As London’s winter evenings surrender early to darkness, a different kind of light awaits us in the National Gallery’s Sunley Room. This week on Apartment No: 26’s art route, we follow the trail of Joseph Wright of Derby—a light that filters into the depths of science, curiosity, and the human soul.
The National Gallery is saluting one of the most dramatic masters of British painting with the exhibition “From the Shadows,” running until May 10, 2026. This is the first major exhibition dedicated to the artist’s famous “candlelight” paintings. Yet it is not merely a play of light; behind the sharp chiaroscuro contrasts reminiscent of Caravaggio lies humanity’s passion for learning and its existential anguish.
The exhibition shakes the traditional view that sees Wright of Derby solely as a “painter of light.” He captures on canvas not only the scientific excitement of the Enlightenment era but also the sublime feeling brought by death, melancholy, and skepticism.
The heart of the exhibition undoubtedly beats in “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump.” The expressions on the faces gathered around a candle—the children’s horror, the scientist’s composure, the onlookers’ curiosity… Wright invites us not only to an experiment but to an interrogation of the moral consequences of the act of “looking.” From classical sculptures to scientific instruments, every object becomes a dramatic witness under this candlelight.
