Cloudy with a Chance of Classical Art

[thunder and rain sounds]
Justin: Is it raining in here?
Jessie: I wish. Well, I like to write when it's raining. I wish I could just bottle up the weather, you know, and listen to it. But ambient sounds playlist number 24, will have to do.
Justin: Now we've gotta find some clouds to go with the rain playlist. Do you think there's any, hmm, cloud art in the gallery?
Jessie: Yeah. Oh, maybe some with cirrostratus clouds or cumulonimbus.
Justin: Cumulo… what?
Jessie: Let's go show him. Come on.
[upbeat music]
Justin: So here's the thing. Justin knows about Getty's weather paintings from working as a tour guide and I've studied a little bit about clouds and so we're going to explore the Getty to find the art with the most impressive skies. Say hi Justin. Um, oh, hey, there's one.
[uplifting music]
Yeah, the clouds are really high and thin in this one. They're very wispy, so I think they're cirrostratus clouds. You can see the sun coming down through. Obviously very windy, because the sailboats like really tilted that way.
[creaking noise]
Justin: Wow. Look at those clouds coming in and bringing the rain with them.
[uplifting music]
Jessie: Now that's a weather painting. There's so much sky.
[record scratch and music stops]
Justin: Wait, what kind of cloud is that? What does it tell us about the weather?
Jessie: Oh, we can find out together. Let's see. Okay, first question. Do the clouds look like puffy cotton balls high in the sky?
Justin: Uh, kind of, but they're pretty low.
Jessie: Hmm, okay. So not cumulus clouds. Oh, are they wispy and thin?
Justin: Uh, not really. Wait, where you getting this information from?
Jessie: Oh, It's a dichotomous key
Justin: Dice tomato what?
Jessie: A dichotomous key. It's an identification tool. So this one has a series of descriptions that separates the clouds into groups by their different identifiable traits.
Justin: Oh, a dichotomous key. That helps.
Jessie: Yeah. Okay. So would you say that the clouds in this painting are puffy, massive and filling the whole sky like a tower?
Justin: That's a great description.
Jessie: Amazing. Okay. Then they're probably cumulonimbus clouds, which means we may see some heavy torrential downpours, hailstorms, or even lightning.
Justin: Wow.
Jessie: Now over to Jesse with the weather.
[upbeat news story music]
Thank you Jessie. Good evening everyone. And here's a look at today's weather forecast light cloud cover predicted over the sea, but hold onto your hats. There's heavy wind incoming, and in our classical landscape we have incoming rain. Make sure to grab your galoshes or your rain boots. And finally our sunset is coming in, but likely with storms ahead. Perfect. For evening indoors. Back to you, Jessie.
[record scratch]
Jessie: So all three of these paintings have really detailed skies, but something I noticed is the first two also have a lot of buildings and land and people in them. And then this one is just mostly clouds.
Justin: Well this painting here is a study or étude, if you wanna be a little fancy about it.
Jessie: Oh, well I always wanna be a little fancy about it, Justin. Wait, so he just painted this to study the clouds? He didn't mean for anybody to see this. Simon Denis.
Justin: Well, I did a little bit of research on him and he inspired a lot of people to actually go out into nature instead of sitting inside their studios.
Jessie: Oh
Justin: Well we appreciate studies like this because a lot of science is observation and and research.
Jessie: Oh, so it's like the clouds that we're looking at now are the clouds that he was observing back then. That's so neat. I wish I could just take this painting with me, like just out of the gallery, I think, yeah, Getty probably wouldn't like that.
Justin: I think that would be art theft.
[loud ding]
Justin: I have another idea. Okay, let's go!
**Jessie:**Oh, hi. Excuse me. I'm starting a collection and I was just wondering if you have any weather photos on your phone.
Security Guard Yes.
Jessie: So like clouds, sun, rain, hurricane, tornado. They don't have to be fancy, but they have to be really good. Just, that's great. Oh, that's perfect. Oh, that's great. Can you send them to me?
Museum worker: Sure.
Jessie: Thank you so much. Bye.
There.
Justin: Wow. Science is so beautiful. Just like art.
Jessie: I love how science can be artistic and art can be scientific. And now I have both at my desk.
Justin: Wow.
Jessie: Just the way I like it.