'Skies must and always shall with me make an effectual part of the composition, ' wrote John Constable in 1821.' It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the key note, the standard of scale and the chief organ of sentiment '. This publication examines Constable's dramatic studies of clouds and places them in their intellectual, scientific and artistic contexts in a series of fascinating essays. Eighty oil sketches and paintings are fully discussed and illustrated in colour and are supplemented by a selection of meteorological instruments. The contributors are Professor John Gage, University of Cambridge; Anne Lyles, Tate Gallery; Edward Morris, formerly of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Professor John Thornes, University of Birmingham; and art historian, Timothy Wilcox.