In the instances cited, I make no allusion to the employment of clouds as repeaters of colour, but merely confine my remarks to their use in assisting to carry out form and effect, either in linear composition, or in the arrangement of light and shade in simple monochrome, as evidenced in the engraved translations of the works of Rembrandt, Turner, Birket Foster, and others, the study of those works being most applicable to the practice of photography, and, therefore, offering the most valuable hints to both amateur and professional photographers in the management of their skies.
Before pursuing this part of my subject further, it may be as well, perhaps, to state my general opinions of the effects of so-called "natural skies," obtained by one exposure and one printing. Admitting that they are a vast improvement on the white-sky style of the early ages of photography, they fall far short of what they should be in artistic effect and arrangement. In nearly all the "natural skies" that I have seen, their office appears to be no other than to use up the white paper above the terrestrial portion of the picture. The masses of clouds, if there, seem always in the wrong place, and never made use of for breadth of chiaroscuro.
No better illustrations of this can be adduced than those large photographs of Swiss and Alpine scenery by Braun of Dornach, which nearly all contain "natural clouds;" but, on looking them over, it will be seen that few (if any) really exhibit that artistic use of clouds in the composition of the pictures which evidence artistic knowledge. The clouds are taken just as they happen to be, without reference to their employment to enhance the effects of any of the objects in the lower portion of the view, or as aids to the composition and general effect. For the most part, the clouds are small and spotty, ill-assorting with the grandeur of the landscapes, and never assisting the chiaroscuro in an artistic sense. The most noticeable example of the latter defect may be seen in the picture entitled "Le Mont Pilate," wherein a bald and almost white mountain is placed against a light sky, much to the injury of its form, effect, and grandeur; indeed, the mountain is barely saved from being lost in the sky, although it is the principal object in the picture. Had an artist attempted to paint such a subject, he would have relieved such a large mass of light against a dark cloud. An example of a different character is observable in another photograph, wherein a dark conical mount would have been much more artistically rendered had it been placed against a large mass of light clouds. There are two or three fleecy white clouds about the summit of the mountain, but, as far as pictorial effect goes, they would have been better away, for the mind is left in doubt whether they are really clouds, or the sulphurous puffs that float about the crater of a slumbering volcano. That photographs possessing all the effects required by the rules of art are difficult, and almost impossible to obtain at one exposure in the camera, I readily allow. I know full well that a man might wait for days and weeks before the clouds would arrange themselves so as to relieve his principal object most advantageously; and, even if the desirable effects of light and shade were obtained, the chances are that the forms would not harmonize with the leading lines of the landscape.