Like Danby, Colman and some of the lesser-known artists of the Bristol School, such as Francis Gold, William West produced biblical scenes. The departure of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt - guided by God in the form of a pillar of cloud and fire - is told in the Old Testament book of Exodus. West approaches the narrative through the landscape itself and presents a dramatic night scene, with the intense radiance from the Pillar of Light streaming down on the tiny figures of Moses and the Israelites deep in the middle ground of the composition. The wilderness is captured as an entirely barren and overwhelming mountain range with rocks, sharp cliffs and gigantic boulders depicted in almost photo-realistic detail.

The religious story is amplified by the magnificence and sublimity of the natural setting, but the rock formations also reflect West's and the other Bristol artists' scientific interest in geology, which had developed into an academic discipline during the early 19th century. Much of this engagement happened at the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science, Literature and the Arts where the father of West's fellow artist William James Muller, the eminent geologist Johann Samuel Muller, worked as its first curator.

West was also interested in early photography and the slight distortion in the foreground of the scene may reflect the use or at least experience of pre-photographic optical devices to assist in the painting of landscape, especially since the 18th century. West's interest in optics extended to his lease of a ruined windmill on the Downs in 1828, above and to the west of what would become the site of the north pier of the Suspension Bridge. He adapted the site to house a camera obscura and create an observatory with a rotating telescope, and charged for entrance. In 1837 he opened another extraordinary endeavour to the public: a 91m tunnel, which he had excavated from the observatory down to St Vincent's Cave, a popular viewing point for visitors, on the cliff-face of the Avon Gorge. West's building appears in many of the Bristol School's views of the Gorge and is still open to the public as an observatory, as is the tunnel to the 'Giant's Cave'.

[From: 'Absolutely Bizarre! Strange Tales from the Bristol School of Artists (1800-1840)', catalogue of an exhibition held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Bordeaux, June 10 to October 17, 2021.]