A cloud is hard to paint. It has no outline, and it changes shape while you look at it. Painters answered that in very different ways. Some record a cloud like a weather report.
Others make it solid enough to carry a crowd, or use it to hide part of a scene. Clouds can be structure, evidence, or the whole subject. These twelve works cover that range.
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How These Were Chosen
Every entry earns its place in one of two ways. Its clouds carry the meaning: they hold figures, hide something or set a mood. Or the painter looked at clouds as clouds, closely and on purpose. Landscapes where a sky only fills the background didn't make the list.
12. René Magritte, The Empire of Light (1954)
Night has fallen over the lower part of the picture. Above it, the sky is still blue and full of daylight, with clouds scattered across it.
René Magritte painted this version in 1954. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, in Brussels, bought it from him that same year.
Magritte explained the idea himself in 1956. "What are represented in the picture The Empire of Light are the things I ideated," he said, "i.e. a nighttime landscape and a sky such as we see during the day."
He went on: "The landscape evokes night and the sky evokes day. I call this power: poetry." He also said he had always felt the greatest interest in night and in day, "yet without ever having preferred one or the other."
At the 1954 Venice Biennale, another version drew the attention of collectors. That canvas now belongs to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
The museum describes a pastel-blue daytime sky, spotted with clouds, above a night scene. Within the year, Magritte painted several more large versions.
Three years before that Biennale, Magritte had already painted clouds overhead. The Théâtre royal des Galeries in Brussels was rebuilt in 1951, to plans by the architect Paul Bonduelle.
Magritte painted a fresco of clouds on the ceiling of its auditorium.
One detail comes from Magritte's first design for that ceiling.
In that gouache, many jingle bells floated in the sky. He was asked to take the bells out.
At a Glance
Artist: René Magritte (1898 to 1967)
Painted: 1954
Medium: Oil on canvas
Where to see it: Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
About This Painting
How many versions of The Empire of Light did Magritte paint?
Artnet counts twenty-seven versions of The Empire of Light, seventeen of them oils. The others are gouaches. Magritte kept returning to the subject from the 1940s to the 1960s.
How much is The Empire of Light worth?
A 1954 version of The Empire of Light sold for $121.2 million, fees included, at Christie's New York on November 19, 2024. That price is the record for Magritte and for any Surrealist work.
How big is the Brussels Empire of Light?
The Brussels version of The Empire of Light is 146 centimeters high and 114 wide, or about 57 by 45 inches. The Venice version is larger, at 195.4 by 131.2 centimeters.
What was the Magritte record before 2024?
A 1961 version of The Empire of Light held the record before 2024. It sold for $79.8 million at Sotheby's in 2022.
11. Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield under Thunderclouds (1890)
A field of wheat runs across the bottom of a long, low canvas. A sky of thunderclouds fills the space above it.
Vincent van Gogh painted it in July 1890, in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise. The Van Gogh Museum calls the elongated format unusual.
The museum describes a simple composition of two horizontal planes.