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| Sebastian Pether - Moonlight Scene |
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Joseph Wright of Derby - Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the Islands in the Bay of Naples, c.1776-80
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| Joseph Wright of Derby - Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the Islands in the Bay of Naples, c.1776-80 |
Joseph Wright toured Italy for the first and only time between 1773 and 1775 but drew on the experience for the rest of his career. In particular his imagination was gripped by the power of Mount Vesuvius, dominating the Bay of Naples and the surrounding area. He stayed in Naples from early October to early November 1774, too early to witness the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1777, and yet during his lifetime he painted over 30 views of the exploding volcano. It is of course possible that he experienced something close to an eruption while staying in Naples, since, according to Sir William Hamilton, the mountain had for many years 'never been free from smoke, nor ever many months without throwing up red-hot SCORIAE … usually followed by a current of liquid Lava' (quoted in Egerton 1991, p.166).
This picture appears to have been painted soon after Wright's return to England, with the aid of studies made on the spot. Wright has created a dramatic composition, taken from the foothills of Vesuvius, looking towards Sorrento and the island of Capri. The inclusion of the islands of Ischia and Procida, neither of which would be visible in reality, emphasises the tranquillity of the sea in contrast to the violence of the volcano. The white hot jet of molten liquid hurled up from the heart of the volcano is framed by dense black clouds, and a further wreath of smoke streams out across the bay, not quite obscuring a brilliant full moon. Wright explores his passion for chiaroscuro effects to the full, contrasting the red hot lava pouring down the sides of the mountain with the darkening sky and surrounding landscape. Scarcely visible in the sombre foreground, two men, followed by a mourning figure, carry the lifeless body of one of the volcano's victims. Wright may have intended the group to represent the death of the elder Pliny in the great eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. The relative insignificance of the figures in comparison to the power of the volcano adds a human element to the composition and stresses man's insignificance before the sublime grandeur of nature.
Julius Olsson - Twilight Moon
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| Julius Olsson - Twilight Moon |
The effects of light on objects and elements at twilight particular sparked Olsson’s creative imagination. In this view of Carbis Bay, the artist countered the shimmering silver moonlight reflected on the crest of the waves with the steady orange glow of Godreavy lighthouse, just visible on the horizon at left.
The picture was formerly in the collection of Charles Birt, a Pembrokeshire businessman whose interest in Olsson’s work was first excited when he discovered that his wife was distantly related to the artist by marriage. Birt acquired several of Olsson's most important exhibited works, as well as oil sketches, and his comparatively rare watercolours.
Jules-Adolphe-Aimé-Louis Breton - The Feast of Saint John, c.1875
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| Jules-Adolphe-Aimé-Louis Breton - The Feast of Saint John, c.1875 |
Since ancient times, peasants have celebrated the longest days of summer with festivities. This dance around a fire marks the feast of Saint John the Baptist on June 24, an important occasion in France.
Joseph Mallord William Turner - Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight, 1835
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| Joseph Mallord William Turner - Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight, 1835 |
Here Turner brings the great force of his romantic genius to a common scene of working–class men at hard labor. Although the subject of the painting is rooted in the grim realities of the industrial revolution, in Turner's hands it transcends the specifics of time and place and becomes an image of startling visual poetry.
An almost palpable flood of moonlight breaks through the clouds in a great vault that spans the banks of the channel and illuminates the sky and the water. The heavy impasto of the moon's reflection on the unbroken expanse of water rivals the radiance of the sky, where gradations of light create a powerful, swirling vortex. To the right, the keelmen and the dark, flat–bottomed keels that carried the coal from Northumberland and Durham down the River Tyne are silhouetted against the orange and white flames from the torches, as the coal is transferred to the sailing ships.
To the left, square riggers wait to sail out on the morning tide. Behind these ships Turner suggested the distant cluster of factories and ships with touches of gray paint and a few thin lines. Through the shadowy atmosphere ships' riggings, keels and keelmen, fiery torches, and reflections on the water merge into a richly textured surface pattern.
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