French / France
Atlas des nuages
(Cloud atlas)
Guillem, Julie
(text/illus.)
Arles: Actes Sud junior, [2016]. – 92 p.
ISBN 978-2-330-06914-8
Cloud | Weather | Climate | Art | Non-fiction
Reading age: 10+
White Ravens issue: 2017
A book written in the language of the clouds: Even its velvety cover reveals the intriguing synthesis of non-fiction and art book that embodies Actes Sud publishers’ innovative non-fiction book line. This first book by young artist Julie Guillem links scientific with artistic work, showing how clouds make the weather “visible” since they contain key information about water content, temperature, and storms. Knowing about clouds, for instance their height and formation, is thus a survival tool. Many great painters have conducted systematic cloud studies and been inspired to create masterpieces. Julie Guillem’s expressive chalk drawings belong in the long tradition of landscape painting. She marvellously meets the challenge of giving form and colour to a fog-like object without firm location and solid outline. Her pictures coalesce into “spiritual landscapes” that contain much more than fleeting appearances in the skies.