Five o'clock shadows

12/27/11, 5:30 pm, looking northeast

Actually, they were closer to 5:30 pm shadows. These massive cumulus clouds hugged the horizon in the northeast against a deep blue-violet sky. The tension created by the angle and the dramatic shadows makes for a delightful cloudscape. These beauties dominated the sky on Tuesday evening, December 27th.

These magnificent clouds bring to mind a portion of William Wordsworth's The Prelude, Book First:


. . . these same scenes so bright, 

So beautiful, so majestic in themselves, 

Though yet the day was distant, did become 

Habitually dear, and all their forms 

And changeful colours by invisible links

Were fastened to the affections.*

Kurt Badt quotes this snippet of the poem in his book, John Constable's Clouds, to illustrate the idea of "second vision" in the work of Wordsworth and Constable. Second vision is the mature, "ultimate truth of nature [created] in the quiet of his own studio." This follows the first vision which the painter sketched en plein air on location. I'm all about the first vision myself.

*lines 606-611