Cloud Spotting
Earlier this week we had Blue Monday and the MET Office warned of thundersnow as temperatures plummeted. I decided to risk it and venture outside to see Bridget Riley’s new commission at the National Gallery.
Messengers opened on 17 January in the Gallery’s Annenberg Court. Riley, now 87, has painted large coloured discs using acrylics directly onto the plaster wall covering an area 10x40m. I arrive just after 10am via the gallery level and so get a great unobstructed view of the piece. Riley wants us to feel alive whilst looking at this work, to see the shape and colours of the discs change depending on where we stand and for how long we look at it. The discs really do change and I am immediately reminded of a very different work that also plays with the idea of colour and afterimages; Olafur Eliasson's Your Double-Lighthouse Projection currently on display at Tate Modern.
Olafur Eliasson Your Double-Lighthouse Projection 2002
Bridget Riley’s Messengers 2019
Here though, the beauty of the repeated pattern of the discs in muted purple, taupe and green is both calming and reassuring.
The title, Messengers, comes from a phrase John Constable used when referring to clouds in the sky, and so I decide to go cloud spotting in the gallery. Constable has inspired Riley who in turn has inspired me to take a fresh look at some very familiar works. I start with the man himself, Constable and The Hay Wain painted in 1821.
John Constable The Hay Wain 1821
Willy Lott’s Suffolk cottage is framed by heavy rain-filled clouds. They demonstrate Constable's skill at painting realistic and meteorologically correct clouds. I look across to see Turner’s Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway painted nearly a quarter of a century later and am struck by the abstract quality of his impastoed sky.
J.M.W. Turner Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway 1844
Monet’s impressionist fleeting clouds at Trouville have also been created with brushstrokes laden heavy with paint.
Claude Monet The Beach at Trouville 1870
I know they contain real sand as he painted the scene on the actual beach depicted and analysis carried out by conservators reveal sand particles within the paint layers. Nearby Cezanne’s eleven bathers are far too preoccupied to notice the beautiful heavy bulbous clouds above them.
Paul Cezanne Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) c.1894-1905
Onto Venice and Canaletto’s calm fluffy clouds wistfully move across the lagoon. Titian worked in Venice, taking full advantage of all the precious materials traded there from the east including ultramarine extracted from lapis lazuli.
Titian Bacchus and Ariadne 1520–1523
The sky for Bacchus and Ariadne is an intense vivid blue commanding nearly half the canvas. It makes a great contrast to the scene and the clouds Titian painted. Velazquez’s spiritual sky, by comparison, frames the Madonna in more muted, contemplative tones.
Diego Velázquez The Immaculate Conception 1618-19
I finish with Duccio’s early Renaissance religious panels where the sky is represented with valuable and reflective gold rather than painted as an earthly sky with clouds.
Duccio The Annunciation 1307–11
Duccio The Healing of the Man born Blind 1307-11
As I leave the National Gallery I am greeted with a beautiful cloudless blue sky and Nelson, struck with an aeroplane flight path trail which looks dramatic but also reminds me of the term ‘messenger’ where my journey began.
As messengers, clouds might be seen to signify the changing tides of time. They are often part of the backdrop of a scene, often perhaps not SEEN. I try and recall other important or impressive clouds from the history of art. It’s an eclectic mix - Chronologically: Gainsborough, Hokusai, Whistler, Van Gogh, Magritte, Nash but there are also real clouds that form part of more modern works: Kapoor’s Sky Mirrors and Turrell’s Skyscapes for example. This seems far from comprehensive so, for now, my cloud hunt will continue.
Anish Kapoor Sky Mirror, Blue 2016
James Turrell Skyspace: Seldom Seen 2002