Preface

THE following lectures, drawn up under the pressure of more imperative and quite otherwise directed work, contain many passages which stand in need of support, and some, I do not doubt, more or less of correction, which I always prefer to receive openly from the better knowledge of friends, after setting down my own impressions of the matter in clearness as far as they reach, than to guard myself against by submitting my manuscript, before publication, to annotators whose stricture or suggestion I might often feel pain in refusing, yet hesitation in admitting.

But though thus hastily, and to some extent incautiously, thrown into form, the statements in the text are founded on patient and, in all essential particulars, accurately recorded observations of the sky, during fifty years of a life of solitude and leisure; and in all they contain of what may seem to the reader questionable, or astonishing, are guardedly and absolutely true.

In many of the reports given by the daily press, my assertion of radical change, during recent years, in weather aspect was scouted as imaginary, or insane. I am indeed, every day of my yet spared life, more and more grateful that my mind is capable of imaginative vision, and liable to the noble dangers of delusion which separate the speculative intellect of humanity from the dreamless instinct of brutes: but I have been able, during all active work, to use or refuse my power of contemplative imagination, with as easy command of it as a physicist’s of his telescope: the times of morbid are just as easily distinguished by me from those of healthy vision, as by men of ordinary faculty dream from waking; nor is there a single fact stated in the following pages which I have not verified with a chemist’s analysis, and a geometer’s precision.

The first lecture is printed, with only addition here and there of an elucidatory word or phrase, precisely as it was given on the 4th February. In repeating it on the 11th, I amplified several passages, and substituted for the concluding one, which had been printed with accuracy in most of the leading journals, some observations which I thought calculated to be of more general interest. To these, with the additions in the first text, I have now prefixed a few explanatory notes, to which numeral references are given in the pages they explain, and have arranged the fragments in connection clear enough to allow of their being read with ease as a second Lecture.

HERNE HILL, 12th March, 1884.

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Notes on the performance

This section gathers selected reviews and reader reflections on Storm-Cloud: Observations of the Sky. Each appears as an expandable note.

1. Sophie Swoffer, “Endurance in the eye of the storm: Tom Payne’s Storm-Cloud Observations of the Sky”, Now Then Magazine, 19 August 2024 (review of performance at The Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse, Sheffield Theatres, 19 June 2024).

Tom Payne’s 2024 performance, Storm-Cloud Observation of the Sky, is a deeply prescient contemporary reimagining of John Ruskin’s ‘Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century’ – a controversial lecture from 1884 that highlighted the catastrophic impact of nineteenth-century industrialisation and the role of humans in climate breakdown and pollution.

Payne’s innovative restaging of this notorious lecture feels increasingly relevant as he intelligently connects Ruskin’s words to the very real threat of the climate crisis currently facing our fragile environment. Through his dynamic and captivating delivery, Payne breathes new life and meaning into the 140-year-old text, encouraging present-day audience members to ponder their complicity in the grim reality of climate breakdown.

In Payne’s performance, the audience is presented with a dimly-lit stage characterised by a central desk and chair, behind which a large screen looms over the space. The screen is an integral part of the performance – it guides the audience through the text of the lecture, offering the option to read along and test Payne’s accuracy against Ruskin’s original.

The production is divided into 16 short acts, each initiated by an image of a bird on the screen from John Gould’s Birds of Britain, photographed by Becky Payne in the Millennium Gallery’s Ruskin Collection. This element provides the audience with an insight into the inner mechanics of the work, and serves as a reminder of time passing within this performative transaction, eerily echoing the sense of losing time against the climate crisis.

Additionally, the screen hosts a wealth of hypnotic, tragic, and beautiful visual media throughout the performance, effectively placing Payne within the threatening swirling storm clouds he warns us about. Payne’s cloud-patterned suit frequently blurs the line between him and the screen, at points making him appear as an extension of the stormy backdrop.

A striking element of the piece is Payne’s demonstration of endurance as a performer. Central to the 73-minute performance is his engaging yet rapid delivery of Ruskin’s words, which he recites with precise accuracy to the original text. As mentioned earlier, the scripted text from the lecture relentlessly fills the screen in real time behind Payne, challenging him to perform the words in sync with the fast-paced visuals.

The only break Payne allows himself is a brief pause when the title of the next act flashes on the screen, during which he takes a short drink of water and momentarily catches his breath in preparation for the next sequence. As the performance progressed, I found myself using these short breaks to catch my own breath, realising I had been holding it in solidarity with Payne as the physical effort of his ongoing vocal delivery became more apparent.

In the final acts of the performance, this durational dynamic became particularly captivating. Payne understandably begins to struggle with the laborious task of echoing Ruskin’s extensive and poetically worded lecture. This struggle is evidenced by occasional moments of stumbling over words or pausing to take a breath in the middle of a line, breaking the self-imposed rules Payne had adhered to for most of the performance.

Rather than detracting from the work, these very human moments made me reflect on the hopelessness of a single person’s effort within the gargantuan issue of the climate crisis; an effort that seems relentless in the face of unfettered corporate pollution. These small signs of exhaustion emphasised what I perceive as the core message of the piece: Payne uses this performance to inspire action from his audience, and only when this collective effort is realised can meaningful change occur.

This piece was performed and directed by Dr Tom Payne, with motion design by Jake Goodall, photography by Becky Payne, original composition by David John Brady, illustration by Billy Hughes and Penny McCarthy, dramaturgical focus by Terry O’Connor, digital media production by Anne Doncaster and Richard Mather, and archival research by Ashley Gallant.