The Weather
Katharina Hölzl
I'm sitting at my desk, and since November last year, a gray cloud has been hanging over Vienna. At the beginning of February, it's still there, immovable. It's hard for me to describe how much one single cloud weighs on everything. Clouds are something between being and nothingness, which is why sign language is sometimes attributed to their iconic shapes. This cloud, however, has little recognition. It just hangs there.
It is possible to decode the clouds by the rhythm of the non-clouds, the blue. However, this one covers the entirety of the sky. A few days ago, it seemed that brightness was beneath. I thought maybe the sun was already working on the transformation and soon, the sky would break through. But the forecast looks the same for the past as it does for the near future: Cloud.
There seems to be cloud-logic also in other images of the world. The weather app keeps showing me the partly frozen Niagara Falls and interrupts me, telling me that I should finally learn how to converse more elegantly with the help of the AI Coach: Don't ask, “How was your weekend?” and critically, “Stop talking about the weather!”
In his short film Che case sono le nuvole? (What Are The Clouds?), Pier Paolo Pasolini connects images of clouds in the sky with images of piles of rubbish, rags, and debris of a theater. Puppets and inventory of a cultural production are thrown away and trashed in big containers while images of clouds are shown like empty projection screens above. It suggests that all forms of an actor, artist or audience’s accumulations are constantly changing, but do not really disappear, they are merely transformed into another state. The film points to a parallel between the clouds in the sky and those of the ground.
I find out about a painting by Antonio Correggio that is called Jupiter and Io and to my surprise is part of the collection of the Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna. In it, the river queen Io is caught by a soft cloud of mist, the weather god Jupiter, kissing her cheek while pulling her close with a paw-like hand. I write this now as if I was there seeing it with my own eyes, but the truth is, I tried to visit this painting today and on the way to the museum the sun was making a first quick appearance in months, questioning the necessity of further research all together.
While everyone was outside, I enter the museum without the usual crowds. To my disappointment, Jupiter and Io had also disappeared. I go to the corner with the other Correggio’s and ask someone, with the image on my phone, shouldn’t this painting hang right here? I find out, that, where I stand, is the usual spot of the painting but it’s being kept in storage. A bit confused, I look at the Kidnapping of Ganymed instead, another painting that normally shares the “Correggio wall” and start to wonder what I’m hoping for from this missed encounter.
I don’t want to give up the idea of thinking about the weather here and decide to look for the other paintings with Jupiter in the title. I used to go to the Kunsthistorische Museum without a certain goal. It was difficult for me to see something even though, or maybe because, it’s all made for being seen and everybody’s looking. While searching intensively for the other two paintings with Jupiter-titles, I realize how this general focus on the cloud makes me suddenly see everything else but the weather. As I stroll around, seeing for the first time, I also end up finding Titian’s Danae, in which the cloud Jupiter touches her by raining money. The second painting, Stormy landscape with Jupiter, Mercury, Philemon, and Baucis by Rubens shows a thunderstorm that is just beginning. Water pours from the clouds, flooding the adjacent river, and across the entire surface of the canvas. There are only a few dry spots where some figures stand, their backs turned to me, also looking into the painting.
I exit the museum; the cloud is back in its original spot. I decide to surrender myself, just like before, when I was exclusively looking for it. Gray is not just a color, but all the colors of the rainbow at once, in exactly the same proportions. I make my way to the studio. Night falls. It is the brightest time of day, with artificial lights illuminating the room.