Rain is one of the most elusive subjects an artist can attempt. Unlike a tree or a figure, rain itself has no fixed form—just streaks of shifting light, refracted colors, and a mood that changes with every cloud. To paint it, one must capture not only the falling water but also the atmosphere it creates: the blur of distant shapes, the glistening streets, the softness of edges. One of my all time favorite paintings of rain was by an artist we represent named Amy Lind, she only makes a few paintings as year but they are always stunning. This is her painting:
Here in Charleston, the challenge feels especially present—we’ve had two straight days of rain, with more forecast to fall all weekend. The city feels hushed, its streets slicked into mirrors, its buildings softened to watercolor edges. It makes me think of painters who have wrestled with this same subject. Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day (1877) remains one of the most iconic examples, not by painting the drops themselves but by rendering their effect—wet cobblestones shimmering, umbrellas bobbing through a misty haze. Later, American artist John Sloan tried his hand at the subject in Spring Rain (1912), using loose strokes to evoke that drizzly dampness that soaks everything yet seems impossible to hold on canvas. A number of our artists including below June Stratton has tackled the subject.
Rain resists being pinned down. It asks for suggestion rather than precision, for atmosphere over detail, which as a realist is not easy to do. Perhaps that is why it remains one of painting’s great difficulties: you can’t really paint rain itself, you can only paint the world transformed by it.
As I listen to it falling outside the studio now, I can’t help but think that maybe all this weather is a reminder—an invitation—to keep trying. Perhaps there is a rain painting in my future.
