The Art of Advent: BONUS POST
We know we said that yesterday’s was the final instalment of the Art of Advent calendar but we couldn’t resist giving you just one more festive article for 2020. In this piece Lindsay Inglis discusses her top ten images of snow. Let’s hope it encourages a wonderful white Christmas for us all! Happy Christmas to everyone!
No. 1 Sigmar Polke, Mrs. Autumn and Her Two Daughters, 1991, Resin and Acrylic on Synthetic Fabric, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
This scene depicts the first snow fall as Mrs. Autumn and her two daughters cut up paper and distribute the pieces beneath them. Underneath the cloud they sit on two people make their way through a field of snow, bracing themselves for the elements. As winter nears the snow is slowly taking over the canvas.
No. 2 Wilson A. Bently, Photograph of a Snowflake, 1885, Jericho Historical Society, Jericho.
On January 15, 1885 Wilson Bently became the first person to successfully photograph a snowflake. He went on to photograph over 5,000 individual snowflakes, publishing a book of photographs in 1931 that is still in print today. Bently was fascinated with snowflakes and explained that “Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever replicated.”
No. 3 Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Hunters in the Snow, 1565, Oil on Wood Panel, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna.
The Hunters in the Snow is a panel describing the labours of the winter months. In the foreground there is a sense of despair as men return from their hunt with little to show for it. The joyous aspect of winter can be seen in the background as people are playing on the ice, surrounded by an idyllic landscape.
No. 4 Victor Ekootek, Sled, 1964, Stonecut on Paper, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg.
Victor Ekootek was an Inuit artist based in Ulukhaktok (Holman), Northwest Territories. Ekootak was one of the first artists in the community to use printmaking as an artistic medium. This print portrays an Inuit family pulling a sled through the snowy terrain. While landscapes are not a common genre in Inuit art, this particular image uses the white paper to ground the scene in the Canadian arctic.
No. 5 Francois Boucher, The Four Seasons: Winter, 1755, Oil on Canvas, The Frick Collection, New York.
This scene is one of many portraits that Madame de Pompadour commissioned of herself. Winter portrays Pompadour enjoying a decadent sleigh ride, there is a golden swan at the front of her sleigh and she is dressed in an elegant fur lined pink coat that is not done up nearly enough to practically protect her from the cold. The man pushing the sleigh on the other hand is properly dressed for the elements, in warm clothing and a wool hat.
No. 6 Kay Nielsen, So the man gave him a pair of snowshoes, 1914, Book Illustration, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Fairy tale illustrations are able to turn simple snow scenes into dreamlike fantasies and Kay Nielsen was a true master in this field. So the man gave him a pair of snowshoes is an illustration from “The Three Princesses of Whiteland,” where a prince rescues not one, but three princesses, and becomes King of Whiteland. After a series of bad decisions, the King is lost unable to find his way home, until he is given a pair of snowshoes that slowly lead the way.
No. 7 Utagawa Hiroshige, Evening Snow at Kanbara, 1833-1834, Woodblock Print, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Evening Snow at Kanbara is from Utagawa Hiroshige’s ground-breaking series “Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō,” illustrating a traveller’s journey from Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto. While this scene looks like a captured moment in time, it is likely a figment of Hiroshige’s imagination. It rarely snows in Kanbara, especially in the Autumn when Hiroshige travelled to Kyoto.
No. 8 Giovanni Segantini, The Punishment of Lust, 1891, Oil on Canvas, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
Giovanni Segantini is a Swiss painter who settled in Italy, just south of the Alps, which became a prominent backdrop for his artwork. The women The Punishment of Lust seem to be suspended in time and space, destined to float above this snowy landscape. The title of the painting aside, these women appear to be in a dreamlike environment; however, Segantini was inspired by Lugi Illica’s poem ‘Nirvana,’ about provocative women, and illustrates their eternal punishment.
No. 9 Caspar David Friedrich, Winter Landscape with Church, 1811, Oil on Canvas, The National Gallery, London.
Winter Landscape with Church is the first of Caspar David Friedrich’s landscapes to include a Gothic church, which then became a commonly used motif for the artist. The church in this painting has been interpreted as the salvation from a bleak cold, yet there is a man who prefers to sit and pray outside. Rather than the church, he has chosen salvation in the snow.
No. 10 William Kurelek, After Recess, 1969, Mixed Media, Private Collection.
This is a familiar scene to every child growing up in the Canadian prairies, at least before snowballs were banned in schools. William Kurelek’s artwork focuses on his experience as a Ukrainian Canadian living in the prairies. Unlike many Canadian artists who focus solely on the landscape, Kurelek focuses on the human experience within that landscape. His artwork is simultaneously personal and representative of the Canadian experience.