Joseph Wright of Derby - Painter of Darkness (Hardcover)

A revelatory study of one of the 18th century's greatest artists, which places him in relation to the darker side of the English Enlightenment Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797), though conventionally known as a 'painter of light', returned repeatedly to nocturnal images. His essential preoccupations were dark and melancholy, and he had an enduring concern with death, ruin, old age, loss of innocence, isolation and tragedy. In this long-awaited book, Matthew Craske adopts a fresh approach to Wright, which takes seriously contemporary reports of his melancholia and nervous disposition, and goes on to question accepted understandings of the artist. Long seen as a quintessentially modern and progressive figure - one of the artistic icons of the English Enlightenment - Craske overturns this traditional view of the artist. He demonstrates the extent to which Wright, rather than being a spokesman for scientific progress, was actually a melancholic and sceptical outsider, who increasingly retreated into a solitary, rural world of philosophical and poetic reflection, and whose artistic vision was correspondingly dark and meditative. Craske offers a succession of new and powerful interpretations of the artist's paintings, including some of his most famous masterpieces. In doing so, he recovers Wright's deep engagement with the landscape, with the pleasures and sufferings of solitude, and with the themes of time, history and mortality. In this book, Joseph Wright of Derby emerges not only as one of Britain's most ambitious and innovative artists, but also as one of its most profound. Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

General

Imprint:	Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	November 2020
Authors:	Matthew Craske
Dimensions:	279 x 241 x 32mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover - Cloth over boards
Pages:	368
ISBN-13:	978-1-913107-12-3
Categories:	Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 1800 to 1900 > Romanticism Books > Arts & Architecture > Art forms, treatments & subjects > Art treatments & subjects > Individual artists > General Books > Arts & Architecture > Art forms, treatments & subjects > Art treatments & subjects > Iconography, subjects depicted in art > Human figures depicted in art > Portraits in art Books > Arts & Architecture > Art forms, treatments & subjects > Art treatments & subjects > Iconography, subjects depicted in art > Nature in art, still life, landscapes & seascapes > General
LSN:	1-913107-12-4
Barcode:	9781913107123

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