CONSTABLE'S CLOUDS

CLOUD SPOTTING

Look up at the sky.  If you look long enough you will start seeing things: creatures, animals and even monsters.

CLOUDS

How do clouds form?

Can clouds be identical?
What causes clouds to change colors? 

Is the sky timeless?  Can you tell that these pictures were painted about 200 years ago?

PAINTED CLOUDS

At which time of the year does Constable paint these pictures?  


Hint: it rains a lot during the colder months in Britain!
What kinds of birds are in the second picture?
JOHN CONSTABLE


Constable looked at the sky for hours on end. Did he sit in a chair or lie on his back?  
He spent summers on the Heath in Hampstead, near London.

When Constable saw clouds he loved, he had to paint them fast.  The wind can move them so quickly that they change their shape in a split second.

Weather scientists called meteorologists say that Constable’s clouds are always accurate.  He never traveled abroad.  
Looking at these pictures is a bit like looking at abstract art.  You only find out what you see by taking your time and using your imagination! 

It would be fun if you shared what you saw in the sky on: www.oldmastersrock.com  

1.     STUDY OF CUMULUS CLOUDS, “Sep. 21 1822 past one o’clock looking South wind very fresh at East, but warm.” Oil on paper laid on panel, 286 x 483mm. New Haven, Connecticut, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon collection, B1981.25.116

2.      STRATOCUMULUS CLOUD, 1821, Oil on paper laid on board, 343 x 397mm.  YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection B1981.25.155

3.      STUDY OF ALTOCUMULUS CLOUDS: “Sept’r 13th one o’clock.  Silent wind at North West, which became tempestuous in the afternoon, with rain all the night following.”  Oil on paper on board, 248 x 302mm, YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection, B1981.25.156

4.      STUDY OF CUMULUS CLOUDS: “Augt 1 1822 II O clock A.M. very hot with large climbing clouds under the sun.  Wind Westerly.”  Oil on paper laid on canvas, 305 x 508mm, YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection.  B.1981.25.144

5.      A CLOUD STUDY, SUNSET.  Ca. 1821, 152 x 241mm.  Oil on paper on millboard.  YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection, B1981.25.128

6.      STONEHENGE, 1835, watercolor, 387 x 597 mm inscribed on the mount: “The mysterious monument of Stonehenge, standing remote on a bare and boundless heath, as much unconnected with the events of the past ages as it is with the uses of the present, carries you back beyond all historical records onto the obscurity of a totally unknown period”.   London, Victoria & Albert Museum, Isabel Constable Bequest.