Cloud Study (recto, from sketchbook)

Jervis McEntee

1869

gouache

From the collection of Metropolitan Museum of Art

Impressionism Realism Late 19th Century cloud

About this work

You see a quick sketch of fluffy white clouds floating over a faint blue sky. McEntee made these in a small notebook while standing outside. He used thick white paint called gouache to show how light hits the clouds from below. The whole thing feels like a snapshot of a summer afternoon. If you like how clouds look in art, try searching for the subject “clouds.”