New England Farm by a Winter Road

DURRIE, George Henry (1820 – 1863)

1854
Oil on canvas, 45.7 X 61 cms
Private Collection

Connecticut born Durrie was apparently referred to as the snow man by fellow artists as he rather specialised in this sort of painting. A great deal of time and distance separates this painting from the previous one by Bruegel but the snow itself has a timeless and universal quality that leaves very little that is unique in its wake. What we do see here is a large and prosperous New England farmhouse apparently unhindered by the snows. This may be the owner safely returning home or a visitor come to share or to help in some way. Another figure is seen walking the dog a short distance before returning. In the barn are two cows well supplied with fodder. So despite the threatening clouds, despite the snow, despite the bare trees and the bare mountain, the message is a comforting one. Like the evcergreens here, we New Englanders know what Winter is about and we can weather it. We know how to sit tight until Spring comes again. No wonder such pictures in print form became so very popular in their time and beyond.

For the complete works of Durrie see here

Winter landscape with skaters and bird trap

BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder (c. 1525 - 1569)

1565
Oil on panel
37 x 55,5 cm
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

The painting is sombre yet suffused with light. It shows a Brabant village scene. It is a holiday presumably and people are out, children especially, playing on the frozen river. On the far horizon, we can just make out a city enveloped in mist. The little picture apparently breaks with traditional panoramas. The contrasting winter colours make the picture almost monochrome, a technique that would be repeated in Dutch winter scenes for the next hundred years. The hilltop perspective of the painter is, apparently, traditional, giving the work a timelessness quality. The landscape is painted with great freedom, the paint apparently applied sometimes thickly and sometimes very thinly in order to give the impression of the snowy and frozen scene and the dark colours of the carefully positioned trees and vegetation. The experts are divided on whether Bruegel was assisted on this masterpiece. Scores of versions and numerous copies apparently exist, including at least one by Bruegel the younger, some of them as late as the 18th century.

The representations of winter scenes originated in the calendars of the Books of Hours. This is apparently the first European independent winter scene (ie not in  a series of seasonal landscapes). The winter of  1564-65 we know was particularly severe. There is probably a deeper meaning intended. This would be typical of art of the period. Perhaps we can think of a devout person as being a pilgrim travelling the river of life with its dangers and temptations. These have to be traversed to safely reach heaven. The bird trap in the right hand foreground (a door propped up by a stick with string attached) is symbolic of Satan's wiles, wiles that careless souls (a bird often standing for the soul) may be caught out by. Life is a slippery and uncertain journey.

For all Bruegel's works see here.