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Cloud Study
John Constable·c. 1807
Historical Context
Cloud Study, painted around 1807 and held at Chequers, the official country retreat of the British Prime Minister, is an early atmospheric study that presages Constable’s later systematic cloud painting. The painting’s presence at Chequers reflects the tradition of British art adorning the walls of governmental residences. Though less accomplished than the intensive Hampstead cloud studies of the 1820s, this early work demonstrates Constable’s precocious interest in meteorological phenomena as artistic subjects, an interest that would eventually produce some of the most revolutionary landscape paintings of the nineteenth century.
Technical Analysis
The study renders cloud formations with scientific attention to structure and light, using rapid brushwork to capture the ephemeral character of specific atmospheric conditions observed at a particular time and place.
Look Closer
- ◆Look at the cloud formations — Constable renders cumulus or stratus clouds with the scientific precision of his later systematic Hampstead studies, even in this early work showing attention to cloud structure.
- ◆Notice the modelling of the cloud surfaces — light on the upper faces, shadow beneath, the three-dimensional forms of clouds rendered with the understanding of a natural philosopher as well as an artist.
- ◆Observe the sky color — the specific shade of English sky visible in Constable's sky study, the blue varying in intensity from near the horizon to the zenith in a way that required careful observation.
- ◆Find the speed suggested in the cloud formations — Constable's sky studies often capture the sense of weather moving, the clouds suggesting wind and change even in a static painting.
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