constructed by Robert Hooke was complicated temperamental and problematic to operate Many demonstrations could only be performed with Hooke on hand and Boyle frequently left critical public displays solely to Hookehose dramatic flair matched his technical skill Despite the operational and maintenance obstacles construction of the pump enabled Boyle to conduct a great many experiments on the properties of air which he later detailed in his New Experiments Physico Mechanicall Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects Made for the Most Part in a New Pneumatical Engine In the book he described in great detail 43 experiments he conducted on occasion assisted by Hooke on the effect of air on various phenomena Boyle tested the effects of rarified air on combustion magnetism sound and barometers and examined the effects of increased air pressure on various substances He listed two experiments on living creatures Experiment 40 which tested the ability of insects to fly under reduced air pressure and the dramatic Experiment 41 which demonstrated the reliance of living creatures on air for their survival In this attempt to discover something about the account upon which Respiration is so necessary to the Animals that Nature hath furnish d with Lungs Boyle conducted numerous trials during which he placed a large variety of different creatures including birds mice eels snails and flies in the vessel of the pump and studied their reactions as the air was removed Here he describes an injured lark the Bird for a while appear d lively enough but upon a greater Exsuction of the Air she began manifestly to droop and appear sick and very soon after was taken with as violent and irregular Convulsions as are wont to be observ d in Poultry when their heads are wrung off For the Bird threw her self over and over two or three times and dyed with her Breast upward her Head downwards and her Neck awry By the time Wright painted his picture in 1768 air pumps were a relatively commonplace scientific instrument and itinerant lecturers in natural philosophy sually more showmen than scientistsften performed the animal in the air pump experiment as the centrepiece of their public demonstration These were performed in town halls and other large buildings for a ticket buying audience or were booked by societies or for private showings in the homes of the well off the setting suggested in both of Wright s demonstration pieces One of the most notable and respectable of the travelling lecturers was James Ferguson FRS a Scottish astronomer and probable acquaintance of Joseph Wright both were friends of John Whitehurst Ferguson noted that a lungs glass with a small air filled bladder inside was often used in place of the animal as using a living creature was too shocking to every spectator who has the least degree of humanity Painting Background During his apprenticeship and early career Wright concentrated on portraiture By 1762 he was an accomplished portrait artist and his 1764 group portrait James Shuttleworth his Wife and Daughter is acknowledged as his first true masterpiece Benedict Nicolson suggests that Wright was influenced by the work of Thomas Frye in particular by the 18 bust length mezzotints which Frye completed just before his death in 1762 It was perhaps Frye s candlelight images that tempted Wright to experiment with subject pieces Wright s first attempt A Girl reading a Letter by candlelight with a Young Man looking over her shoulder from 1762 or 1763 is a trial in the genre and is fetching though uncomplicated Wright s An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump forms part of a series of candlelit nocturnes that he produced between 1765 and 1768 Candlelit scene by Godfried Schalcken There was a long history of painting candlelit scenes in Western art although as Wright had not at this date travelled abroad there remains uncertainty as to what paintings he might have seen in the original as opposed to prints Nicolson who made studies of both Wright and other candlelight painters such as the 17th century Utrecht Caravaggisti thought their paintings among the largest in the style those most likely to have influenced Wright However Judy Egerton wonders if he could have seen any preferring as influences the far smaller works of the Leiden fijnschilder Godfried Schalcken 16431706 whose reputation was much greater in the early 18th century than subsequently He had worked in England from 1692 to 1697 and several of his paintings can be placed in English collections in Wright s day Although he was the leading expert on them who wrote in English Nicolson does not suggest that Wright is likely to have known of the 17th century candlelit narrative religious subjects of Georges de La Tour and Trophime Bigot which in their seriousness are the closest works to Wright that are lit only by candle The Dutch painters works and other candlelit scenes by 18th century English painters such as Henry Morland father of George tended instead to exploit the possibilities of semi darkness for erotic suggestiveness Some of Wright s own later candlelit scenes were by no means as serious as his first ones as seen from their titles Two Boys Fighting Over a Bladder and Two Girls Dressing a Kitten by Candlelight Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight 1765 A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery 1768 The first of his candlelit masterpieces Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight was painted in 1765 and showed three men studying a small copy of the Borghese Gladiator The Gladiator was greatly admired but his next painting A Philosopher giving that Lecture on the Orrery in which a Lamp is put in place of the Sun normally known by the shortened form A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery or just The Orrery caused a greater stir as it replaced the Classical subject at the centre of the scene with one of a scientific nature Wright s depiction of the awe produced by scientific miracles marked a break with traditions in which the artistic depiction of such wonder was reserved for religious events since to Wright the marvels of the technological age were as awe inspiring as the subjects of the great religious paintings In both of these works the candlelit setting had a realist justification Viewing sculpture by candlelight when the contours showed well and there might even be an impression of movement from the flickering light was a fashionable practice described by Goethe In the orrery demonstration the shadows cast by the lamp representing the sun were an essential part of the display used to demonstrate eclipses But there seems no reason other than heightened drama to stage the air pump experiment in a room lit by a single candle and in two later paintings of the subject by Charles Amde Philippe van Loo the lighting is normal The painting was one of a number of British works challenging the set categories of the rigid French dictated hierarchy of genres in the late 18th century as other types of painting aspired to be treated as seriously as the costumed history painting of a Classical or mythological subject In some respects the Orrery and Air Pump subjects resembled conversation pieces then largely a form of middle class portraiture though soon to be given new status when Johann Zoffany began to paint the royal family in about 1766 Given their solemn atmosphere however and as it seems none of the figures are intended to be understood as portraits even if models may be identified the paintings can not be regarded as conversation pieces The 20th century art historian Ellis Waterhouse compares these two works to the genre serieux of contemporary French drama as defined by Denis Diderot and Pierre Beaumarchais a view endorsed by Egerton An anonymous review from the time called Wright a very great and uncommon genius in a peculiar way The Orrery was painted without a commission probably in the expectation that it would be bought by Washington Shirley 5th Earl Ferrers an amateur astronomer who had an orrery of his own and with whom Wright s friend Peter Perez Burdett was staying while in Derbyshire Figures thought to be portraits of Burdett and Ferrers feature in the painting Burdett taking notes and Ferrers seated with his son next to the orrery Ferrers purchased the painting for 210 but the 6th Earl auctioned it off and it is now held by Derby Museum and Art Gallery Detail Detail from the painting An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump followed in 1768 the emotionally charged experiment contrasting with the orderly scene from The Orrery The painting which measures 72 by 94 160 inches 183 by 244 160 cm shows a white cockatoo fluttering in panic as the air is slowly withdrawn from the vessel by the pump The witnesses display various emotions one of the girls worriedly watches the fate of the bird while the other is too upset to observe and is comforted by her father two gentlemen one of them dispassionately timing the experiment and a boy look on with interest while the young lovers to the left of the painting are absorbed only in each other The scientist himself looks directly out of the picture as if challenging the viewer to judge whether the pumping should continue killing the bird or whether the air should be replaced and the cockatoo saved Aside from that of the children little sympathy is directed toward the bird David Solkin suggests the subjects of the painting show the dispassionate detachment of the evolving scientific society Individuals are concerned for each other the father for his children the young man for the girl but the distress of the cockatoo elicits only careful study To one side of the boy at the rear the cockatoo s empty cage can be seen on the wall and to further heighten the drama it is unclear whether the boy is lowering the cage on the pulley to allow the bird to be replaced after the experiment or hoisting the cage back up certain of its former occupant s death It has also been suggested that he may be drawing the curtains to block out the light from the full moon An earlier oil sketch showed the demonstrator in a more reassuring pose The bird here was a common songbird Jenny Uglow believes that the boy echoes the figure in the last print of William Hogarth s The Four Stages of Cruelty by pointing out the arrogance and potential cruelty of experimentation while David Fraser also sees the compositional similarities with the audience grouped round a central demonstration The neutral stance of the central character and the uncertain intentions of the boy with the cage were both later ideas an early study discovered on the back of a self portrait omits the boy and shows the natural philosopher reassuring the girls In this sketch it is obvious that the bird will survive and thus the composition lacks the power of the final version Wright who took many of his subjects from English poetry probably knew the following passage from The Wanderer 1729 by Richard Savage So in some Engine that denies a Vent If unrespiring is some Creature pent It sickens droops and pants and gasps for Breath Sad o er the Sight swim shad wy Mists of Death If then kind Air pours powerful in again New Heats new Pulses quicken ev ry Vein From the clear d lifted life rekindled Eye Dispers d the dark and dampy Vapours fly The figures beside the bird have been compared to some late medieval Trinities The cockatoo would have been a rare bird at the time and one whose life would never in reality have been risked in an experiment such as this It did not become well known until after it was shown in illustrations to the accounts of the voyages of Captain Cook in the 1770s Prior to Cook s voyage cockatoos had been imported only in small numbers as exotic cage birds Wright had painted one in 1762 at the home of William Chase featuring it both in his portrait of Chase and his wife Mr amp Mrs William Chase and a separate study The Parrot In selecting such a rarity for this scientific sacrifice Wright not only chose a more dramatic subject than the lungs glass but was perhaps making a statement about the values of society in the Age of Enlightenment The white plumage of the cockatoo also shows much more effectively in the darkened room than the small dull coloured bird in Wright s early oil sketch The group of the bird and the two nearest figures has been compared to a type of depiction of the Trinity found in Early Netherlandish painting where the Holy Spirit is represented by a dove to which God the Father the philosopher points while Christ the father gestures in blessing to the viewer On the table are various other pieces of equipment that the natural philosopher would have used during his demonstration a thermometer candle snuffer and cork and close to the man seated to the right is a pair of Magdeburg hemispheres which would have been used with the air pump to demonstrate the difference in pressure exerted by the air and a vacuum when the’)

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