Study of Clouds with a Sunset near Rome Gm-26521601

Simon Alexandre Clément Denis (Flemish, 1755–1812) Dark, swirling clouds loom over a narrow strip of land, gently punctuated by far-off trees and a city skyline. The place is Rome. The weather: an impending rainstorm. The day: a late afternoon within the last decades of the 1700s.

This painting is one in a series of cloud studies--in fact the forty-eighth--that Simon Denis made to hone his observational and painting skills. Denis's confident paint handling and sensitive rendering of light capture the awe-inspiring power of nature. Using a warm palette, he juxtaposed light and dark tones to imply both the clouds' airy buoyancy and moisture-laden heaviness. Lively brushstrokes convey the constantly shifting forces of wind and light.

This dramatic cloudscape predates by a century the Impressionists' celebration of outdoor landscape painting in which they recorded specific, yet fleeting, effects of weather and time and exhibited those results as finished paintings. But in Denis's time, oil sketching on paper while outdoors offered the artist an opportunity to test and sharpen his skills. Denis would have kept his cloud studies in the studio for future reference for his finished paintings.

Our Cards are all printed on 100% cotton tree-free archival paper. All Cards include a recycled kraft envelope in a protective sleeve individually hand wrapped for you. Each card is printed one at a time and hand bound here in Lugano, Switzerland. We ship all over the world via SwissPost. Please allow 5-9 business days for us to make them and 5-7 business days for transit. Art Prints are printed on heavy matte finish German art paper using the finest Canon archival inks. Frame is black natural with a white mattboard and Acrylite glazing.

Wall Murals are printed on 42" matte finish, self-adhesive Kodak PhotoText fabric panels that combine and mount easily on a non textured wall surface. We can custom make to any size, just ask.

Stretched Canvas is stretched by hand over 1.5" thick pine bars and printed on cotton poly matte finish canvas. Each canvas is hand coated with Hahnemuhle UV/Archive coating, these are Swiss quality best in industry canvases.

All our images are digitized from the original negative, printed and assembled in Switzerland to museum standards by our master printer.

All of our products are popular and custom made by hand to order, please allow 2-4 weeks to make them and 1-2 weeks for shipment anywhere in the world.

Questions? Please email service@archivea.com

Artwork in this collection is from The J. Paul Getty Museum. Reproduction rights are reserved by the copyright owner and used under license by Archivea GmbH.