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

John Constable
b. 6-11-1776; Suffolk
d. 3-31-1837

John Constable was a major Romantic 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

John Constable quote ~
• “I know very well what I am about and that my skies have not been neglected, though they often failed in execution and often no doubt from over anxiety about them.”

El Greco
b. 1541; Crete
d. 4-7-1614; Toledo, Spain

Doménicos Theotokópoulos, better known as El Greco, Spanish for “The Greek”, 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.

El Greco quote ~
• “Artists create out of a sense of desolation. The spirit of creation is a excruciating, intricate exploration from within the soul.”
• “I paint because the spirits whisper madly inside my head.”
• “I suffer for my art and despise the witless moneyed scoundrels who praise it.”
• “I was created by the all powerful God to fill the universe with my masterpieces.”
• “The language of art is celestial in origin and can only be understood by the chosen.”
• “Art is everywhere you look for it, hail the twinkling stars for they are God's careless splatters.”
• “It is only after years of struggle and deprivation that the young artist should touch color - and then only in the company of his betters.”
• “Nothing pleases me.”
• “You must study the Masters but guard the original style that beats within your soul and put to sword those who would try to steal it.”

Winslow Homer
b. 2-24-1836; Boston, MA
d. 9-29-1910; Maine

Winslow Homer's early paintings, featuring children and country life, remain popular as representations of a supposedly less complicated time; it was his more mature work that focused more and more on marine subjects that put humans in context of “the lonely sea and the sky”.

Winslow Homer quote ~
• “You have the sky overhead giving one light; then the reflected light from whatever reflects; then the direct light of the sun; so that, in the blending and suffusing of these several luminations, there is no such thing as a line to be seen anywhere.”

• more Winslow Homer posters

Roy Lichtenstein
b. 10-27-1923; New York City
d. 12-29-1997

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!”

Roy Lichtenstein quote ~
• “I think we're much smarter than we were. Everybody knows that abstract art can be art, and most people know that they may not like it, even if they understand there's another purpose to it.”

René Magritte
b. 11-21-1898; Lessines, Belgium
d. 8-15-1967; Brussels

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.

Rene Magritte quotes ~
• “My painting is visible images which conceal nothing... they evoke mystery and indeed when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question ‘What does that mean’? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.”
• “The present reeks of mediocrity and the atom bomb.”
• “To be a surrealist means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and being always on the lookout for what has never been.”
• “If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream.”

• more optical illusions posters

Georgia O'Keeffe
b. 11-15-1887; Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
d. 3-6-1986; Santa Fe, NM

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.

Georgia O'Keeffe quote ~
• “ ... that blue that will always be there as it is now after all man's destruction is finished.”

• 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
b. 4-20-1840; Bordeaux, France
d. 4-6-1916; Paris

Odilon Redon 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.”

Odilon Redon quotes ~
• “What distuingishes the artist from the dilettante? Only the pain the artist feels. The dilettante looks only for pleasure in art.”
• “It is precisely from the regret left by the imperfect work that the next one can be born.”
• “The value of art lies in its power to increase our moral force or establish its heightening influence.”

Théodore Rousseau
b. 4-15-1812; Paris, France
d. 12-22-1867

French painter Théodore Rousseau 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.

Paul Signac
b. 11-11-1863; Paris, France
d. 8-15-1935; Paris

French neo-impressionist painter Paul Signac developed the pointillist style with Georges Seurat.

Paul Signac quotes ~
• “The anarchist painter is not the one who will create anarchist pictures, but the one who will fight with all his individuality against official conventions.”
• “The golden age has not passed; it lies in the future.”

J. M. W. Turner
b. 4-23-1775; London, England
d. 12-19-1851; London

British artist Joseph Mallord William Turner 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.

J. M. W. Turner quotes ~
• “Light is therefore colour.”
• “The mind of the people is like mud, from which arise strange and beautiful things.”
• “If I could find anything blacker than black, I'd use it.”

Vincent van Gogh
b. 3-30-1853; Zundert, The Netherlands
d. 7-29-1890; Auvers-sur-Oise, France

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.

Van Gogh quote ~
• “I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.”

• more van Gogh posters
• trees posters