Cassie Barnes wrote and said, "Please feature John Constable. I really like his clouds." Well, thanks for the great suggestion Cassie. His clouds have always appealed to me, too - though the contrast between his cloud studies and those big, finished Romantic landscapes often struck me as odd. As things turn out, I learned that it wasn't a bit odd; we weren't ever meant to see those cloud studies. He was trying to understand the science of meteorology and, lacking a camera, recorded things as best and quickly as he could. That the Impressionists would pick up on and run with his rough sketches surely never crossed his mind. Cassie, I'm always happy to learn new things (unless they are nasty surprises in the checkbook ledger), so my thanks to you is doubled.

Today (November 5) in Art History:

• Thomas Sully (American painter), died in 1872.
• Maurice Utrillo (French painter), died in 1955.