PLEIN AIR HERITAGE
A student of the sky, John Constable (British, 1776-1837) felt that a thorough understanding of the formation of clouds, their influence on the quality of light, and their contribution to atmospheric effects would give his landscapes greater truth. In the early 1820s, he lived in Hampstead, a village situated just north of London on an open, hilly heathland that gave him the perfect vantage point to study the sky and its ever-changing effects. It was during his residence there that he made many oil sketches of the sky, working on paper en plein air. He referred to the exercise as “skying,” often annotating the studies with the date, time of day, wind direction, and scientific description of the cloud formation depicted. Typical of his Hampstead sky sketches, Cloud Study: Stormy Sunset…