Cloud hugs Dents du Midi. 11.05.2025. 24x24 cm

Cloud Hugs. Dents du Midi. 11.05.2025

This original plein-air oil painting was created in Switzerland in May 2025, capturing the Dents du Midi mountain range partially embraced by passing clouds. Painted directly outdoors, the work focuses on the fleeting relationship between mountain forms, moving atmosphere and light, where the landscape appears to emerge and disappear within the sky itself.

The composition is built around the encounter between clouds and mountains. Rather than standing sharply against the horizon, the peaks seem wrapped inside shifting layers of vapour and light. The clouds do not merely pass above the mountains. They appear to settle around them, softening their contours and creating the impression that the landscape is being gradually absorbed into the atmosphere.

The title Cloud Hugs reflects this sense of closeness between sky and earth. The clouds seem almost protective, surrounding the mountain peaks in a quiet exchange between solidity and air. The scene feels suspended between presence and disappearance, where the boundaries of the landscape become uncertain.

Soft tones of pale blue, lavender, grey, white and muted green create an atmosphere of calm luminosity. The brushwork remains economical yet expressive, allowing forms to remain partially unresolved. This openness gives the painting a dreamlike quality, where perception becomes more important than precise description. The mountains are felt before they are fully seen.

The Dents du Midi are among the most recognizable mountain silhouettes visible across Western Switzerland and the region surrounding Lac Léman (Lake Geneva). Their dramatic profile often changes character depending on weather conditions, sometimes appearing monumental and sharply defined, and at other times dissolving almost completely into mist, cloud and atmospheric light. (montreuxriviera.com, whc.unesco.org)

In this painting, the mountains become less a geographical subject than a study of atmosphere. The work explores how distance, weather and light transform perception, turning a familiar Alpine horizon into something fragile, temporary and almost immaterial.

Created during a single plein-air painting session, this work preserves a brief encounter with changing mountain weather. The movement of the clouds, the shifting light and the quiet presence of the Dents du Midi became the essential elements of the composition.

This painting belongs to my ongoing series dedicated to the Alps, Lac Léman and the landscapes of Western Switzerland. Each work records a direct experience of atmosphere, season and place observed outdoors in nature.

Original plein-air oil painting by Olga Tacan.

Location: Vaud, Switzerland
Subject: Dents du Midi partially covered by clouds
Region: Swiss Alps overlooking Lac Léman (Lake Geneva)
Medium: Oil painting
Date painted: 11 May 2025

Oil on paper

Plain air painting

Size 24 cm x 24 cm

Size with passé-partout  32x42cm 

Date: 11 May 2025

Location: Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland