Briefly blue

After a solid week of gray skies and frequent rain, the evening of September 26th opened up a blue expanse to raise our damp spirits. This long, low-slung cumulus was south of Richmond around 6 pm in a small fleet of similar clouds.


These clouds seem sedate and respectable to me, not expressively emotional or romantic. Christopher Benfey, in his Slate Magazine article on Constable's cloud paintings at the Yale Center, writes:

What I've found with repeating viewing is that the cloud studies are more various than one might think. Far from being mere passive "impressions" or "observations" from nature, the cloud studies seem to be overtly expressive. They seem, in fact, to register quite distinct aesthetic programs, as though what Constable is classifying isn't clouds at all, but rather whole schools of painting, along with their dominant moods. The best analogy may be Chopin's Etudes, explorations of styles and modes with sharply circumscribed means.

If Benfey is correct in surmising Constable's inspiration stems from the technique of other painters, I confess that I find it limiting. Like other student artists at the Royal Academy, Constable copied classic pieces of art to hone his own technique. Naturally there is some Fragonard and Reynolds in there. What I see in Constable's work is a yearning to set down a genuine and specific landscape.