- see image: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump 1768 The English town of Derby built such a reputation as a porcelain manufacturing region during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that we still associate Derby with pottery. Yet porcelain was but one of the consumer goods produced in the region, for Derby was a major birthing centre of the industrial revolution. Also, because of its location in the heart of the industrial Midlands, in the nineteenth century it became a major railway centre linking the region to London about 200 kilometers away. This thumbnail sketch of Derby is necessary because, until recent decades, the English painter Joseph Wright (1734 - 1797 ) was know almost exclusively as Wright of Derby.1 The reason for this was not because he may have been confused with another contemporary artist of the same name but to stress the spectacularly strange fact that Joseph Wright did not live and work in London but made his reputation from a base out in the provinces, in Derby of all places. The equivalent situation in Australia today might produce a Wright of Wollongong, Wright of Dubbo, Wright of Wagga Wagga or Wright of Albury-Wodonga. Joseph Wright lived during the so called European Enlightenment when it was common to enshrine prejudices in language. Well, in these anti-Enlightenment times no one would be so crass as to flaunt the pejorative implication of being a provincial in this way and for this reason in recent art history books Wright of Derby is often simply "Joseph Wright." Not in his home town of Derby, however. In the Derby Museum he is the star attraction and proudly billed as Wright of Derby. Presumably, the locals see no contradiction
in Joseph Wright being tagged as posterity's provincial artist. On the
contrary, the association of Wright with Derby is an essential element
in that economic savior of many a provincial town or city, cultural
tourism. We are familiar with the phenomenon in Australia by the association
of Bradman with Bowral; if I can be forgiven for bringing the idea of
gawking at old cricket bats and caps within the compass of culture.
There is no disputing the status of the Don in the history of cricket
and likewise in the more esoteric field of painting Joseph Wright is
now regarded as one of the greatest English artists of the eighteenth
century, and among the greats in the history of British art. His highly
original painting An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) is
one of the most memorable and emblematic images of the Looking back, especially from the perspective of a provincial city, the career of Joseph Wright takes on a compelling and disturbing interest. He seems to be the sole exception to the rule that artistic innovation and representative historical insight can only be generated close to the centre or engine room of cultural capital in major cosmopolitan cities. In fact, in the history of Anglo-Australian art, Wright seems to be the only artist to have achieved national or international fame from a base outside a major capital city. To highlight the exceptional nature of his career, it is important to stress that although he studied briefly in London and made the obligatory brief tour of Italy his entire working life which brought recognition and riches was spent in Derby. It is relatively common for artists to establish a reputation in the cosmopolitan centres and move to the country or provinces. In Australia, we have the famous example of William Dobell's move from Kings Cross to Wangi Wangi or in more recent times artists such as Richard Larter moving to Yass or Imants Tillers move from Sydney to Cooma. More commonly artists move from country or provincial towns to major cities to establish their reputations and of this group few move back to the provinces. The profile of Joseph Wright defies all of these in that he stayed put in the Midlands for the duration of his highly successful career. The fiction of history is no longer acceptable to teach us lessons yet correspondences, affinities and analogies are always instructive and Wright's career is surely the exemplary model of the provincial artist. He made his provincialism relevant on his own and more universal terms. One thing is certain, Joseph Wright did not transcend his isolation from flashy London by the flamboyance of his personality, his outrageous behavior or with any posture which might conform to the stereotype of an artist. As one recent writer noted, they will never make a Hollywood movie of his life. Not only was he "one of the mildest and most ordinary of men" but his life was excruciatingly middle class: son of an attorney, "a faithful husband to one wife, a cherishing father, an endearing friend and a convivial fellow." 2 In fact, apart from bouts of depression in his last years, the one dramatic element in his life seems to be his decision to abandon London for Derby, although he did briefly try working in Liverpool and Bath. In Australia we might like to believe
that from cultural deserts prophets come, but the argument that provincial
artists have greater openness to new ideas is probably the creation
of a patronizing cosmopolitan. For the first barrier to be overcome
by any provincial artist is acknowledgment of the problem of provincialism
which is usually and wrongly described as isolation. This is just another
way of confirming or reinforcing the idea that the distance from the
metropolis is the problem. If I can reclaim a nuclear metaphor - the
fuel rods necessary for the conditions of cultural production: style,
iconography, training, institutions and patronage exist in both the
provincial and metropolitan environment. It is only in the metropolis
that the diversity and density of these key factors easily ensure critical
mass. In provincial regions a chain reaction is more No doubt, the artists in this exhibition overcome this problem in similar ways to Joseph Wright. Wright was connected to the Internet, or at least the eighteenth-century equivalent of the Internet, the lecture tours by scientific scholars who demonstrated the latest apparatus and experiments (the source of two of his most famous works). This is not a far-fetched or original correspondence, for Barbara Stafford has not only made this connection or link between the Internet and eighteenth-century laboratory life but also positioned Wright within it. 3 It also seems that Wright owned and used a camera obscura, the latest image producing technology. He kept abreast of the latest scientific and industrial innovations, read widely and owned or had access to an extensive collection of prints. He recognised the value of training and tradition, his two formal stints of tuition in London being undertaken with singular intensity and diligence. Along with his study tour of Italy, he absorbed the dominant classical vocabulary through copying of pattern books and plaster casts, yet was conversant with contemporary trends in Dutch and French art. On top of all this he painted portraits of every important local dignitary - those who had sufficient money to pay him handsomely, that is. Wright exhibited his paintings in the local Town Hall but ensured his work was shown regularly in the major exhibitions in London and sought out clients for his pictures as far afield as the Empress of Russia. Wright's location in a provincial town allowed him to see the full mosaic of eighteenth-century life from intimate domestic to panoptic global, from dynamic present to epic past. Because of his training, highly developed skills and knowledge of new technology he was able to translate his vision to a vivid, poetic and highly original pictorial expression. It almost goes without saying that fortune favoured Joseph Wright in the same way it does any successful artist regardless of the location in which they work. Also, this focus on provincialism obscures the disadvantage that social status, class or gender can become for an aspiring artist whatever their level of skill and intellect. After all, the only woman among the pantheon of greats in the eighteenth-century English School was Joseph Wright's cosmopolitan contemporary, Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807). Ross Woodrow notes: 2 Bennett Schiff, "From the Midlands,
a unique master of light and 3 Barbara Maria Stafford, "Desperately
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