Browse our selection of sky art for sale. Many viewers unfamiliar with the genre are sometimes unaware of is that what they think is a depiction of a landscape is in fact a depiction of a sky. From sunrise to starry skies, artists have long been depicting the sky in all its ever-changing states. And while sky art is used by some artists as a way of creating the mood of a painting, for sky artists the sky is the sole subject of their work. If you’re uncertain where to begin, we’re on hand to help. Have a browse of our Sky Drawings, Sky Photography or Sky Prints to find your next piece.
Or take a look at Max Naylor with his colourful, surrealist depictions of urban skies. Max’s skies are every bit as dramatic and vivid as those depicted by Van Gogh and Munch. Unlike these painters, Max, like many contemporary artists, is working in mixed media. Based in Bristol Max’s semi-surreal imagery is inspired by memory and imagination.
Brief history of sky art
Historians have found that artists have been painting the skies since the middle ages, some believing that the prevalence of sky art in the UK, being because of its often turbulent weather. Like other forms of realist art, sky art informs and is informed by science and the artist’s will to know more about their subject.
John Constable is perhaps one the best known sky artists for his painting Cloud Study in which he shows an extraordinary understanding of the movement and structure of clouds. Meteorologists were in awe of his observations and were able to calculate the season and even the hour of the skies he painted.
The sky in landscape painting is the biggest conveyor of sentiment. A painter well known for using the sky to convey sentiment in his magnum opus is Norwegian expressionist Edvard Munch. Now considered one of the most iconic images in art history is his composition The Scream which explores the progression of modern emotional life and themes of love, anxiety and death.
The Scream is thought to have conveyed Munch’s psychological state in his real life. The image was inspired by a moment he had while outside walking when the sun was setting and the sky turned a bloody red. He felt melancholic and anxious and says that he “felt the scream in nature”.
The most famous sky in art is Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night which is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch post-impressionist painter. Painted in 1889, it depicts the view from the east-facing window of his room, while he was receiving psychiatric treatment at a monastery in southern France.
