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The Cloud, Charles Douglas Richardson
  • Artist
    Charles Douglas Richardson
  • Born
    1853
  • Died
    1932
  • Title
    The Cloud
  • Date of Production
    c. 1900
  • Medium
    plaster
  • Dimensions
    H: 46.5 cm, diam: 14.2 cm
  • Credit Details
    Gift of Kenneth Myer, 1974

Charles Douglas Richardson

The Cloud

Richardson trained as a painter and sculptor in Melbourne and at the Royal Academy School in London.  After his return to Australia in 1889 Richardson began to explore the flowing lines  based on organic forms  characteristic of the movement known as Art Nouveau.

This allegorical interpretation of Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cloud, is one of a series of plaster versions made between 1900 and 1910.  The poem reads:

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.