Clouds at 35000ft - 2006 William M Boot Clouds must be the ultimate symbol of freedom. Omnipresent in the skies overhead anywhere, anytime they remind us, if we remember to take time to look up, of what it might be like to be totally free. Evanescent in nature, they enter our view for a short time only to fade away as we watch. Clouds remind us of nature and its power and our insignificance in the face of it. They are in themselves pure poetry whether seen on a bright, calm, sunny day or in the violence of a wild storm. It seems also that clouds have become subject matter in themselves, for painters and in particular over the last 50 years. This has not always been so.
Taking a quick look back into history it is surprising to find that in fact clouds and the sky have been excluded from pictorial representation both "East" and "West" in most cases. I was wondering about this because for most "cultured" or "advanced" societies, art making was a central occupation and the representation of nature at the core of it. Animals, birds, insects combined with plants, mountains, lakes and rivers became the subject matter of often exquisitely detailed pictures and objects. Portraits and genre painting seem to have filled in the other areas of focus. Yet, the sky paintings/objects are missing, with the majority of focus apparently on essentially earthbound subjects. If you do happen to find an artwork with sky in it then you'll find the sky is a narrow piece of mist serving only as contrast or outline to the subject which was usually mountains and rivers in China and genre or religious scenes in Europe.
It's apparent that clouds were not "seen" or considered worthy of the attention given to highly visible geographical features. This absence in painting continued unabated for thousands of years until the early "renaissance" when suddenly the "window" approach to painting by the Italians begins to include and occasionally highlight "sky" in certain paintings. The 1st century Romans had painted mostly drab skies in their murals and "frescoes" depicting "mythological" scenes but they were merely backdrops to the foreground figures in the drama. In the early to mid 15th century there are suddenly brightly coloured skies with clouds appearing in pictures by Southern painters like Mantegna, Fra Angelico and Bellini in Italy. In the North, painters such as Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, Robert Campin and Rogier Van Der Weyden also began to paint in beautiful skies that although still only background fill, nevertheless seem to be initiating a groundswell of attention back to the heavens. The outstanding example of a stand alone sky painted by Palladio in 1585 simply as a "sky with clouds" in its own right, is in the "Teatro Olimpico" in Vicenza. Prior to this amazing event, sky and clouds really took a distant back seat for the most part in the making of an artwork.
Taking a quick look back into history it is surprising to find that in fact clouds and the sky have been excluded from pictorial representation both "East" and "West" in most cases. I was wondering about this because for most "cultured" or "advanced" societies, art making was a central occupation and the representation of nature at the core of it. Animals, birds, insects combined with plants, mountains, lakes and rivers became the subject matter of often exquisitely detailed pictures and objects. Portraits and genre painting seem to have filled in the other areas of focus. Yet, the sky paintings/objects are missing, with the majority of focus apparently on essentially earthbound subjects. If you do happen to find an artwork with sky in it then you'll find the sky is a narrow piece of mist serving only as contrast or outline to the subject which was usually mountains and rivers in China and genre or religious scenes in Europe.
It's apparent that clouds were not "seen" or considered worthy of the attention given to highly visible geographical features. This absence in painting continued unabated for thousands of years until the early "renaissance" when suddenly the "window" approach to painting by the Italians begins to include and occasionally highlight "sky" in certain paintings. The 1st century Romans had painted mostly drab skies in their murals and "frescoes" depicting "mythological" scenes but they were merely backdrops to the foreground figures in the drama. In the early to mid 15th century there are suddenly brightly coloured skies with clouds appearing in pictures by Southern painters like Mantegna, Fra Angelico and Bellini in Italy. In the North, painters such as Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, Robert Campin and Rogier Van Der Weyden also began to paint in beautiful skies that although still only background fill, nevertheless seem to be initiating a groundswell of attention back to the heavens. The outstanding example of a stand alone sky painted by Palladio in 1585 simply as a "sky with clouds" in its own right, is in the "Teatro Olimpico" in Vicenza. Prior to this amazing event, sky and clouds really took a distant back seat for the most part in the making of an artwork.
Gradually, sky began to take on more importance in the pictorial scheme of things and by the 17th century the Dutch are painting beautiful land, sea and skyscapes revealing both the majesty of nature and the diminutive stature of man before its power. These paintings also showcase the skill with which the Dutch painters such as Jan Van Goyen and Barend Cornelis Koekkoek could render fleeting atmospheric light and colour. Many of these paintings were purchased in Britain and inspired important English painters such as John Constable who painted sweeping English vistas around his home county. His paintings in turn, were admired and sold well into France and then inspired what became known as the "Barbizon School" of painters led by Millet, Daubigny and Rousseau. This group in turn inspired greatly the younger generation of Parisian artists who would later become the "Impressionists." The rest is history and the evolution of landscape and the importance of sky and clouds begins to push strongly into the frame throughout the 19th and into the 20th century until modern "utopic" visions fuelled by progress and possibility arrested its advancement.
Stormy Dusk - 2010 William M Boot In the last forty years or so "sky" and "clouds" have surged back into paintings as a renewed engagement and fascination for nature emerged with the "environmental" or "green" movement! It seems like this infatuation with "nature" in art has mirrored the ideological underpinnings of the green agenda for some time now. This same tendency also occurred in the early 1800's with the "romantic" nostalgia for the exotic and primitive form of tribal cultures beyond Europe. Worshipping nature is a knee jerk reaction to a century of philosophical reasoning on existence and purpose and the increasing angst and emptiness felt from 'evolutionary theories" and "existentialism." Modern man began to feel the isolation and fragmentation of urban life and yearned for an "arcadian paradise" where nature and man were "one" again. It is little wonder that this "paradisical idyll" yearned for, should turn up in the "green" movement and especially in the work of artists wholly sympathetic to the "primitive." For, after all, primitive in the minds of many is synonymous with "natural," "pure," "innocent" and more importantly "spiritual." This is an interesting phenomena and linked closely with contemporary art that lays claims to "sublime content" and in particular "abstraction."
Clouds at Dusk - 2012 William M Boot Clouds are ephemeral biomorphic agents simultaneously materialising and dissolving before our very eyes, sometimes within minutes. They trigger within us feelings of delight and awe causing us to take flights of fancy in a space overhead that is pure, natural theatre. There is a reason for the torrent of photographs, paintings and video, recording clouds from all over the world. With digital technology as pervasive as it is, there is greater opportunity than ever before to "capture" those magic moments and make nature a "personal" experience to keep in the digital file and look at over and over as desired. Make no mistake though, as poetic and figurative as clouds may seem, they are in fact highly abstract forms especially when separated from any reference to "land" or horizon. Clouds and abstraction go hand in hand then and reference that which is "beyond," "out of sight," and "above" our experience of the "world." Clouds set the stage for "contemplation" and "reflection" re-imbuing in us a sense of transcendence and a "heightened sense of "being." It is this power invested in the abstract that directs us past what is familiar and "knowable" to that which is strange and "knowably unknowable."
Clouds Over Melbourne - 2012 William M Boot I'm inspired in particular by clouds as agents of change. Everyone knows that certain types of clouds herald certain types of weather conditions. "Red sky in the morning is a sailors warning and conversely, a red sky at night is a sailors delight" as the saying goes! Clouds are implicit in this ever unfolding drama in the sky for they provide dimension or form to the "formless" sky. They are a scaffold upon which nature paints it's endless loop compositions except that the loop is miraculously tweaked from day to day preventing a repeat from ever occurring. Clouds abstract our day to day lives, relieving us of the weight of Earths seemingly endless atmospheric wasteland hanging over us and reminding us of infinity and our corresponding mortality. Looking up, the oppressed dream of release, lovers dream a sea of possibilities and the oppressor deludes himself with dreams of clouds obscuring his actions from judgement. How is it possible that all see something different? This is the enduring majesty of clouds and all the things they symbolise and every culture has its own stories and mythology about these transient ships of the sky.
It's encouraging to see such widespread interest in these magical sentinels that sweep overhead moving to the Earth's pulse because as long as we look up there is the constant reminder that everything "must" change and there is a comfort in this complicity of clouds and men!
Here is a bit of my favourite "cloud" sound.
It's encouraging to see such widespread interest in these magical sentinels that sweep overhead moving to the Earth's pulse because as long as we look up there is the constant reminder that everything "must" change and there is a comfort in this complicity of clouds and men!
Here is a bit of my favourite "cloud" sound.
