The art of looking up: Why Constable's clouds are the escape we need right now |
High on the soft blue canvases of Constable
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they are stuck in pigment, but his clouds appear
to be moving still in the wind of his brush,
inching out of England and the 19th century
and sailing over these meadows where I am walking ...
From US poet Billy Collins' poem Student of Clouds written in awed appreciation of the painter John Constable.
To help take our minds off the continuing crimes and idiocies of an only self-proclaimed genius, Donald Trump, today's psychotherapeutic column rejoices that 2026 brings the 250th anniversary of the birth of a true, world-acclaimed genius.
The English landscape painter John Constable, especially acclaimed for his not only artistically wondrous but also meteorologically truthful clouds (Constable admirer Henry Fuseli said the rain clouds in Constable's paintings make all who see them instinctively reach for their rainwear and umbrellas!) was born on June 11, 1776.
This year he is being honoured with exhibitions and events galore, some already under way, in his own, Constable-adoring England and also here in Australia. Meanwhile the internet is alive now with Constablealia.
As well as the hot newsiness of this big anniversary I sense that we all really need more arts and beauty and more Constable-like appreciation of the loveliness of clouds at this nightmarish moment in world events.
It is consoling to think how our dear planet will be everlastingly beautified by clouds long, long after the present ephemeral batch of human moron-tyrants (Trump, Putin, Netanyahu et al) have gone the way of all flesh.
It also pleases me at this time when we are suffering the worst living American to be able to give a column guernsey to one of the very best living Americans,........