THE CLOUD APPRECIATION SOCIETY.

THE CLOUD APPRECIATION SOCIETY. I have long felt that when we look at landscapes we too often ignore the skies which are part of the scene. A review by Peter Pesic in the Wall Street Journal (March 19-20) of THE CLOUD COLLECTOR’S HANDBOOK by Gavin Pretor-Pinney called my attention to the fact that there is a Cloud Appreciation Society (indeed, founded by Pretor-Pinney). Here is the home page of the society, which links to its manifesto which pledges to fight “blue sky thinking.” This page at the site pays tribute to Constable, the great landscape painter, who devoted a period in 1821 and 1822 exclusively to painting cloud studies. Constable said that “the sky was the ‘chief organ of sentiment’ in his paintings.” Apparently THE CLOUD COLLECTOR’S HANDBOOK, is patterned after bird-watching books, on the theory that giving names to what we see will make us more aware of them.