Sketch of a Couple Seated with Cloud Studies [verso] 1863

Curator: Let’s take a closer look at Walter Crane’s pencil sketch on paper from 1863 entitled, “Sketch of a Couple Seated with Cloud Studies [verso].” Editor: Ah, it has a quiet sort of elegance. Faint figures almost hidden amongst wisps of cloud and weather—romantic in the subtle and very English sort of way. Makes you wonder what their story is, or better yet, what weather they’re facing! Curator: Well, look at Crane’s handwriting, it notes, “after rain...Strange Miracle with purple...laughing into grey.” We can assume, based on these annotations, that he found the colors present in the skies of that day to be somewhat transformative and magical. It feels like he's trying to capture a fleeting emotional state as much as the sky itself. Editor: Precisely! It is romantic. I wonder if the couple is aware of the “miracle” occurring overhead? They seem quite grounded. They are almost engulfed, physically, but there is an air of indifference in their calm poses, a domestic feeling. Do the clouds symbolize some great Romantic overcoming, and they are unmoved by its drama? Curator: Possibly. We know from other works that Crane drew on Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics as well as Romantic landscape traditions. The combination here suggests a merging of interior, human dramas, with larger symbolic forces in nature. Note how he contrasts the tight hatching and modeling of the figures against the fluid, almost chaotic, lines suggesting cloud formations. There seems to be the contrast that, as you say, these external forces exert upon the human element. Editor: The asymmetry of the composition also lends itself to my interpretation. The balance of the work teeters between figure and formlessness... as if to indicate the fleeting and ever-changing effects of those cloud formations that will momentarily wash away into something new, whereas, seated at ground level, there is permanence. Curator: I agree, and it suggests how potent the ordinary and fleeting could be for Crane. It challenges the grand narratives of romanticism to include domestic moments, transient weather, and a localized view of beauty, which allows a kind of everyday poetry to take shape. Editor: Absolutely, making it all the more relevant to our own encounters with art in everyday life! It shows how everything contains multitudes and is always in conversation with its surroundings.