Wright of Derby: From the Shadows, National Gallery review – an exhibition that illuminates the shadows of the enlightenment age

Mark Hudson | The Independent | 5th November 2025

Wright trained in London but then returned to regional Derby. Despite being technically prodigious, some have regarded him as a “provincial” artist. He followed Caravaggio’s heightened light and shade, using it in his “seminal” images of the British Enlightenment. Two works that show “scientists” demonstrating experiments convey an unease with the power of their knowledge. Supposedly provincial Wright had articulated the age-old fear of “the scientist playing God”.