"I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom. I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients." Gustave Courbet

19 September 2024

Schematize.


A cloud atlas is a visual depiction of various types of clouds accompanied by their classification and nomenclature. Cloud atlases were primarily developed starting in the 19th century and utilised for training weather forecasters and meteorologists.

The 1930’s International Atlas of Clouds and of States of the Sky by the Office National Météorologique based in Paris provides a detailed textual description of different kinds of clouds, their shapes, the occurrences of the clouds, their behaviour, and a description of the disturbances the clouds indicate.

It is complemented by a series of plates where photographs capture various clouds and are paired with drawings that schematize the clouds in the picture and add a graphical description of their movements. A brief text describes the shapes and behaviours of the clouds, sometimes resulting in unintentional poems composed of scientific descriptions in dialogue with the images.

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