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Five Paintings that Celebrate the Sky
Different perspectives on the power of the sky
The world above our heads is full of fleeting episodes. A cloud shifts, the light changes, and the impression brings new associations.
A cloud spotter takes care to acknowledge the weight or lightness of congregated mist. The lapidary nature of a cloud — the extent to which it is bulbously summoned, chiselled or polished — or else drawn out and teased into hazy stretches, captures their attention.
Nighttime brings a different cast of players: winking stars and the theatre of the moon. The contrast is a reminder of how the conditions of the sky tend to reign over our moods, flavouring our days with sunshine and shadows and our nights with glitter or brume.
It is little wonder then that the sky has provided artists with an almost endless vocabulary of metaphors to draw upon.
The Monk by the Sea
One of the great skies in art history was captured by the German romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich. The Monk by the Sea shows a lone figure standing before a terrific expanse of obscurity.
