Polygon’s Cloud Album makes the skies come alive
Canadian musician Joni Mitchell famously sang that even though she’d looked at clouds from both sides now, she really didn’t know them at all. Then again, Mitchell never had a chance to view the Cloud Album. It’s a collection of more than 250 historically and culturally significant images offering a multifaceted perspective on clouds currently on display at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver.
Cocurated by Luce Lebart and Timothy Prus of the London, England–based Archive of Modern Conflict, the Cloud Album features images taken for artistic purposes along with other photographs taken by meteorologists, aviators, military personnel, and even from the Apollo 9 spacecraft. Some were captured as early as the mid-19th century.
“Many of these images have a powerful aesthetic,” Lebart tells the Straight by phone from the Polygon Gallery. “This is something that you’ll discover in the show.”
One of the highlights is an 1858 photograph by French artist Gustave Le Gray, who trained as a painter. Lebart says that in the earliest days of photography, it was not possible to capture the ground and the sky in a single image. That’s because the sky was so luminous that the light would burn the negative.
“So, many photographers found a solution,” she says. “They would paint in the sky in black on the negative in order that it appeared positive in print.”
That meant that clouds would not appear
in those photographs. Lebart says that as a result, art critics would reproach the photographers because they couldn’t create landscapes that could compare with painters of that era such as John Constable.
“If the sky is to be depicted, then the landscape remains black and indistinct; if the landscape is to be rendered, the sassy action of light completely burns away the shape of the clouds in a blaze of white,” wrote critic Lady Elizabeth Eastlake in 1854.
Le Gray, however, figured out how to get authentic skies in his images through photo montages.
“He would take two views, one for the ground and one for the sky,” Lebart says. “Then he would recompose and make a montage with two views.”
Then in 1858, Le Gray achieved another breakthrough with The Brig, Normandy, France, which is shown in the Cloud Album. In this photograph, the artist was able to show the ground and the sky in a single photograph, as well as a boat off the shoreline and some spectacular clouds. According to Lebart, it was a big hit when it was displayed in France and England because nobody had ever seen such a picturesque photo before.
The Cloud Album also includes an 1856 photo from the Crimean War taken by famous British photographer Roger Fenton.
“He focused his exposure on the ground,” Lebart says. “It’s kind of empty and the sky is totally white. It is a very moving image.”
Lebart says that Fenton had a special horse-drawn car in which he had built a laboratory to prepare his plates. He had to create these images on-site while the plate was still wet.
“It is a very complicated process,” Lebart notes. “He’s considered as the first war reporter.”
The photo from the Crimean War is not the only military-related image on display at the Polygon Gallery. There is also a photo of a mushroom cloud from an atomic-bomb test. And there are many vintage prints offering visitors a chance to learn about a wide range of photographic techniques and processes. Lebart says that they include calotype and cyanotype, as well as stereoscopic, fisheye, and panoramic approaches.
In addition, the exhibition includes meteorologist Masanao Abe’s films of clouds around Mount Fuji, which are on loan from the University of Tokyo. There’s also a scientific album, launched by Belgian meteorologist Jean Vincent in 1894, which is a living document that’s been recording the thoughts of meteorologists for well over a century.
There are also opportunities to observe magnificent clouds forming outside the Polygon Gallery near the shore of Burrard Inlet.
“The place is amazing with the mountains, the sea, and the sky,” Lebart says. “For us, it is a laboratory.”
Cloud Album is at the Polygon Gallery (101 Carrie Cates Court, North Vancouver) until May 1 as a featured exhibit in the Capture Photography Festival.