Vesuvius in Eruption Postcard

Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the Islands in the Bay of Naples, Joseph Wright of Derby. Oil on canvas, 122 x 176.4 cm. London, Tate Britain Joseph Wright (3 September 1734 - 29 August 1797), styled Wright of Derby, was an English landscape and portrait painter. Wright is notable for his use of chiaroscuro effect, which emphasises the contrast of light and dark, and for his paintings of candle-lit subjects. His paintings of the birth of science out of alchemy, often based on the meetings of the Lunar Society, a group of very influential scientists and industrialists living in the English Midlands, are a significant record of the struggle of science against religious values in the period known as the Age of Enlightenment.