Claude Monet’s ‘The Magpie'(1868-1869)

A series following the 72 British mini-seasons of Nature’s Calendar by Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren.

Dear Readers, in this ‘mini-season’, Rowan Jaines investigates the way that there are subtle chromatic shifts in the light in the northern hemisphere throughout the year, and the way that the Impressionists in particular tried to use colour in their paintings to show this. Certainly, for me, blue is the colour of winter, and I love how Monet has used subtle shades of violet and blue in the shadows in his work ‘The Magpie’. Can’t you almost hear the crunch of snow underfoot, and the metallic cry of the bird as he calls to his mate?

Jaines also mentions Pissarro’s ‘White Frost’, and again I can imagine  how hard it is to walk across that ploughed field, laden down with firewood, the furrows touched with frost and the wind nipping at the bones. And again, I’ve just noticed the shadows. Fascinating. Maybe when I’ve done my Open Science degree with the Open University I should go back to do History of Art. So much to learn! So little time!

White Frost by Camille Pissarro (1873)

This all got me to thinking about how artists have depicted winter. It’s interesting how one person’s attempt to really show how winter looks, to capture its essence, can be another person’s attempt to summon up a mood, as in this image by Caspar David Friedrich. It’s difficult to see, but the painting shows a man who has thrown aside his crutches and is propped up against a boulder, praying in front of the crucifix. A symbolic cathedral looms in the background, though what it’s doing out here in the middle of nowhere is anybody’s guess.

Caspar David Friedrich Winter Landscape probably 1811Oil on canvas, 32.5 x 45 cm Bought, 1987 NG6517
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG6517

Peter Doig is a Scottish painter who has a fascination for snow (amongst many other subjects). On the Tate website, he is quoted as saying:

‘I often paint scenes with snow because snow somehow has this effect of drawing you inwards and is frequently used to suggest retrospection and nostalgia and make-believe’ (quoted in Bonaventura, p.13)

The painting below, ‘Ski Jacket 1994’ was based on a photograph of people learning to ski on a Japanese mountain. There’s something much gentler and more festive about the colours. It looks like fun, rather than something that would freeze you to death at the first opportunity.

Ski Jacket 1994 Peter Doig born 1959 Purchased with assistance from Evelyn, Lady Downshire’s Trust Fund 1995 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T06962

And I guess I can’t end this without what is probably the first painting of a winter scene – Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s ‘Hunters in the Snow’ (1565). I can never look at it without hearing the first lines of T.S Eliot’s ‘The Journey of the Magi’ in my head:

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’

The hunters look footsore and have brought little home, and the crows and magpies gather in the trees. You can almost imagine the iron grip of winter, the pond frozen solid. But people are roasting corn over a fire on the left, and below people are skating, and playing games, and gossiping on the ice. The sign on the inn to the left has almost fallen off, and this has been interpreted as an omen of troubles to come, yet the mood, to me at least, seems pragmatic – winter is here, but life goes on. It’s thought that the painting was one of a series depicting life throughout the year, and there is a whole room dedicated to Bruegel’s paintings in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Two other things spring to mind. One is a wonderful book by Toby Ferris called ‘Short Life in a Strange World – Birth to Death in 42 Panels‘ In it, Ferris attempts to track down all 42 of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s remaining pictures – Bruegel died aged only 42, and Ferris has recently lost his father and is thinking about how to be a good father to his own sons. The book is almost impossible to describe, but features memoir, art history and criticism, philosophy and a lot else besides. It is stunning. Do hunt it out if you have even the vaguest interest in any of these things.

The second is that last year, the BBC showed a documentary about winter art called ‘Tales of Winter – The Art of Ice and Snow’. It’s no longer on I Player, but it is on Youtube, broken down into 6 15-minute chunks.

The first one is here. See what you think – it talks about the Bruegel painting, and lots of others as well.