Artistic depictions of CLOUDS…!!

There’s something about looking at clouds that makes me feel surrendered.Spreading, moving, and floating are billowy masses with celestial impressions heaped on top of one another. Curling, twisting wispy strokes leave whispering trails. As the sun sets, brilliant crimson canopies undulate. Clouds are impenetrable, transitory, and overwhelming at the same time; a deep natural language that changes and adapts to whatever the spectator wishes it to be.One with an endless number of configurations on which we can project endless emotions, meanings, and thoughts. Perhaps this is why clouds have piqued people’s interest for ages and continue to do so today.(There are over 119 million postings on Instagram with #clouds).

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Clouds are depicted in art in a variety of ways, showing how our understanding of the world has evolved throughout time. The physical position of the clouds, between heaven and earth, connects them to a higher order,a theme that has appeared in art throughout history.

Humans are naturally more captivated by things above them than by things below them, according to René Descartes, a 17th-century philosopher. Angels perform divine duties from the clouds that hover above the heads of mortals in Renaissance and Baroque art, just as God directs events on Earth from the clouds in the Old Testament.Kurtal, the ‘big storm being’ of the Western Australian Kimberley, appears as a cloud bank in the works of Walmajarri artist Jarinyanu David Downs, and holds the sky over his head with his fingers.

JMW Turner The Fifth Plague of Egypt (1808) etching and mezzotint. 29 x 42.5 cm ,Collection Art Gallery of Western Australia

To emphasize or contradict conventional iconography, some artists inscribe phrases, make incisions, and introduce strange features in their skies. They aim to show the gaps that exist between nature and art, as well as our efforts to organise the universe narratively. One of the paintings like that includes the painting of Vincent van Gogh.

Wheat Field with Cypress Trees, Vincent van Gogh, a nineteenth century Dutch painter

What kinds of clouds did van Gogh notice in the sky when he painted this scene? It’s difficult to say!

However, A method for naming these fluffy forms didn’t emerge until the early 19th century, when British chemist and meteorologist Luke Howard developed three basic cloud kinds — cirrus, cumulus, and stratus. At the time, Goethe, who was in his sixties and well-known throughout Europe, was in his sixties- discovered Howard’s classification and was so moved by the discoveries and their ramifications in the worlds of art and science that he dedicated a series of poems to him.

So yeah, come with me and see and identify the types of clouds our painters painted. ( And yeah, I am not writing the definitions of this clouds types)

1) Cumulus clouds

Route de Louveciennes ,Camille Pissarro, a nineteenth century French Impressionist painter

2) Altocumulus clouds

The Beach at Sainte-Adresse, Claude Monet, a nineteenth century French Impressionist painter

3) Altostratus clouds

The Tower of London, Robert Havell, an early nineteenth century British artist

4) Cumulonimbus clouds

Seascape Study with Rain Cloud, John Constable, a ninteenth century British artist

5) Cirrus clouds :

The clouds in front are cumulus. There are wispy cirrus clouds behind.

Cloud Study, John Constable (1776–1837) British painter

There are many painting like this. And also many types of clouds.

Source : NOAA

And also…. few Asian countries have their own way of showing clouds in their paintings.

Japanese art form of clouds

Chinese art form of clouds

Tibetian art form of clouds

Korean art form of clouds

hmmmm…. so this is it, there will be something every time, that makes us feel nostalgic. This time clouds made me to feel nostalgic.

If you love clouds, share this.

Thank you,

Yazna Sai.