Cumulus Clouds, East River 1901 - 1902

Robert Henri painted Cumulus Clouds, East River with oil on canvas, though the exact date is unknown. Look at how Henri builds up the sky with these loose strokes of warm color, like he’s trying to capture the light as it shifts and changes, not just the clouds themselves. It’s like a performance of painting, where the process is right there on the surface. The painting has this amazing materiality, a kind of textured surface that feels both deliberate and accidental. There's a darker passage at the bottom right with these heavy, almost clumsy strokes and smudges of brown paint. See how that darker shape kinda echoes the shape of the clouds above, grounding the sky in the grit of the city. It reminds me of some of Whistler's nocturnes, in the way it evokes a mood more than a specific place. It's this ongoing conversation between artists across time, where meaning isn’t fixed, but always open to interpretation.