While Hurricane Sandy is still far off-shore and New York City’s museums are all shuttered — including the Museum of Modern Art, which plans to reopen as normal on Wednesday — there’s plenty of extreme weather in their permanent collections. A survey of MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum’s online catalogues reveals two exceptional storms paintings from the late-19th century, one a tropical storm scene by Winslow Homer, the other a gloomy Scandinavian tempest by Edvard Munch.
The former, Homer’s watercolor “Hurricane, Bahamas” (1898, above), features a row of wind-blown palm trees under churning gray skies. While the flora and architecture look nothing like much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states will see while expectantly waiting for Sandy, the ominous, zippy clouds and battered ranches should be a familiar sight.
Munch’s rendering of inclement weather is — much like the gloomy red sky in the MoMA-exhibited “The Scream,” volcanic explanations notwithstanding — far more psychologically charged. As a huddled group stands at left, clasping their hats in the high winds while an invitingly lit home looms in the background, a ghostly white figure marches through the foreground, seemingly, uncannily, headed towards the viewer. Please do not attempt to replicate this painting during Sandy, even as part of some elaborate arty Halloween storm costume project — nor, for that matter, as an entry in the National Weather Art Biennial.
— Benjamin Sutton
(Sandy animated GIF via; Winslow Homer, “Hurricane, Bahamas,” 1898, courtesy the Metropolitan Museum; Edvard Munch, “The Storm,” 1893, courtesy MoMA.)
