Storm-Cloud: Picturing the Origins of our Climate Crisis
14 September 2024 – 6 January 2025
Huntington, USA
‘… the sky is for all; … and yet we never attend to it, never make it a subject of thought…’
John Ruskin, Modern Painters I
Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of Our Climate Crisis analyses the impact of industrialisation and a globalised economy on everyday life from 1780 to 1930, as charted by scientists, artists, and writers, and contextualises the current climate crisis within this historical framework. The exhibition traces the rise of environmental awareness in the 19th century—an age of rapid industrialisation in the English-speaking world as well as a period in which the sciences of geology, palaeontology, meteorology, and ecology developed.
John Ruskin, whose careful observance of the natural world was pivotal in this awakening, provided the title for the exhibition. His lecture series “The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century” described the changing appearance of the sky due to industrial pollution. Ruskin’s daguerreotypes and paintings of glaciers and skyscapes, from which he observed the initial impacts of human activity on the natural world, are included alongside nearly 200 items drawn from The Huntington’s collections and on loan from collections in the United States and Britain.
John Ruskin & Frederick Crawley, ‘Chamonix. Mer de Glace, Mont Blanc Massif’, 1854, 1996D0075 © The Ruskin, Lancaster University
John Ruskin & Frederick Crawley, ‘Chamonix. Aiguille Verte and Aiguille du Dru’, 1854, 1996D0074 © The Ruskin, Lancaster University
Exhibition Catalogue: ‘Storm-Cloud: Picturing Origins of our Climate Crisis’