Science in the Industrial Revolution series

Lunar philosophersPatricia Fara

Clare College, Cambridge CB2 1TL, UK

Review Endeavour Vol.31 No.1

A close associate of the Lunar Society, Joseph Wright ofDerby painted several industrial and scientific scenes.This article (part of the Science in the Industrial Revolu-tion series) shows how two of his works – featuring anorrery and an alchemist – reveal the ideas and aspira-tions of the provincial philosophers who made up theSociety.

The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard remarked that life islived forwards but understood backwards. Historians hop-ing to understand their own times have punctuated thehistory of science with two major upheavals: the Scientificand the Industrial Revolutions. For many these haveacquired certainty through familiarity, yet now their rea-lity is being challenged: perhaps these Revolutions neverhappened, but have been invented? If so – and a moreinteresting question – why?

Retrospective interpretations reflect contemporarypreoccupations. The Scientific Revolution only gainedprominence after World War II, when it backed up optim-istic visions of science as a new international faith for apeaceful world. The Industrial Revolution was estab-lished by Victorian economic historians, who arguedthat British democracy originated from the industrializ-ation that gave workers economic power. Subsequentopinions about the Industrial Revolution reveal the per-sistence of ingrained prejudices, including the superiorityof the south over the north, of scientists over technol-ogists, and of individual inspiration over collectiveaspiration.

During the last 20 years, historians of sciencewith theirown revolutionary agendas have focused on the LunarSociety, that informal group of provincial philosopherswho met when the full moon would illuminate their jour-neys (and perhaps also their minds). Correspondingly,historians of art have rediscovered Joseph Wright ofDerby (1734–1797), the local painter who portrayed theLunar men’s faces as well as their factories: Wright’sstriking portraits include the physician Erasmus Darwinand the cotton manufacturer Richard Arkwright.Although he established his career in London, Wrightconfounded expectations by moving back to the Midlands,where he cultivated wealthy customers and helped toconsolidate the growing reputation of the region as acommercial and cultural centre that rivalled the southernprovinces.

Corresponding author: Fara, P. (pf10006@cam.ac.uk).Available online 2 March 2007.

www.sciencedirect.com 0160-9327/$ – see front matter � 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserve

Like historians, artists both interpret and representtheir subjects, and Wright’s apparently realistic portraitsare imbued with symbolic significance. He devotedunusually careful attention to the titles of his works –Figure 1 was called A Philosopher Giving that Lecture onthe Orrery, in which a Lamp is put in Place of the Sun. ForEnlightenment propagandists, orreries held a similariconic value to that of the double helix today, providingan immediately recognizable emblem of scientific pro-gress. Named after an Earl of Orrery, these intricateclockwork instruments were designed not for researchbut for demonstration. In Figure 1, when the youngman has finished taking notes, the lecturer will turnthe handle of the orrery so that the miniature planets –some with their own tiny moons – will revolve at speedsproportional to those of the heavenly bodies. In choosingto depict such an expensive and complex instrument,Wright advertised the wealth of the Midlands as wellas its cultural sophistication, which is emphasized furtherby the leather-bound books and the attentive, well-dressed audience.

Orreries displayed the mechanical perfection ofplanetary orbits and combined the technical ingenuity ofBritish craftsmen with the intellectual supremacy of thecountry’s greatest philosopher, IsaacNewton. Just asNew-tonian laws rule the universe, so this philosopher in hisornate red and green banyan controls events in the win-dowless library. Instead of representing the sun with abrass ball at the centre of the orrery, Wright used a hiddenlight, thus referring visually to Dutch devotional pictures;in depicting the lecturer’s authority over the six seatedfigures clustered around the table, he recalls older meta-phors linking God and the sun, and the solar system andthe royal court:

That Sol self-pois’d in Aether does reside,

And thence exerts his Virtue far and wide;

Like Ministers attending e’ery Glance,

SixWorlds sweep round his Throne inMystick Dance

d. d

[1]

This picture also suggests more recent literary imagerythat had been stimulated by industrial expansion. Poetslikened regular Newtonian motion to rotating mechanicalequipment, thus uniting the artificial and the naturalworlds with a common theme of harmonious order. Darwindescribed Arkwright’s spinning machinery as if it operated

oi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2007.01.007

Figure 1. A Philosopher giving that Lecture on the Orrery, in which a lamp is put in place of the Sun, 1766. Reproduced with permission from Derby Museums & Art Gallery.

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autonomously, making no mention of the labourersrequired to tend it:

With quicken’d pace successive rollers move,

And these retain, and those extend the rove;

Then fly the spoles, the rapid axles glow; –

And slowly circumvolves the labouring wheel below[2]

Wright featured a similar central light in otherindustrial and scientific paintings, but in The Alchymist,in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone, Discovers Phos-phorus, and Prays for the Successful Conclusion of hisOperation, as was the Custom of the Ancient ChymicalAstrologers (Figure 2), he shows three sources ofillumination: the apprentice’s small flame, the glimmer-ing moon and – most dramatically – the phosphorus blaz-ing out from its sealed flask. Phosphorus had been isolatedaround a century earlier, andwas one of several intriguingsubstances (including rotting wood, putrefying fish andglow-worms) grouped together as ‘phosphoruses’ becausethey emitted light as if they were burning; yet remainedcold.

In contrast to the provincial present he apparentlyportrayed in his orrery picture, here Wright has createda semi-fictitious past. Resembling a Platonic cave withshadows shimmering on the walls, this dark monasticcell is cluttered with esoteric apparatus; mysteriouscloths, objects and books are piled up on the altar-high

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table next to a broken wall. Argument through selectiverepresentation is one tactic used by supporters of Revolu-tions, but Wright’s message remains enigmatic. As anassociate of the Lunar Society, he was well versed inmodern chemistry, and had read recent textbooks to checkthe details of phosphorus production. On one interpret-ation, Wright is advertising his colleagues’ achievementsby mocking a vanished alchemical age, letting the Lunarlight of reason shine through the clouds of superstitionbehind the shuttered Gothic windows. But if this were hisintention, then Wright would surely have replicated car-icatures of dirty, manic visionaries vainly searching forgold. Instead, he has painted an immaculate, soberly robedfigure kneeling in prayer – as his title indicates – before alight that is simultaneously divine and secular, thus sym-bolically mirroring the moon that has been created by Godbut also inspired contemporary science. By representingalchemy as a spiritual quest for personal as well asmaterial improvement, Wright seems to be endorsingthe views of Darwin and other philosophers who, in appar-ent contradiction to their Lunar rationality, embracedMasonic mysticism.

AlthoughWright reworked his Alchymist long after firstexhibiting it, nobody purchased this ambiguous scene. Incontrast, he sold many engravings of his orrery painting,which was bought by a local aristocrat, Lord Ferrers,himself an ambivalent character. Eminent in Derby aswell as in metropolitan social circles, Ferrers was one ofEngland’s leading Freemasons. Moreover, he was also anenthusiastic astronomer, and in 1761 was elected to theRoyal Society.

Figure 2. The Alchymist, in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone, Discovers Phosphorus, and prays for the successful Conclusion of his operation, as was the custom of the

Ancient Chymical Astrologers. Exhibited in 1771, then subsequently reworked and dated 1795. Reproduced with permission from Derby Museums & Art Gallery.

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AcknowledgementsI am grateful to Janet Vertesi for making me think anew aboutthese pictures. For factual details, I have used the best introductoryguide: Daniels, S. (1999) Joseph Wright, Tate Gallery Publishing (London,UK)

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References1 Desaguliers, J.T. (1728) The Newtonian System of the World, the Best

Model of Government, pp. 22–24, (London, UK)2 Darwin, E. (1794) The Loves of the Plants, J. Johnson (London, UK),

canto II, lines 101–104