In the temperate and colder zones of the northern hemisphere, the Christmas holiday is traditionally associated with snow. To celebrate that, here is a selection of some of the best snow scenes which I have included in articles about painting over the last year. Rather than bore you with commentary, for each I provide a link to the relevant article, in case you missed it.
George Morland (1763–1804), Winter Landscape with Figures (c 1785), oil on canvas, 72.4 x 92.7 cm, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT. Wikimedia Commons.
Félix Bracquemond (1833–1914), Winter (or Wolf in the Snow) (1864), etching (fourth state of four), 32.5 x 50.5 cm, plate 21.5 x 33 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1960, at http://www.metmuseum.org.
Ivan/Hovhannes Aivazovsky (1817–1900), Moscow in Winter from the Sparrow Hills (1872), oil on canvas, 46 x 72 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.
Édouard Béliard (1832-1912), Moulin de Chauffour, Effect of Snow (1878), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Musée d’Étampes, Étampes, France. Photo by corpusetampois, via Wikimedia Commons.
Giuseppe De Nittis (1846–1884), At the Lake (1880), media and dimensions not known, Pinacoteca De Nittis, Barletta, Italy. By LPLT, via Wikimedia Commons.
Marie Spartali Stillman (1844–1927), The Enchanted Garden of Messer Ansaldo (1889), watercolour and gouache on paper mounted on panel, 72.4 × 102.9 cm, Private collection. Image courtesy of Julian Hartnoll, Pre‑Raphaelite Inc., via Wikimedia Commons.
George Bellows (1882–1925), Pennsylvania Station Excavation (c 1907-1908), oil on canvas, 79.4 × 97.2 cm, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.
Maximilien Luce (1858–1941), The Gare de l’Est in Snow (1917), oil on canvas, 130 x 162 cm, Musée de l’Hôtel-Dieu, Mantes-la-Jolie, France. Wikimedia Commons.
Finally, a painting for those of you who are suffering the summer in the southern hemisphere, and for those of us in the north who wish that we were there with you.
Charles Conder (1868-1909), A Holiday at Mentone (1888), oil on canvas, 46.2 x 60.8 cm, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. Wikimedia Commons.
Charles Conder’s superb Impressionist painting of this Australian beach is one of more than forty currently on display in London’s National Gallery, in its exhibition Australia’s Impressionists.
