Why could this 1768 painting mark the true birth of modern art?

While air pumps were invented in 1650, the spirit of sharing scientific facts democratically was recent. “The spread of knowledge was new in the 18th century,” Riding told the BBC.

Photography of modern life

This brings us to the second component of modern art – the representation of modernization in society. This achievement is usually attributed to pioneering artists of the 19th century such as J. M. W. Turner.

Christine Riding believes that Wright’s innovation in this field was inspired by changing exhibition opportunities for artists in Britain at the time. Before the establishment of the Royal Academy, artists had the freedom to choose between several competing exhibition venues. One was the Society of Artists of Great Britain, where an experiment on a bird in an air pump was first shown to the public. “The Society of Artists encouraged arts, science and manufacturing,” says Riding. “This world was not inclined to separate art and science, but rather to view them as one and the same thing.”

Wright decisively exploited this new art scene and its encouragement of interdisciplinary thinking. She inspired him to make science a subject of art. This also reflects the broader changes taking place in eighteenth-century society, such as the Industrial Revolution, which was just beginning to set in motion in Great Britain, the center of which was the Midlands, Wright’s birthplace. Wright was smart enough to recognize the spirit of modernization and record it for posterity.

He even knew some of the leading figures of this important era, including members of the Lunar Society in Birmingham, which met to discuss scientific and industrial innovation, and Richard Arkwright, the first entrepreneur of the Industrial Revolution.