Examining the elements of breathtaking art
Weather patterns can help us understand what’s going on in these classic images.
'The experience of art is largely a matter of noticing, discovering and connecting details into a sense of wholeness. In a well-made work of art, nothing is beyond suspicion of significance, which is why no one art lover can fully uncover a work’s entire web of meaning. Seeing art with other people, who bring to it different experiences, education and temperaments, almost inevitably expands your noticing power. The same might be said of artists: As they have expanded their understanding of the world, including scientific phenomenon, they have seen more of it, in greater detail, and can express it with more emotional nuance. So I decided to invite meteorologist Matthew Cappucci, a contributor to the Capital Weather Gang, to look at art in which weather seems to be more than just a theatrical backdrop or decorative element — to look at weather as both a scientific and artistic presence in great paintings and photographs.
Weather is more than incidental to art, especially in the past few centuries, as scientists, poets and painters have squabbled over how best to process and make sense of the natural world. But look at art with a meteorologist, and you quickly learn that the clues to making atmospheric sense of an image go far beyond vapor in the air. What direction is the sun coming from? Is the grass wet? What do the trees tell us about the season, or the larger climate conditions? From what direction is the wind coming, and how are people dressed? Situating an image was one of the first questions to address. Which way is south, and which way is north? Knowing that, and a rough, general sense of where the painting was made, offered clues about time of day and other dynamics, including whether a storm is building or passing through. And those, in turn, helped make sense of the artist’s larger intent, which is almost never about just getting weather right, but rather, expressing something beyond tangible meteorological conditions.'>>>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/interactive/2021/weather-patterns-in-art/?i