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| The Limbourg Brothers, February From the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry Dutch, c. 1412-1416 Chantilly, Musée Condé MS 65, fol. 2v |
Last night, with the entire East Coast hunkered down for a strong nor’easter and heavy snow, I couldn’t resist stepping a bit outside my normal iconographic concerns to prepare some observations on the art of the snow scene.
From my windows today I can see the roofs of Manhattan covered in the white stuff, the pine trees planted on some penthouses as picturesque as in any Alpine scene. I am grateful that, for us at least, it wasn’t heavier and sorry for those who took the full brunt of the storm.
With nowhere to go, since transportation is still limited, and with the power off in some locations, we find our twenty-first century selves thrown back – almost – to an earlier world, sharing with our ancestors the beauty and the disruption of snow.
The first snow scene we are aware of is the amazingly
detailed and very charming one produced by the Limbourg Brothers (Jean, Herman and Paul) for the
February calendar page of the Tres
Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry, produced around 1415.
Traditionally, the February calendar page in Books of Hours showed the activity of the month to consist either of keeping warm in front of a fire, eating beside it (same as January) or of chopping twigs in a snowless landscape, often combined with the fishes that are the astrological sign of Pisces.
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| * February From a Psalter French (Northern), c. 1210 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Latin 238, fol. 1v |
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| February From a Breviary French (Paris), c. 1345-`355 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 75, fol. 1v |
The Limbourgs do present the warming scene and the astrological reference, but then devote the largest portion of the page to what is happening beyond the house.
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| Limbourg Brothers, February (detail) From the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry Dutch, c. 1412-1416 Chantilly, Musée Condé MS 65, fol. 2v (detail) |
They show the
sheep penned up in their fold to keep them warm and safe, the snow covered bee
hives, the pigeons and other birds, possibly starlings, feeding on some scattered grain. On the far right a woman worker, her
skirts hiked up above her knees, showing the very practical boots she is
wearing, hurries to get indoors as she breathes on her cold hands which are
covered by the shawl she is wearing over her head and upper body. She is the very picture of shivering cold.
Beyond the woven wall that surrounds the farmyard a man with an ax is chopping at a tree, presumably
for more firewood. Another man drives a donkey, with panniers laden with
what looks like logs, past snow covered hay stacks toward a distantly seen
town. For a first image it is a strikingly successful rendering of the visual and emotional effects of winter
snows and cold.
Snow scenes remained a special field for northern painters,
from the Low Countries, Germany and France, through the centuries, spreading later to America. Mostly the scenes are simple landscapes,
showing the effect of snow on the natural world, or scenes of daily human activities
in the snow.
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| Jean Bourdichon, January From the Grandes Heures d'Anne de Bretagne French, c. 1503-1508 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Latin 9474, fol. 4 |
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| Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow Flemish, 1565 Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum |
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| Denis van Alsloot, Winter Landscape Flemish, 1610 Paris, Musée du Louvre |
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| Joos de Momper, Winter Landscape with Wagon Flemish, c. 1620 Private Collection |
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| Jacob van Ruysdael, Winter Dutch, 1670 Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum |
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| Caspar David Friedrich, Winter German, 1811 London, National Gallery |
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| Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, Winter Dutch, 1838 Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum |
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| Johannes Cornelis Hoppenbrouwers, Winter Landscape Dutch, 1854 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| George Henry Boughton, Winter Twilight Near Albany American, c. 1859-1869 New York, New York Historical Society |
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Thomas Hiram Hotchkiss, Catskill Winter American, 1858 New York, New York Historical Society |
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| Henry Farrer, Moonlight in Winter American, 1869 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Claude Monet, Cart on the Snowy Road at Honfleur French, 1865 Paris, Musée d'Orsay |
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| Claude Monet, Snow at Argenteuil French, 1874 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts |
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| Claude Monet, Haystacks (Effect of Snow and Sun) French, 1891 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Alfred Sisley, Rue Moussoir at Moret: Winter English, 1891 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Paul Gauguin, Garden in Winter, Rue Carcel French, 1883 Private Collection |
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| Childe Hassam, Winter, Union Square American, c. 1889-1890 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| George Bellows, Blue Snow, the Battery American, 1910 Columbus, Museum of Art |
Many feature the effect of
snow and ice on the human sense of fun, showing people enjoying the frozen
rivers and ponds in the same way we do today: by strapping on a pair of ice
skates, sledding, playing games or flirting.
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| Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Winter Landscape with Skaters and a Bird Trap Belgian, 1565 Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts |
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| Hendrick Avercamp, A Scene on the Ice Dutch, 1625 Washington, National Gallery of Art |
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| Aert van der Neer, Sports on a Frozen River Dutch, c. 1660 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Vincent van der Vinne, Winter Landscape with Skaters on a Frozen Canal Dutch, Undated (lived 1736-1811) New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Francois Boucher, Winter French, 1755 New York, Frick Collection |
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| Currier and Ives, Central Park in Winter American, c. 1877-1894 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| George Bellows, Love of Winter American, 1914 Chicago, Art Institute |
Religious Scenes
A handful of paintings make the
snow a backdrop for religious storytelling,
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| Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Census at Bethlehem Belgian, 1566 Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts
Almost unnoticed amid the busy scene is the donkey carrying Mary led by Joseph.
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| Joos de Momper, Winter Landscape with Flight into Egypt Flemish, Undated (lived 1564-1634) Private Collection
As with the Brueghel painting, the flight of the Holy Family goes virtually unnoticed at the bottom left.
History Painting
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Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware
American, 1851
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Allegory
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| Antoine Caron, The Triumph of Winter French, c. 1568 Private Collection
In this interesting painting the French Mannerist Antoine Caron presents an allegorical fantasy, a pageant of the Triumph of Winter taking place along the banks of the Seine in Paris, opposite the Tuileries. Winter sits on the triumphal car drawn by cranes at the right. Preceding him is a procession of the pagan gods led by Janus and including Apollo, Mercury, Diana, Mars, Vulcan's three assistants and finally Vulcan himself. They are heading for a small, round temple which appears to project into the Seine and are watched by citizens on both sides of the river as well as from boats on it. The finely observed footprints in the snow suggest careful study of the reality of snow's physical effects. One hopes, however, that this is a work of Caron's imagination or, if not, that the participants didn't die of frostbite! |
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| Jacques de la Joue the Younger, Allegory of Winter French, c. 1740 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Much as we do with our own snow photographs the pictures tend to focus on
the after effects of the storm, not on its fury. Snow time's s’no time to be out in it, but
after the snow has passed it is the time to observe, admire and have some fun.
©M. Duffy, 2015. * New image added 2025.
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