Lunchtime Talk: The Service of Clouds – Turner and Constable’s Skies

Join academic researcher Kate Nankervis for a journey through the skies of John Constable and J. M. W. Turner, looking at how their cloudscapes redefined landscape painting. 

The turn of the nineteenth century saw a shift in the way people looked at and understood the sky. In 1802, the amateur meteorologist, Luke Howard, named the clouds – coining words like nimbus, cumulus and stratus – and in doing so developed a universal language still used today. British painters also began to look up with greater scrutiny in an effort to capture the truth of the skies. In the process, landscape painting was infused with a new vitality: one characterised by cloudiness. 

Kate Nankervis is a PhD Researcher at the University of York examining clouds in Romantic period poetry and landscape painting. Her research is supported by the AHRC through the White Rose College of Arts and Humanities.   

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