The Pink Cloud
Due to his diagnosis of persistent rheumatism, Henri-Edmond Cross left Paris in 1891 and settled in the seaside village of Saint-Clair on the Mediterranean coast where the climate was more temperate. He expressed his enthusiasm for the French Riveria to his mother, “In the distance, the blue silhouette of the Maures and the Estérel—I have enough here to keep me busy all of life—I have just discovered happiness.” Once he had settled in the south, Cross adopted the Neo-Impressionist technique of Pointillism—applying paint in small dots or dashes of complementary colors that mix in the beholder’s eye to create an intense sensation of color and light. Here, a spectacular cloud is illuminated by the sunset. A pair of cypress trees link the garden landscape below to the vivid sky above.
Colors in this work
Details
- Date
- c. 1896
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- unframed: height 0.546 m, width 0.61 m; framed: height 0.789 m, width 0.86 m, depth 0.089 m
- Origin
- France, 19th century
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Palette
-
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- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift
Art Genome Taxonomy
7 tags
Subject Matter
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Landscapes Both · 99%
The image presents fields, gardens, trees, distant hills, and sky; the Cleveland Museum of Art describes the work as a landscape made in Saint-Clair on the Mediterranean coast.
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Atmospheric Landscapes Both · 98%
A large illuminated cloud dominates the upper and middle portions of the composition, with softened atmospheric transitions around the horizon; the catalog specifically describes a cloud illuminated by sunset.
Styles and Movements
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Pointillism Both · 99%
The painting is composed of numerous distinct dots and short dashes of juxtaposed color, corresponding to the catalog’s identification of Cross’s Neo-Impressionist Pointillist technique.
Visual Qualities
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Bright and Vivid Colors Visual · 99%
The composition uses highly saturated pink, violet, blue, turquoise, green, orange, and yellow passages, especially in the cloud and sky.
Medium and Techniques
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Oil Painting Both · 99%
Museum metadata identifies the medium as oil on canvas, while the image clearly shows a painted canvas surface.
Time Periods
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19th Century Art Metadata · 99%
The museum dates the work to circa 1896, placing it within nineteenth-century art.
Geographic Regions
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French Art Metadata · 99%
The artist is identified as French, and the catalog records the place of origin as France, 19th century.
Source & rights
Henri-Edmond Cross (French, 1856–1910). The Pink Cloud. Cleveland Museum of Art.
High-resolution sources
- Original TIFF ↗ 11,431 × 10,162 · Cleveland Museum Of Art · Available