Romeo and Juliet: the Tomb Scene

Joseph Wright of Derby painted Romeo and Juliet: the Tomb Scene around 1790, depicting Shakespeare's tragic climax — Romeo's suicide beside the supposedly dead Juliet, Juliet's awakening to find Romeo dying — in a torchlit tomb setting that perfectly suited Wright's skills in artificial light and nocturnal drama. The Shakespearean subject was a standard of late eighteenth-century painting following the Shakespeare Gallery's promotion of literary illustration as a serious artistic genre, and Wright's contribution brought his characteristic combination of intense tenebrism and Romantic emotional content to Shakespeare's most celebrated tragedy. The tomb's darkness and the torchlight create the dramatic intensity the subject demands.

The tomb scene is lit by Romeo's torch, creating the intense light-and-shadow contrasts that define Wright's style. The warm illumination on Juliet's seemingly lifeless form contrasts with the cold darkness of the vault.