Life or death in Joseph Wright’s 1768 painting | Letter
Harriet Monkhouse responds to a review of the National Gallery exhibition that includes An Experiment on a Bird in the Air PumpRe Jonathan Jones’s review of the Joseph Wright of...
By Guardian Staff · The Guardian Opinion
Harriet Monkhouse responds to a review of the National Gallery exhibition that includes An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump Re Jonathan Jones’s review of the Joseph Wright of Derby exhibition at the National Gallery, and his 1768 painting An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump ( Wright of Derby: From the Shadows review – science, skeletons and a suffocated cockatoo, 4 November ), the good news is that the bird probably doesn’t die after all. An episode of Radio 4’s Moving Pictures , broadcast in February, told us that the air pump resembles those produced in this period by Benjamin Martin, which were supplied with instructions for experiments to try at home. Continue reading...