The experiment with the bird in the air pump
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| The experiment with the bird in the air pump |
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| Joseph Wright of Derby , 1767/1768 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 183 × 244 cm |
| National Gallery (London) |
An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump ( English An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump is) an oil painting from 1767 or 1768 by Joseph Wright of Derby , that the implementation of a vacuum -experiment of Robert Boyle shows.
background
In 1659 Robert Boyle commissioned the construction of an air pump (known today as a vacuum pump, then also known as the "pneumatic engine"). The air pump was an invention of Otto von Guericke in 1650, but the high cost had deterred scientists from recreating such an apparatus. Boyle, son of the Earl of Cork , had no such concerns - after the pump was completed, he quickly donated the first 1659 model to the Royal Society and had two newly designed models made for his own use. Aside from these three pumps Boyles, there were probably only four other pumps in the 1660s: Christiaan Huygens had one in The Hague , Henry Powers in Halifax may have had one, and there may have been pumps at Christ's College and Montmor Academy in Paris .
Boyle's pump was primarily designed by Robert Hooke and was both expensive, complicated, fragile, and difficult to operate. Nevertheless, it allowed him to carry out a series of experiments on the properties of air , including the "proof of the vital necessity of air for living beings ". In “Experiment 41”, Boyle wanted to research the necessity of breathing and lungs and for this purpose put a large number of different animals - birds, mice, eels, snails and flies - in the container of the pump and studied their reactions while the air was being pumped out. Here he describes an injured lark :
“... the bird for a while appear'd lively enough; but upon a greater Exsuction of the Air, she began manifestly to droop and appear sick, and very soon after was taken with as violent and irregular convulsions, as are wont to be observ'd in Poultry, when their heads are wrung off: For the Bird threw her self over and over two or three times, and dyed with her Breast upward, her Head downwards, and her Neck awry. "
“... for a while the bird appeared quite lively; but with the further decrease in air it began to become clearly exhausted and to appear sick and soon afterwards to show violent and uneven convulsions, like those shown in poultry whose head is turned off: for the bird threw itself around two or three times and died with it the stomach up, the head down and the neck askew. "
A hundred years later, when Wright created his painting in 1768, air pumps were quite common scientific instruments, and "The Animal in the Air Pump Experiment" was often the main attraction of wandering " Natural Philosophy Lecturers, " who were mostly more showmen than scientists. James Ferguson , Scottish astronomer and probably an acquaintance of Joseph Wright (both were friends of John Whitehurst ), wrote that a "lung-glass" with a small air-filled bladder in it was often used instead of an animal, as the use of a living being was shocking for the audience is.
painting
The painting is part of a series of candle-lit nocturnes he painted in the 1760s. The first, "Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight", which he painted in 1765, shows three men studying a model of the Borghese fencer . The picture was much admired, but his next painting, A Philosopher giving that lecture on the Orrery , in which a lamp is put in place of the Sun, or The Orrery for short, caused even greater excitement because it replaced the classical subject at the center of the scene with a scientific apparatus. The Orrery was painted without commission, probably in the expectation that it would be bought by Washington Shirley , 5th Earl Ferrers , an amateur astronomer who had his own planetarium and who stayed with Wright's friend, Peter Perez Burdett , when he was in Derbyshire . Ferrers bought the picture. It is now in the Derby Museum and Art Gallery .
The experiment with the bird in the air pump followed in 1768. The chaotic experiment contrasts with the neat scene of The Orrery. It shows a white cockatoo flapping in panic while the air is pumped out of the vessel. The witnesses show different emotions: one girl looks troubled by the fate of the bird, the other is too upset to watch and is comforted by her father; two gentlemen and a boy watch with interest, while the young couple on the left in the picture are only interested in each other. The scientist himself looks directly out of the picture, as if he were challenging the viewer to decide whether the bird should be killed by further pumping or the air should be returned and the bird should be saved. The only source of light creates a chiaroscuro effect; the boy in the background draws the curtains to block the light of the full moon. On the side is the bird's empty cage on the wall.
Edwin Mullins interprets the scene differently: the grim scientist opens the jar with his left hand, the assistant pulls down the birdcage to pick up the pigeon again, and another assistant watches a clock. Obviously the three have already done the experiment many times and the bird is in no danger.
The scientific subjects of Wright's paintings from this period were intended to please the wealthy scientific circles in which he moved. Although he was never a member himself, he had close ties to the Lunar Society and Josiah Wedgwood later hired him to create paintings. The painting was presented to the National Gallery in London by Edward Tyrell in 1863 .
In other works
The cover of the original English edition of the book The Science of Discworld (The Science of Discworld) by Terry Pratchett , Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen is a tribute to the painting, created by Paul Kidby . The characters in the painting have been replaced by the protagonists in the book.
The painting also adorns the cover of the volume of poetry Guerickes Sperling (2004), by Jan Wagner . The poem of the same name thematically connects Otto Guericke's experiment with that of Robert Boyle.
In the film James Bond 007 - Skyfall the picture is shown in the background of a scene in the National Gallery in London. Bond and his new Quartermaster Q discuss Turner's The Fighting Temeraire on the opposite side of Showroom 34 while sitting in front of Wright's painting. Turner lived in London at 119 Cheyne Walk, where Bond writer Ian Fleming also lived between 1923 and 1926.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Steven Shapin: Pump and Circumstance: Robert Boyle's Literary Technology . In: Social Studies of Science . tape 14 , no. 4 , November 1984, pp. 481-520 ( personal.si.umich.edu ( memento of March 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF]). Pump and Circumstance: Robert Boyle's Literary Technology ( Memento of the original from September 20, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Robert Boyle: New Experiments . 1660.
- ^ Paul Elliott: The Birth of Public Science in the English Provinces: Natural Philosophy in Derby, c. 1690-1760 . In: Annals of Science . tape 57 , no. 1 , January 1, 2000, p. 61-100 .
- ↑ Jenny Uglow : The Lunar Men . Faber and Faber, London, ISBN 0-571-19647-0 , pp. 588 .
- ↑ Jonathan Jones: Yes, it is art . The Guardian November 1, 2003, archived from the original February 14, 2008 ; Retrieved February 27, 2007 .
- ↑ 100 masterpieces from the world's great museums . Volume 3, p. 299.
- ↑ Stephen Farthing (Ed.): 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die . Quintet Publishing Ltd, London 2006, ISBN 1-84403-563-8 .
- ↑ An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump . The National Gallery , accessed February 27, 2007 .
