W.M. Pether

This guy moonlighted as a tax man before moonlighting as an artist, imagine filling out forms by day and drawing candlelit still lifes by night. He had a knack for turning wax drips into dramatic landscapes, like a magician who makes shadows feel real. His "An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump" hangs in London’s Hunterian Museum, where people still pause to check if the bird’s really... you know.