"A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrery" (1765) by Joseph Wright of Derby

 "A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrery" (1765) by Joseph Wright of Derby

Written by Dipanjan Kundu

 

Joseph Wright of Derby painted this picture, christened "A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrery" to manifest the Enlightenment spirit of empirical epistemology founded upon scientific, rational perception. In the painting, we see a demonstration of an orrery, a mechanical model of the solar system. This model, needless to say, was used to convey the idea of the heliocentric universe, superseding the unscientific formulation of a geocentric conception, buoyed by the church for long. The eighteenth century was an age of new discoveries, colonialism, inception of industrial revolution - an era of prose and reason, as Matthew Arnold has appropriately streamlined. The orrery is used to exhibit the planets rotating around the sun, making the universe seem almost like a clock. This painting, if studied closely, can lead us to some amazing explorations. In the centre of the orrery, there is a lamp out of which the light is exuding and radiating the viewers' visages. It represents, though no clarification is required, the Sun, around which the arcs are limned. They stand for the orbits of the planets. Obviously, science is proffered the central position in this painting. But the exigency of a simple query surfaces: why is the lamp or symbolically the sun blocked from our view by the back of a boy? But seemingly, that lamp light is the very locus of concentration of the viewers within the picture. Therefore, it may be something else other than science which Joseph Wright is hinting at that can only be speculated upon by the viewers outside the painting, by us. Actually, the main theme of the painting is not science, but the reactions of new discoveries as reflected upon the appearances of the surrounding viewers. Look at the expressions of wonderment in the faces of two kids, of curiosity of a pupil scribbling notes, of excellence of the master pointing to the system, of humility in the boy in the right, and of fear in front of such gigantic universe ostended in the boy in the left corner. There is also another man in the right staring at the philosopher with reverence. Such variegated reciprocations graduate the thematic crust, accrued by the interwoven matrix of light and shadow, of an unctuous monochrome highlighting the stark red apron of the master.