A day of gathering clouds

The forecast on October 21st was for a sunny fall day and it began clear and bright. As the day wore on, little clouds blew in from the south and by 4 pm when this painting was made, larger cumulus clouds were showing up.


These clouds kept company in the west on their way northeast. Later in the evening, the sky was full of clouds and by night, completely overcast.


Here is an excerpt from Kurt Badt's John Constable's Clouds:

Most of [John Constable's] cloud studies seem to have been painted in 1822, however, as Constable reported (on October 7), 'I made about fifty careful studies of skies, tolerably large to be careful.' Leslie, who was probably the first to see them, felt at once how extraordinary these studies were. He has told us that 'twenty of Constable's studies of skies made during this season were in his possession'; and he said 'there is not one among them in which a vestige of landscape is introduced. They are all painted in oil, on large sheets of thick paper, and all dated with the time of day, the direction of the wind, and other memoranda on their backs.'