The mezzotint served as a vital instructional tool for Joseph Wright of Derby, sparking an obsession with chiaroscuro that endured throughout his decorated career, and ultimately shaped the visual language of the Enlightenment in Britain. When still a child, he collected impressions born from this novel printing technique, spending hours making fastidious copies in pencil and ink so that he might master dramatic forms of light and shadow.
Although the mezzotint (derived from the Italian word for ‘half-tone’) originated in Germany in the mid 17th century, it was in Britain and Ireland that it truly thrived, becoming known as la manière anglaise – the English style.
Unlike engraving and line-etching, this technique is formed entirely from tonal qualities, making it particularly suitable for reimagining the qualities of the painter’s brush. Instead of inflicting marks on to a polished plate, a mezzotinter utilises a piece of metal with a rough surface akin to sandpaper. The plate catches ink in its raised ‘teeth’, thus producing a pitch-black, velvety surface when printed. To produce areas of highlight, this roughness must be carefully flattened and burnished away. Ultimately, it is a process of pulling light from the darkness. What could be more apt for an age defined by illuminating the mind through scientific, philosophical and artistic discovery?
Wright’s success came from capitalising on this new cultural phenomenon. He moved on from a rather staid tradition of aristocratic portraiture and landscapes to produce ensemble pictures focused on dramatic spectacle, human intimacy and technological innovation. Inspired by his visits to Italy, he became enamoured by the qualities of tenebrism, a dramatic form of extreme light and dark in which the shadows themselves become a subject and protagonist. In his ‘candlelight paintings’ his figures are practically life-sized, illuminated by a warm, flickering flame that symbolises a path to intellectual enlightenment, as they follow the new fashion for socially minded enrichment, whether it be a scientific experiment or artistic study.
In An Academy by Lamplight (1772), for example, youthful students are depicted as if basking in the glow of a Classical sculpture. Similarly, in An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) and A Philosopher Giving That Lecture on the Orrery in Which a Lamp is Put in the Place of the Sun (exhibited 1766) it is the instruments themselves that glow. He went on to expand the genre, depicting blacksmith shops and forges that both celebrated and idealised such trade, while experiments with more devotional themes are evident in the ecstatic imagery of The Alchymist (1771–95).
Wright produced these pictures specifically with mezzotint reproductions in mind. He worked with some of the greatest artisans of the day – including Valentine Green, Thomas Watson and William Pether – to reimagine his compositions in exacting monochrome. Often, these luxurious, large-scale prints were exhibited alongside his works on canvas, such was their popularity and significance when it came to generating sales.
The artist owed a debt to the mezzotinters that had come before. Specialist Thomas Frye, who trained Pether, published a series of life-sized ‘character heads’ that appeared in decadent shadow, from 1760 to 1762. Earlier pioneers such as Bernard Lens II had already laid the groundwork too, with fanciful images such as Fireworks in Covent Garden (1690), in which the sound of roaring flames and gunpowder is practically palpable.
Wright was also no stranger to the new entertainments that merged high and low culture. Public art exhibitions had become more commonplace, as had raree boxes, which functioned like magic lanterns to reveal miniature illuminated pictorial shows. Even print shops themselves indulged in what might now be termed ‘immersive experiences’. Dealers were known for filling their windows with an array of prints, to delight passers-by and customers alike. Mezzotints proved the perfect dramatic fodder. When lit from behind, these shadowy images seemed to come to life, flickering among the lamplight and dancing within the darkness, in a world all of their own.
‘Wright of Derby: From the Shadows’ runs at the National Gallery, London, until 10 May 2026. For more information, visit nationalgallery.org.uk
‘The Story of Printmaking: A Global History of Art’, by Holly EJ Black, is published by Yale. For more information, visit yalebooks.co.uk
