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Clouds in Art Week: MondayThe Olmec were ancient Mesoamericans who inhabited the coasts and highlands of present-day Mexico between 1,500 and 500BCE. Olmec artisans are best known for carving colossal stone heads, some reaching heights of 3.4 metres (11 feet). But it is high time the Olmec get credit for what surely are some of the earliest accurate renderings of Cumulonimbus storm clouds. This is a drawing of a life-size bas-relief, known as El Rey (The King), that was carved on a hillside at Chalcatzingo, Valley of Morelos, Mexico sometime around 700-500BCE. A trio of Cumulonimbus, with their distinctive anvil tops, are releasing torrents of rain over a cave where a king sits on his throne – perhaps sheltering his elaborate robes and headdress from the downpour. For several thousand years, the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican cultures incorporated symbols of life-giving rain in their art and monuments. The start of the summer rainy season is still cause for celebration across Latin America. And nothing says rain better than a Cumulonimbus.This drawing of the El Rey bas-relief by American anthropologist and archaeologist David C. Grove, a leading authority on the Olmec monuments at Chalcatzingo, Morelos, Mexico, is shared with his permission.