I wrote my thesis in college on the golden clouds found in folding screen paintings from Mexico, what was then New Spain, during the 16th and 17th centuries. I know. Talk about esoteric, but it totally made sense at the time. I was into Japanese art, regular art, writing in Spanish, talking and thinking in Spanish, blah, blah, academics, blah, blah and I put all those things together to come up with something that I was actually super proud of at the end of the day!
Anyway, this is also to say that I tried to do a bunch of research about clouds and their place in art history. I tried -- I tried
so hard -- to read and understand, Hubert Damisch's book
A Theory of /cloud/ and it is brilliant. Read it I did, but I definitely did not understand it. Most likely because my background was less in actual art history and more in art... and so the ideas of semiotics and dialectics within painting were all a bit over my head. Even trying to read a summary of what it means at
AnOther his point escapes me. And so, the book sits on my bookshelf (okay, in my suitcase under my bed where I keep all my books since there is no room for a bookcase in my room), waiting for me to pick it up again one day and delve further, with more patience, and perhaps a good dictionary.
Either way, I spent a lot of time looking at clouds and thinking about them and what they might mean or signify or allude to. And I love them all, but some can really be particularly exquisite and out of the ordinary. Which finally brings me to these beautiful specimens:
undulatus asperatus. They look like snow banks, or milk drifting through coffee. Aren't they empyreal?
