Wright of Derby’s “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” (1768) is currently at the Huntington, on loan from the National Gallery, in exchange for "The Blue Boy".
Can we keep it? It's a picture that's needed here.
Besides, we have Kehinde Wiley's brilliant "Portrait of a young gentleman" installed handsomely now in "The Blue Boy"s place.
I first encountered “Air Pump” in the middle of the George W. Bush era, where it struck me of an alarmingly prescient allegory of my world.
But it is not an allegory; it’s a drama. The figures do not represent Natural History and Superstition or other ideas, but demonstrate distinct individual responses to the business at hand.
Which is what? Not an experiment in the sense of discovering new knowledge. Rather a demonstration a fact already established. But it’s also a theatrical spectacle – a magic trick.
The magician in question is demonstrating the creation of a vacuum with extreme vividness, by suffocating a lovely exotic bird. He is making concepts of air and vacuums concrete and impressive. He is imparting knowledge, first hand.
But if science is the pretext, but his pose, gestures and expression are of the stage. He looks like a veteran actor poised to emit a resounding universal curse.
His young assistant works away on the pump, looking over his shoulder doubtfully.
Two other young men look on, taking it in with earnest absorption.
Another pair – a young man and young woman ignore the experiment entirely, being intent on flirting with each other.
Two little girls recoil in horror from the sight of the bird being suffocated. They are gently chided by their father, who encourages them to focus on the important lesson being illustrated.
He’s an enlightened father, wishing his daughters as well as sons to have the benefit of this education.
Another old man sits at the desk lost in thought. He’s not looking at the experiment, but seems to be looking beyond it to all that will follow, to Watt’s steam engine, the power loom, the Luddites, railroads, mechanization, industrialization, electrification, digitization, … this.
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