Clouds in Art Posters and Prints
for art, science and social studies classrooms, homeschoolers

Examples of clouds as rendered by artists: Constable, El Greco, Homer, Lichtenstein, Magritte, O'Keeffe, Redon, Signac, Turner, Van Gogh; reproduced as posters and prints.

Cloud Study, John Constable,
Giclee Print

John Constable (1776-1837) was a major English painter of the 19th century, best known for his landscape paintings of the English countryside.

Constable believed his paintings should come as directly as possible from nature in order to capture the changing skies and light. He worked outside making hundreds of sketches, becoming a precursor to the Impressionists.

Despite Constable telling us to work outside here is a book on how he worked: Constable's Clouds: Paintings and Cloud Studies by John Constable

Doménicos Theotokópoulos, better known as El Greco, Spanish for "The Greek", (1541-1614) was a artist so individual that scholars don't put him in a conventional school of art though he is linked to Mannerism. He was born in Crete, studied in Venice (Crete was a part of the Republic of Venice at the time) and finally immigrated to Spain where he worked till his death, in Toledo.

El Greco's dramatic painting blend his early training as an Eastern Orthodox icon painter and Western Renaissance vision; and are recognizable for the dark tonality and elongated, sineous forms which defy the natural.

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was a mostly self taught 19th century American artist whose only formal training was an apprenticeship to a lithographer; he then working as an illustrator for Harper's Weekly magazine producing pictures of Civil War soldiers far from home. His early paintings featured children and country life that remain popular as representations of a supposedly less complicated time; as Homer matured he focused more and more on marine subjects that put humans in context of "the lonely sea and the sky". • more Winslow Homer posters

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) was an American 20th century "pop" artist who borrowed images from the mass produced popular culture advertising and comic books to produce large scale painting that collectors flocked to own. Are these hard edged painting, with dots mimicing the visible ink placement in mass produced printed images, the art collector's bubble gum wrappers? This is not so much a comment on Lichtenstein's talent or vision, rather an aside on the state of the human paradigm in the late 20th Century. "BAM!"

Surrealist artist René Magritte (1898-1967) became well known for his witty, amusing, and provocative images that juxtaposited ordinary objects in unusual contexts, thus involving the viewer into the creative process of evolving new meanings attached to familiar things. In La Chateau des Pyrennes Margritte presents the seeming incongruity of a huge chunk of Earth defying gravity and humanity's "laws", to float with the cloud.

• more optical illusions posters

Georgia O'Keeffe is best known for her paintings of flowers, skulls and the desert. As she grew older she became fascinated by the view of clouds from airplanes.

• more Georgia O'Keeffe posters

The Greek god Apollo, who was responsible for light, was also the only one capable of controlling the team of mighty horses who pulled the chariot of the sun across the sky. One day Apollo relented to the pestering of his half human son Phaeton to take the chariot for a spin. The "joy" ride was an utter disaster - Phaeton was too immature to control nature - the horses raced too high and the Earth was unseasonably cold, plunged too low and the Earth was scorched. Zeus, the king of the gods and Apollo's father, was so disgusted with Apollo's irresponsibility he destroyed Phaeton with a thunderbolt. (FYI - Phaeton is also the name the French gave to a sporty style of horse drawn carriage.)

Odilon Redon (1840-1916) was a French artist of the Symbolist School and a precursor to the Surrealists. In Apollo's Chariot, Redon has chosen to view the horses from above, as we could imagine Zeus would have seen the team heading off in different directions. Redon said, in his 'To Myself: Notes on Life, art and Artists' "Art is the supreme range, high, salutary and sacred: it blossoms. In the dilettante it produces only delight, but in the artist with anguish, it provides grains for new seeds."

French painter Théodore Rousseau (b. 4-15-1812, Paris; d. 12-22-1867) is associated with the Barbizon art movement.

The Barbizon painters sought to paint what they actually saw (realism) in commonplace situations, in reaction to the romantic movement of classical forms and ideals. They were deeply influenced by the landscapes of John Constable and are forerunners to the Impressionist movement.

French neo-impressionist painter Paul Signac (1863-1935) developed the pointillist style with Georges Seurat.

British artist Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) laid the foundation of Impressionism. He is known as the "painter of light" for portraying natural phenomena and fires with washes of paint in both watercolors and oils.

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Vincent van Gogh used expressive brushstrokes to create an energy filled painting of swirling clouds with hills and fields that feel like they are about to stride off the canvas.

• more van Gogh posters