Joseph Wright of Derby, 1734–1797, British, active in Italy (1773–75)
Title:
Academy by Lamplight
Date:
1769
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
50 x 39 3/4 inches (127 x 101 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1973.1.66
Gallery Label:
This painting presents an imaginary art academy. A group of young male artists, representing an ideal community bound by fraternal affection, gather around a plaster cast of the Nymph with a Shell. In Wright’s day, the contemplation of art was regarded as a civilizing act, softening rough manners and unruly appetites and making the beholder a more virtuous person. Wright contrasts the refining influence of the nymph with the Borghese Gladiator statue in the background, which represents rough and aggressive masculinity. Eighteenth-century British culture was forever seeking ways to paper over the cracks within its commercial society, and Wright’s paintings frequently suggest the power of art to reconcile disparate social and political interests. Wright exhibited this picture with the Society of Artists in 1769, where it was praised warmly by the critics. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
