“As a cloud crosses the sun, silence falls on London; and falls on the mind. Effort ceases. Time flaps on the mast. There we stop; there we stand. Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame. Where there is nothing, Peter Walsh said to himself; feeling hollowed out, utterly empty within. Clarissa refused me, he thought. He stood there thinking, Clarissa refused me.”
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Sliding in stealthily off the coast is a fat slab of cumulus, its belly warmed by the sun’s passing. Deep, dense and dark it is; the result of a northern cyclone. Ribs of waves usher it forward with frothy lips. It creeps low and bulges with volition. Gorging on stars and moonlight. It belches cool air.
Craig Silvey, Rhubarb
A typical European film opens with golden, sunlit clouds. Cut to even more splendid bouffant clouds. Cut again to yet more magnificent, rubescent clouds. A Hollywood film opens with golden, billowing clouds. In the second shot a 747 jumbo jet comes out of the clouds. In the third, it explodes.
favourite joke among film distributors, from Robert McKee in Story
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer talked about the romantic notion of the general cosmic power. This cosmic power clashes with human existence. The clash frequently leads to personal tragedy.
Nicholas Roerich (1874 – 1947) La bataille des cieux, 1912 cloudsThe Airmail. N. C. Wyeth. 1938Alexander Leydenfrost (1888-1961)Chinese poster for Spirited Away by Huang HaiAndré Édouard Marty, French (1882-1974), for London Transport poster ‘Where Runs The River’ 1931Johnny GRUELLE Raggedy Ann Stories, 1918杜子春 Mariko Haru 1950. (Is that a body bag on the back of the witch’s broom?)The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Kay Nielsen, 1924, ‘The Story Of A Mother’James Edward Hervey MacDonald (Canadian, 1873-1932) Sketch For The Lonely North c 1913Charles Ephraim Burchfield American (1893-1967) Jaws of the World (1920)Felix VallottonAkseli Gallen-Kallela. Clouds Above a Lake, 1904-1906Emily Carr (Canadian, 1871 – 1945) Above the Gravel Pit 1937Konrad Krzyzanowski (1872 – 1922) Clouds over Finland, 1908Afterglow, July 8 1916, Charles Burchfield, AmericanBaffling Mysteries January 1952Robert Kearfott, Del-Monte print ad, Pictorial Review, March 1919MAP OF CLOUDSRagnar Ungern (Finnish) 1885-1955 ‘Iniö’Maynard Dixon (January 24, 1875 – November 11, 1946) was an American artist whose body of work focused on the American West cloudsNew Mexico Cloudscape by Eric Sloane 1971All Around Me by Shirley Hughes illustrationDavis Meltzer (born 1930) illustration for National Geographic, Vol. 131, No. 1, January 1967
Clouds and sky a Ladybird illustration by Robert Ayton
Arkhip Kuindzhi (1842-1910) Breakers on a Rainy Day 1890One of Mario Logli’s ‘Flying Islands’ 1980
What if you could befriend a cloud? What weather would you choose? What if the weather matched your mood, whether you want it to or not?
Elizabeth Shippen Green Two children staring at clouds on a fieldAnne Anderson, Scottish illustratorArt by Moses Lawrence Blumenthal, 1921DE SCHAAPJES VAN BINUS (1943) Jo de Meester The War CloudTHE GIANT 1923 by N.C. (Newell Convers) Wyeth, Ladies Home Journal 1923Art by Andrew De TakacsFranklin BoothFrom Kipling’s A Song of the English. Illustrated by W. Heath RobinsonRené Magritte – Alice in Wonderland, 1946William Timlin (1892 – 1943) 1923 illustration for his own The Ship That Sailed To MarsFour Celestial Angels, 1880-95 Frederick Stuart Church; 1842-1924The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories 1908 illustrated by Sidney Herbert SimeJohn Bauer Out into the wide world 1918Frank Godwin – Book illustration for Lang’s Fairy Tales 1921Ksenia Kareva – Tales of the Brothers GrimmGeorge Sand The Pink Cloud Svetlana Kim 1982Masury Versus Sky 1936 Arnold Wiltz
NOTABLE PICTURE BOOK CLOUDS
Janusz Stanny – The Snow QueenAnton Lomaev – Puss in BootsEloise Wilkin cloudsMikhail-Bychkov-Tales-of-Scandinavian-Writers
In the dead of winter of 1968 a newborn baby boy lay alone in a crib in an English Orphanage waiting for fate to decide what was to become of him. Who could have imagined that 12 months later he would be learning to walk through the bright red dirt of one of the most remote and inhospitable places on Earth; the Australian Outback. But this was just the beginning of his magical, gut wrenching and joyous journey to find himself and his place in the world. That little boy was me and this is my story.
Arthur Hughes – A Passing Cloud
Header painting: René Magritte (Belgian, 1898-1967), daily bread, oil on canvas, 91.6 x 69.8 cm
