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Fire - Joseph Wright of Derby - 1395

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This nocturnal scene features dramatic contrasts: the hot red light of the fire versus the cool white moonlight, the cottage and suroundings are abruptly consumed by flames. 1793
 
The fire was an obvious choice of landscape art for the painter to accentuate the effect between moonlight and smoke filled sky so dark. A canvas illuminating the power of vivid red hot to stark. Depicted the conditions, unbearable and the growing flames are fanned by the breeze. The artist gives life to the power of fire creating smells and visions with ease. Delving into the artists intensions, we see what he wants us to see. Wind is an enemy and the hungry flames are shown to catch the trunks of each mighty tree. The sky, black as choking smoke fills the air, it would be hard to breathe. Treetops, ablaze and what’s home to the animals had begun to wilt and seethe. Fast travelling flames, on the run, image denotes a smell intense, everything blazing. The visions created, spark imagination to become amazing. Sounds seem almost audible - of crackling as branches would be snapped and fall. The flame’s speed is amazing as brushstrokes tell it all. Billowing smoke, and I am sure I can smell the acrid odor of charred wood as trees tumble into ashes. Crimson hot flames reach skyward, and they glisten as the wild inferno flashes. Surely panic subdues as the ravenous effects of the fire disband. Desolation is depicted as it traveled over the punished land.

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