Föhnwolke c. 1931

Karl Wiener made this drawing of a Föhn cloud, we don’t know when, probably with graphite on paper. Just look at the gradation of tones, dark to light, that builds atmosphere, right up to the edge of the cloud. You can see Wiener really coaxing the image out of the paper, pressing harder to create a definite rooftop, then feathering upwards. I wonder what he was thinking as he drew this? Maybe about form and dissolution, the weight of the world versus the lightness of clouds? I can just picture him outside, rapidly trying to capture a fleeting moment of light as the weather changes overhead. The drawing reminds me a little of the cloud studies John Constable did in the 1820s, trying to catch those same qualities of light, atmosphere, and movement. Artists often find themselves in dialogue with one another in this way, across time and space. It just shows that painting is an open-ended process, where we embrace uncertainty and accept that there’s never just one way to interpret what we see.