Study of Cumulus Clouds

Study of Cumulus Clouds from around 1807, at Touchstones Rochdale, is an early sky study that reflects Constable's developing interest in cloud classification at a point just before Luke Howard's meteorological system became widely known. Howard's Essay on the Modification of Clouds was published in 1803 and gradually disseminated through scientific and educated circles; Constable's engagement with it intensified in the early 1820s when he conducted his most systematic sky studies. This earlier study, less analytically annotated than the Hampstead series, nonetheless shows him already attending carefully to the specific character of cumulus cloud — its flat base, its rounded cauliflower top, its tendency to cast distinct shadows on the landscape below — rather than rendering a generic sky effect. The cumulus was the cloud type that most interested him: its three-dimensional solidity gave it a sculptural presence in the sky that could be observed as carefully as any terrestrial form, and it generated the sharp contrasts of sunlit white against shadow-grey that gave his skies their distinctive luminosity.

The cloud study renders the cumulus formations with three-dimensional solidity, using warm and cool tones to suggest the volume and luminosity of clouds lit by sunlight.