Cloud Study

John Constable

Oil on paper laid on board

Yale Center for British Art

This work belongs to John Constable's celebrated series of open-air cloud studies, painted during a concentrated campaign of 'skying' while the artist was living in Hampstead, north London, in the early 1820s. Working rapidly in oil on paper, Constable devoted himself exclusively to the study of the sky, often omitting the horizon entirely to focus on the shifting, luminous formations of clouds above. Constable noted weather conditions, wind direction, and the time of day on the backs of these studies, reflecting his keen engagement with the emerging science of meteorology and his belief that a thorough understanding of natural phenomena was essential to truthful landscape painting. The Yale Center for British Art holds several of these studies in its Paul Mellon Collection, and they are regarded as among the most original and influential works in the history of British landscape art.