The Differing Interpretations of the Winter Landscape

By Jenny O’Gorman

Much like today, snow produced an emotional reaction for many artists, who responded with paintings ranging from cheerful reside scenes to fearful representations of winter’s cruelty. Nowadays, we can retreat indoors into centrally heated houses and appreciate the visuals of a snowy landscape from afar, but for generations, the prospect of prolonged frosts brought with it the threat of crop failure, hypothermia, and starvation. Despite the omnipresent danger and darkness of winter, we can trace our celebration of it back to paintings depicting ancient seasonal rituals. Since then, the artist's ability to find inspiration, beauty and even joy in wintery conditions has produced some of the most iconic and universally appealing landscape paintings in art history.

The Limbourg Brothers, Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry Fevrier, 1412-1416, manuscript

Depicting life moving amongst stark, white expanses of snow has been used to great effect by numerous artists. In the illuminated manuscript, Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, symbolic scenes of each calendar month are shown beneath astrological Zodiac signs. February is characterised by an idealised winter landscape, enlivened by agrarian labourers carrying out daily activities typical of the season: sheep huddle in the fold, a man and laden mule trudge upwards along a snowy track and trees are cut for wood to stoke the fire in the foreground, around which several figures warm themselves. Snow is subtly rendered in different chromatic shades, as is a leaden sky, but there is a definite sense of serenity and optimism associated with this bitterly cold month.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Hunters in the Snow, 1565, oil on panel

More than a century later, Northern European painter Pieter Bruegel’s The Hunters in the Snow also shows a frozen and severe winter landscape warmed by its human inhabitants. The winters of 1564-1565 were particularly harsh, aptly named the ‘Little Ice Age’. Bruegel responded to this phenomenon with a panel painting which has become widely regarded as the first fully realised winter landscape, complete with numerous detailed vignettes of everyday life. Commissioned by a merchant in Antwerp, he produced a series of work showing a progression through six distinct seasons, bringing the tradition of illuminated manuscript scenes to a larger scale. However, the stresses of winter are at the forefront of this work. Hunched against the cold with their backs turned to us, hunters traverse along a ridge above a snow laden valley, their dogs trailing exhaustedly behind - a single, meagre fox slung over a shoulder suggests their constant struggle for food. But seeking warmth, the figures move towards a promise of joy and heat in the busy hamlet. A coldness generated by the ashy blues and whites are offset by rust coloured bricks of traditional Flemish architecture. From an elevated vantage point, we are offered a commanding panoramic vista of the joyous multiplicity of human activity as people take advantage of the conditions: skating, playing games and roasting food.

J. M. W. Turner, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, 1812, oil on canvas

Through composition, light, colour and form, artists began to appreciate the sublimity of nature and its immense, often frightening power. In Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps, J. M. W. Turner depicts the Carthaginian army as they traverse flinty alpine peaks and are caught in the teeth of a storm; attacked by both man and the will of nature. The whirling blizzard takes on an anthropomorphic quality; a curved black mass of cloud is poised dramatically above the beleaguered group. To the right of the composition, an avalanche blasts down the valley and into the swirling vortex of cloud and wind. This setting affords Turner valuable expressive freedom to experiment with the unique quality of changing light created by an impending snowstorm, using it to create an intense narrative moment of high drama.

Childe Hassam, Winter, Midnight, 1894, oil on canvas

Smudged by a heavy flurry of impasto brushstrokes, the outline of the horses, cabs and drivers are barely perceptible in Winter Midnight, which shows carriages speeding along 5th Avenue in New York. This scene was painted at around the same time as the first photograph truly capturing fallen snow was taken. However, this impressionist work gives us a far more evocative and unusual snapshot of this city at the turn of the century - the once busy streets have become entirely quiet and devoid of people. For modern viewers, this scene may be particularly poignant in its depiction of a way of life which no longer exists; horse-drawn cabs recede into the distance, becoming remnants of the past.

Wassily Kandinsky, Winter Landscape, 1909, oil on cardboard

Pierre Dimitrenko, La Forêt Pétrifiée (The Petrified Forest), 1956, oil on canvas

More recently, abstract artists have celebrated winter by paying close attention to its variety of textures and forms. Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky’s Winter Landscape speaks to the luminosity of fallen snow. Rather than being dominated by white, the artist has used soft pink, blue and yellow hues to suggest the fluorescence of snow at sunset. This ordinary winter scene takes on the appearance of stained glass, speaking to the strangely delicate beauty of winter and its pale, glowing light. In exhibition at the Tate Modern, Pierre Dimitrenko’s Petrified Forest instead encapsulates the grey and stony silence of winter in a forest of dead trees and rocks frozen with ice and snow.

Whilst these paintings are subjective interpretations and span many generations, their enduring resonance can be attributed to their portrayal of a universal experience, celebrating the power and beauty of winter and snow.

Notes:

BBC. Episode 4 of Tales of Winter: The Art of Snow and Ice, 2013

Martinelli, Olimpia Gaia. “Winter landscapes in Art”, Artmajeur Magazine, 7th of December 2021 https://www.artmajeur.com/en/magazine/5-art-history/winter-landscapes-in-art/330838

Stechow, Wolfgang. “The Winter Landscape in the History of Art” in Criticism 2, No. 2 (1960): pp. 175–89.