Cloud Study (Distant Storm)

Simon Denis

ca. 1786–1806 · Oil on paper · European Paintings

This study shows a range of climatic conditions stacked one above the other. It lightens progressively over a space that extends thousands of feet, from the rainstorm at lower left to the clear sky at top. Denis’s plein-air sketches epitomize the Enlightenment’s embrace of empirical research in the pursuit of knowledge. The artist employed the particular effect seen here in finished paintings of the 1790s, and perhaps earlier.

Artist

Simon Denis

Date

ca. 1786–1806

Medium

Oil on paper

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

The Whitney Collection, Gift of Wheelock Whitney III, and Purchase, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. McVeigh, by exchange, 2003