Winter can be dreary, cold and lacking in vibrant colors. But this has not stopped artists from finding and capturing the beauty of winter in their landscape paintings. In fact, the cool blues, smoky grey, and deep forest greens are a favorite palette for both artist and collectors which helps to explain the many famous winter landscape paintings in the history of art.
Having grown up in central New York, and gone to college in Oswego, right on the banks of Lake Ontario, I can attest to long winter months in which the land was frozen and the winds howling. What was I supposed to do but learn to love these colors and use them in my work?
My painting, Birch trees in Winter, is an example of this and one of the favorites often mentioned by viewers of my work. The white birch tree is the state tree of New Hampshire.The white birch is also called the canoe birch or the paper birch, as its bark has been used to make canoes, and for writing paper. The beauty of the white birch is dramatic against the green of conifer trees, and blends into the snowy landscape of a cold winter’s day.
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But I am far from alone in capturing winter scenes as they unfurl themselves on us, as is the case when we in New England are expecting a storm to come barreling at us this weekend. Here are just a few of the many winter paintings that celebrate these cold sinter months, and remind us of our resilience against the forces of nature.
Hendrick Avercamp,Winter Landscape Near a Village, (1610-1615) oil on panel.
From the 1560s to the 1620s, Northern Europe endured an extremely cold period known as the “Little Ice Age.” Inspired by the winter landscapes of Flemish artists such as Bruegel (below), winter landscapes became a popular theme in Dutch art. Hendrick Avercamp elevated the subject to a new genre. Avercamp was deaf and mute, but this winter scene is noisy with life. Among the many details in this painting are boots hung up to dry on a wooden fence (bottom right); a boat sailing along the ice (center); a public toilet in use (the upturned boat to the left of the inn with the man sitting inside); and, to the right of the boots, a bearded old man, accompanied by his dog, and carrying a basket. The same old man appears in at least two other winter landscapes by Avercamp, and may be his self-portrait.
Pieter Bruegel, The return of the Hunters, (1565) Oil on panel.
Like Avercamp, Bruegel populates his landscape with details from daily life: skaters on a frozen pond, hunters with their hounds, birds in flight, a pedestrian on a foot bridge, and women cooking over an open fire. The mountain landscape in the background is a figment of Bruegel’s imagination. He had never been to the Alps, but had seen images of them from other artists’ drawings. This mountain range is Bruegel’s interpretation of what the Alps look like-in the heart of an otherwise Netherlandish landscape.
Meg Black (2008). Three views of the harbor in Winter, Beverly, MA. Each painting 20 x 20 x 2 inches. Abaca, cotton and pigment.
These paintings are of the rocky shoreline in winter at the edge of the homeowner’s property and are installed along the staircase of their historical home in Beverly, MA. We chose this time of year as it is the most intimate, the least populated with summer visitors and exhibits the raw beauty of the New England Coast at its most powerful. Unlike the noisy populated paintings of Avercamp and Bruegel, these paintings act as studies of the water currents as they appear in winter: active, cold brilliant and ever-changing.
