Published
Weather Corn=
er
Art through the ages has fea=
tured
elements from dramatic weather
Meteorologists aren't the only people who =
watch
the sky. So do artists -- for ideas, subjects and inspiration.
Art through the ages shows many representations of the weather. Some are
relegated to the background, and some add great depth and beauty, and even
manage to be scientifically accurate.
There were crude symbolic representations of the sky as far back as prehist=
oric
cave drawings. Egyptian hieroglyphics had symbols for a number of sky featu=
res,
such as the hot Egyptian sun. The first documented artistic clouds and a
lightning bolt were in a Turkish painting in approximately 6200 B.C. The
Renaissance brought more realistic clouds and weather to the art world.
Jan van Eyck, a 15th century Flemish painter, u=
sed
puffy cumulus clouds in the backgrounds of many of his works. Of particular
note is ``The Crucifixion,'' done in 1435, which has at least four different
cloud types in the background of this very striking painting. The clouds we=
re
reproduced in great detail, similar to what would be found in a cloud atlas=
.
In the early 19th century, English painter John Constable was renowned for =
his
realistic skies. Two of his better-known works were ``Landscape with Clouds=
''
(1821-1822) and ``Study of Clouds'' (1822). Impressionist Claude Monet show=
ed
the dynamics of the weather in his paintings of Sainte-Adresse.
In ``Regatta at Sainte-Adresse'' (1867), the sk=
y is
bright blue with a mix of clouds, and the water is full of sailboats, while
``Beach at Sainte-Adresse,'' done in the same y=
ear,
depicts a darker sky, thickening clouds and boats returning to port.
One of the most dramatic paintings using weather as a key element is Vincent
van Gogh's ``The Starry Night,'' created in 1889. The magnificent swirl in =
the
sky is a nearly perfect mountain wave cloud known as a Kelvin-Helmholtz wave cloud. It is very likely that van Gogh=
saw
this type of pattern when he painted ``The Starry Night'' during his stay a=
t a
mental asylum at Saint-Rémy in the French
Alps.
Clouds aren't the only weather phenomena to show up on canvas.
Jean-François Millet painted ``The Gust of Wind'' (1871-1873) with a
dramatic windswept landscape. To see Millet's work, go to ww=
w.bbc.co.uk/paintingtheweather/csv/artist/millet.shtml.
Artist Frederic Church painted a shimmering sky of green and red in his
``Aurora Borealis'' in 1865.
Canvas isn't the only
medium that has been used by artists to display the weather. In
Many of these images can be found at an online art exhibit called ``Painting
the Weather'' from the National Gallery in
I am indebted to the work of Dr. Stanley David Gedzelm=
an
of City College of New York for his inspiration and writings on this topic.=
Q The Mercury News and many other newspapers report the daily highest
and lowest temperature in the continental
Dinesh Desai
Los Altos
A I don't know that a definitive record exists worldwide, but a sear=
ch
of nationwide extremes back to 1995 shows that on Feb. 2, 1996, the low in
Tower, Minn., was -60 deg F and the high in Orlando and Melbourne, Fla., wa=
s 85
degrees F for a difference of 145 degrees! Likewise, a quick search of
Q Do other parts of the world have severe tornado-like conditions li=
ke
our
Susan Bigelow
Sunnyvale
A There have been tornadoes in all 50 states and many countries of t=
he
world, however, the United States has more than any other country, with an
average of about 1,000 per year. There are also significant numbers of
tornadoes in the plains of south central
The
Jan Null, founder of Golden Gate Weather Servic=
es, is
a retired lead forecaster with the National Weather Service. Send questions=
to
him c/o Weather Corner,