Cloud Study

John Constable

Oil on paper laid on board

Yale Center for British Art

Cloud Study belongs to a celebrated series of open-air oil sketches that John Constable produced at Hampstead, north London, during 1821 and 1822—a sustained and methodical campaign he termed 'skying.' Working rapidly in oils on paper laid on board, Constable captured the shifting forms, tones, and atmospheric conditions of the English sky, frequently noting the date, time of day, wind direction, and cloud type on the reverse of each study. Born in East Bergholt, Suffolk, in 1776, Constable became the foremost British landscape painter of the Romantic era, celebrated for his commitment to direct observation of nature. These cloud studies, while conceived as preparatory material for his grand exhibition landscapes, are now regarded as pioneering works in their own right, anticipating the plein-air and Impressionist movements that would follow later in the nineteenth century.