Eruption of Vesuvius 1771 seen from Portici
Historical Context
This Eruption of Vesuvius seen from Portici, around 1774, at the Huntington Library, records Wright's direct observation of the volcano during his Italian journey of 1773-75. The eruption provided the ultimate subject for an artist fascinated by dramatic light effects and the sublime power of nature. Joseph Wright of Derby's paintings of artificial light — candlelight, firelight, the glow of volcanic eruptions, the brilliance of fireworks — were his most original contribution to European painting. Trained in London under Thomas Hudson and deeply influenced by his observation of the candlelight and firework effects at English pleasure gardens, he brought to the depiction of artificial light a technical mastery that had no parallel in British painting of his time. His Italian journey of 1773-1775 exposed him to the dramatic natural light effects of Vesuvius in eruption and the fireworks at Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, experiences that intensified his lifelong fascination with the dramatic possibilities of non-natural illumination.
Technical Analysis
The volcanic eruption creates an incandescent light source that illuminates the Bay of Naples with fiery orange and red. Wright's scientific observation of the eruption's luminous effects is combined with his Romantic sensibility for nature's terrifying power.
Look Closer
- ◆The volcanic eruption's lava flow is rendered as a river of molten orange-red light in the darkness, the most intensely warm chromatic element in an otherwise cool nocturnal palette.
- ◆Wright places spectators in the foreground watching the eruption — figures of human scale that establish the geological enormity of Vesuvius while providing the viewer's emotional proxy.
- ◆The smoke column rising from the crater billows outward at the top in a mushroom-like spread, an observation Wright made from direct experience of the 1774 eruption.
- ◆The town of Portici in the foreground is lit by the eruptive glow with an orange warmth that differs from both the eruption's direct light and the moon's blue-silver cast — two competing light sources.
- ◆The Bay of Naples in the middle distance reflects both the moonlight and the lava glow, creating a water surface of unprecedented chromatic complexity for 18th-century painting.
See It In Person
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
San Marino, United States
Visit museum website →
_-_A_Moonlight_with_a_Lighthouse%2C_Coast_of_Tuscany_-_N05882_-_National_Gallery.jpg&width=600)
_-_An_Iron_Forge_-_T06670_-_Tate.jpg&width=600)
