36. Blanch the Sun
- Jul 10, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Dec 16, 2025
(6.) And now I come to the most important sign of the plague-wind and the plague-cloud: that in bringing on their peculiar darkness, they blanch the sun instead of reddening it. And here I must note briefly to you the uselessness of observation by instruments, or machines, instead of eyes. In the first year when I had begun to notice the specialty of the plague-wind, I went of course to the Oxford observatory to consult its registrars. They have their anemometer always on the twirl, and can tell you the force, or atleast the pace, of a gale, by day or night. But the anemometer can only record for you how often it has been driven round, not at all whether it went round steadily, or went round trembling. And on that point depends the entire question whether it is a plague breeze or a healthy one: and what’s the use of telling you whether the wind’s strong or not, when it can’t tell you whether it’s a strong medicine, or a strong poison?[1]
But again—you have your sun-measure, and can tell exactly at any moment how strong, or how weak, or how wanting, the sun is. But the sun-measurer can’t tell you whether the rays are stopped by a dense shallow cloud, or a thin deep one. In healthy weather, the sun is hidden behind a cloud, as it is behind a tree; and, when the cloud is past, it comes out again, as bright as before. But in plague-wind, the sun is choked out of the whole heaven, all day long, by a cloud which may be a thousand miles square and five miles deep.
And yet observe: that thin, scraggy, filthy, mangy, miserable cloud, for all the depth of it, can’t turn the sun red, as a good, business-like fog does with a hundred feet or so of itself. By the plague-wind every breath of air you draw is polluted, half round the world; in a London fog the air itself is pure, though you choose to mix up dirt with it, and choke yourself with your own nastiness.
Footnotes
‘And We Dance for You’ – a short DIY film response by Aoife Kinsella, BA (Hons) Acting and Performance, Sheffield Hallam University, Thursday 11 December 2025.
Initially, I was drawn to the Ruskin passage ‘Blanch the Sun’ because of the quote ‘a strong medicine, or a strong poison’ and the ambiguity of that. I also recognised that this passage seemed to be the first in which Ruskin began explaining the plague-cloud that he saw in detail. As I filmed, edited, experimented and produced drafts, leading up to the final film, I realised that I connected to this passage more and more. I enjoyed the idea of the reliability of the sun rising each day in the morning and I thought, in modern society, we don’t appreciate the little things in nature that keep us going, and don't appreciate enough that of which we rely on.
My film is therefore an experimental piece, which intertwines subtle surrealism and reality, linked by the rising sun, as an appraisal of it. Because of this, I want the majority of the film to be up to audience interpretation. However, one key thing I wanted to make clear is how humans do or should interact with nature, considering our reliance on it. I wanted to highlight the importance and consistency of nature intertwining with human life, and how we should show appreciation towards it more than we do, especially considering Ruskin’s storm-cloud and the masses of ‘storm-clouds’ that are produced today.
The three locations all represent this appreciation of nature. The first, at sunrise, being a clear and hyperbolic show of gratitude towards the sun, treating it as sacred or Godly by dancing for it as it rises; the second, a dream-like woman by a lake on a cloudy day, her modern, yet dirty clothing both contrasting and somewhat complementing the surrounding nature; and finally, the most realistic depiction of human life: the woman in her home, representing modern humanity. Through all these contrasting settings, I hope to convey how important nature, and particularly the sun, is in our lives as humans who live on this planet, and that we should not be wasteful and take it for granted.
Working on 'And We Dance For You' has definitely made me realise that I shouldn’t be afraid to experiment and try something I have never done before, as well as encouraging me to be as committed and ambitious as I want – I now believe that the more committed you are, the more you’ll enjoy the process of making a film, even if you are soaked in water, lying in the grass on the edge of a lake – it’s worth it!
Although it seems obvious, I also found that I need a detailed plan instead of just a vague idea when producing a film. Writing a script, detailing what kind of shots you want and storyboarding when they happen is such an important step to complete before you start trying to put anything together. It doesn’t limit your creativity because in the planning process, you are restricted only by your own imagination. You can put your crazy ideas into perspective later but as long as the main plan is sorted, everything should run smoothly.
When I was doing research for my film, I initially looked up and was inspired by a set of poems: ‘Sun and Flesh’ by Arthur Rimbaud, ‘A Day’ by Emily Dickinson and ‘The Rising Sun’ by John Donne. It was interesting to see other creatives approach to the topic of the sun and I drew a lot of inspiration from their poems, even including a few lines verbatim. I particularly loved Rimbaud's comparison of nature and the human body, which was one of the things that influenced me to present nature as intertwined with human lives and why it was so important to carefully choose my locations so the characters could interact, at least on a psychological level with their environment.