From Claude Monet to Alexander Calder, artists have long been fascinated by the beauty of snow. Each snowflake, in fact, is an intricate design, akin to a work of art. Here are 10 of our favorite wintry, snowy artworks.
10. Pieter Brueghel the Elder, The Hunters in the Snow, 1565
The winter of 1564-65 was colder than any other winter before. This 'little ice age', which followed the Middle Ages and lasted into the 19th century, brought about a completely new art genre: the winter landscape. The first to capture the natural beauty of snow and ice in a large-scale painting was the Flemish-Dutch painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder, who set off a veritable avalanche with it.
9. Hendrick Avercamp, A Panoramic Winter Landscape with a Multitude of Figures on a Frozen River, c. 1610
Related: Tulipomania: The World's First Stock Exchange Bubble
In the following years, numerous other painters, especially in the Netherlands, chose such a motif. Paintings depicting people skating on long frozen rivers, canals and lakes were particularly popular. For example, Hendrick Avercamp painted this picture around 1610, which was auctioned at Sotheby's for £5 million in 2014.
8. Caspar David Friedrich, Winter Landscape with a Church, 1811
Around 200 years later, Caspar David Friedrich painted a Winter landscape with a Church with the moody melancholy that is typical of his oeuvre. The towers of a church rise from a foggy background, and in keeping with the prevailing Romantic aesthetic of the time, the church is reminiscent of medieval fantasy architecture.
7. Claude Monet, Carriage on a Snow-covered Street in Honfleur, around 1866
Related: 5 Portraits of Women in White
The Impressionist "does not bathe in dead white," summarized the French poet Jules Laforgue, but sees "rich prismatic decompositions of color." Of course, Claude Monet felt the same way and created vibrant winter landscapes of France with this in mind.
6. Vincent van Gogh, Landscape in the Snow, 1888
Related: The Secrets of Van Gogh's Final Painting Revealed
In February 1888, the art dealer Theo van Gogh sent his older brother Vincent van Gogh, who was always plagued by money issues, to Marseilles with a commission. But Vincent only got as far as Arles, which his painter's eye took to extremely well. Shortly after the arrival there was already Landscape in the snow. Less than a year later, in a dispute with Paul Gauguin in Arles, he cut off part of his left ear.
5. Paul Gauguin, Breton Village in the Snow, c. 1894
Related: 5 Paintings to Celebrate Autumn
Van Gogh's opponent Gauguin is best known for his tropical works that he painted in the Polynesian Islands. But even in the northern hemisphere he found enough motifs to captivate him, especially in Brittany. Between Gauguin's first and second stay in the South Seas, he painted Breton Village in the Snow there in 1894.
4. Franz Marc, Dog Lying in the Snow, 1910-11
Around 1910-11, Franz Marc captured his Siberian Shepherd dog, Russi, who was dozing in the snow, on canvas. For Marc, the painting was neither a landscape picture nor a dog portrait, but rather an image of the perfect harmony between animals and nature, in which the shapes merge and symbolize a contented silence.
3. Alfons Walde, Kitzbühel in Winter, 1930
Related: Summer in 10 Paintings
The master of depicting a snow-covered mountain village or an alpine hut under a bright blue sky, Alfons Walde should not be missed on this list. The motifs that he found in and around Kitzbühel, Austria were so brilliant and inviting that he was asked to design tourist posters promoting the Tyrol region as a winter holiday paradise.
2. Zao Wou-Ki, Dancing Snow, 1955
Related: China’s 7 Most Influential Contemporary Artists
"My painting became illegible. There were no more still lifes and flowers. I want to create an imaginary and indecipherable script," said the Chinese artist Zao Wou-Ki. He implemented this perfectly in his work Dancing Snow, which represents a mixture of abstract art, expressionism and calligraphy typical of his oeuvre, which revolutionized contemporary Chinese painting.
1. Alexander Calder, Snow Flurry, c. 1950
Alexander Calder, with his painted metal sheets and wire, created another of his famous mobiles in Snow Flurry. The filigree snowflake dance artwork was auctioned at Christie's in 2012 for $10.4 million.
