Winter in Art

The latest cold snap and snowy weather prompted thoughts of winter in art. Paintings of the winter season are fairly common in our time, but it wasn't always so. Painting and sculpture in Europe was devoted to religious topics and mostly paid for by the Church.

Pieter Breughel the Elder, "Hunters in Snow," 1565

Very few winter landscapes were made (in European painting anyway) until about the mid-16th century. In that century Pieter Breughel the Elder produced what is often considered to be the first winter landscape, "Hunters in the Snow." Breughel painted a series of images of the months, including this one, that year, commissioned by a wealthy patron, depicting village life. The hunters painting depicts a snowbound Flemish landscape and village, showing not only hunters with pikes trudging off with their dogs, villagers gathered around a fire, skaters on a frozen pond. There are houses and churches in the distance and all is set by a backdrop of snow-covered mountains--obviously invented, given the Flemish topography. Breughel made quite a few other snowy paintings, even a nativity scene. And since religious art was less and less important, especially in Northern Europe after the Reformation, secular landscapes of all kinds came to the forefront. Other genres of painting--still life, genres, portraits--became important as well.

Caspar David Friedrich, "Winter Landscape with Ruins" 1808

The German artist Caspar David Friedrich is a particular favorite of mine. He was part of the Romantic movement, whose approach to landscape was sharply different. Instead of the kind of bucolic prettiness that you might find in a work by John Constable, Friedrich painted mysterious, sometimes frightening landscapes, often with a single figure. He was interested in landscape as a way to explore the human condition, and used close observation outdoors to study various aspects, usually in graphite. He was particularly interested in metaphorical aspects, as you can see in Winter Landscape with Ruins from 1808. The monochromatic palette, bare trees, deep snow and obliterating winter atmosphere coupled with a ruined monastery evoke (for me at least) the depths of despair and loss. The evocation of mourning is almost unbearable. Friedrich, despite being famous as a young man, died in relative obscurity, as so many seem to have done.

Claude Monet, "The Magpie," 1869

During the 19th century, landscape painting evolved as painters spent more time outdoors, like John Constable in England and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot in France. Their work, in turn, sparked not only depiction of reality (the Realism of Courbet) but eventually the work of Claude Monet. Quite a few of Monet's works are snowscapes one of my favorites being The Magpie, which was rejected by the Paris Salon but is famous today. It was painted on the spot after a big snowfall. Monet evokes the sunshine on new snow with multicolored shadows that many consider the beginning sparks of Impressionism. In any event, unlike Friedrich, there is light and hope and optimism in the image in a seemingly realistic landscape. The focal magpie--metaphorically perhaps despair or misfortune--is dwarfed by the hope and warmth of the yellow sunshine. Worth considering in view of today's political and cultural climate.