Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Darkness

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 t...