Pieter Bruegel's winter landscapes
Ft. Flemish ice hockey
With the advent of winter proper here in London and back in my beloved Vancouver I thought it appropriate to discuss some of my favourite snowy landscape paintings: the winter scenes of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
For context, these are the scenes my brain conjures as soon as the first notes of Joni Mitchell’s River begin playing, the proverbial river always resembling that of Bruegel’s artistic imaginings. Nature is an omnipresent theme in Pieter Bruegel’s landscapes with the minute details of everyday life creating scenes famous for their vivacity, honesty, and detail. Of such settings, however, none are more famous than Bruegel’s winter landscapes.
First, however, let’s zoom out. Pieter Bruegel the Elder lived in the mid-16th century and was one of the most famous artists of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting. Bruegel was both a painter and printmaker, a formative influence on what we now call Dutch Golden Age painting. Dutch Golden Age painting was the high point of art under the Dutch Republic which had recently broken away from the Catholic church and, consequently, with religious artistic traditions. This meant that Dutch art had to reinvent itself completely, a task in which it was very largely successful. No longer were religious subjects the focus of Dutch paintings; rather, secular subjects depicted in detailed realism became the artistic norm.
It was in this context that Pieter Bruegel the Elder began to paint his winter canvases. Bruegel was part of the first generation of Dutch artists to grow up in this new artistic landscape where religious iconography was no longer vital to their craft. At first glance, Bruegel’s winter landscapes seem to celebrate the beauty of deep winter. People skate on frozen rivers while children play with spinning tops and compete in an early version of ice hockey; homes are dusted with snow and smoke streams from chimneys; birds flit and dance throughout the frozen countryside.
An evocative example of these frozen scenes is Bruegel’s 1565 The Hunters in the Snow, one of the most famous paintings in Dutch/Flemish art. Here, three men and their skinny dogs gaze, exhausted over a winter wonderland below them. The party has just returned from a hunting expedition and stands at the crest of a hill, with Bruegel painting the scene below from the hunters’ point of view. The Hunters in the Snow was painted as part of a series of seasonal paintings commissioned by the Antwerp trader and collector Nicolas Jongelinck. Five works from the cycle survive today including the hunters’ scene. What strikes the viewer in Bruegel’s winter landscape is his attention to non-idealised nature, a theme which marks a turning point in Western art history.
Such scenes, while seemingly joyous in their celebration of winter life were, in reality, a bitter reflection of an intense change in climate throughout medieval Europe. Known as the Little Ice Age and dated roughly between the 16th and 19th centuries, this was a period of intense regional cooling whose effects were felt most harshly in the North Atlantic. Consequently, the Low Countries were battered by a series of unexpectedly severe winters between 1562 and 1566 – exactly the period during which Bruegel painted his iconic winter views.
The theologian Johannes Molanus who lived in Leuven near Bruegel described the winter of 1564–1565 as “immensely harsh”. Molanus discusses the reality of the cold as the forstbitten poor lost their noses, hands, and genitals while birds fell dead from the sky. Such winters were thought to be divine punishment, a belief which Bruegel interrogrates in his 1567 painting Massacre of the Innocents. Here Bruegel the Elder provides an innovative take on a biblical tale in which an order is given by King Herod to kill at the boys younger than two years old around Bethlehem in an attempt to prevent the arrival of the new King of the Jews, Jesus.
Rather than a scene set in ancient Judea, the story plays out in a 16th-century Dutch winter landscape. The harsh winter becomes a fitting backdrop for the cruel and remorseless biblical story. Bruegel is also thought to have included references to his own contemporary religious conflicts within the scene as the Southern Low Countries were gripped at the time by the Great Iconoclasm fought between Catholics and Protestants. This scene was subsequently copied by Pieter Bruegel the Younger, a practice which led to the widespread popularity of the elder Bruegel’s winter works.
Another scene whose fame was further proliferated by Bruegel the Younger’s later copies is Brugel the Elder’s Winter Landscape with Ice-skaters and Bird-trap. This is Bruegel’s most popular work with no fewer than 140 known examples of which Bruegel the Younger alone painted around 50.
But what makes this scene so special?
Here Bruegel the Elder has captured a single moment of everyday amusement set against a snowy backdrop. While winter provides a harsh and unforgiving setting for the scene, the cold of nature is implicitly contrasted with the warmth of the individuals who enjoy the outdoors despite the temperature. A litany of picturesque and anecdotal details dot the landscape: couples whirl on ice skates on the frozen river; boats are caught immobile, prisoners to the ice; villagers play an early form of ice hockey with pucks and sticks; children amuse themselves with spinning tops. These moments of amusement and joy are encircled by thatched cottages and a large central church, modeled after the Church of Sint-Anna-Pede in Pajottenland, south-east of Brussels.
What is more, the scene is remarkable for Bruegel’s technical attention to detail and his ability to capture the subtle interplay of light and snow. Glowing yellow-grey skies are reflected on the frozen ice below and are harmonised throughout the rest of the scene. The golden hues of cold winter light permeate every detail of the painting, creating a uniquely unified landscape scene. Despite the cold that the blanket of white winter snows implies, Bruegel the Elder succeeds in making his scene feel both warm and inviting.
Even with such a feeling of warmth, Bruegel’s famous winter scene still alludes to the dangers of nature and God. Two crows dominate the foreground, perched on a desolate branch while other birds peck at seed on the right of the scene, unaware of the wooden trap teetering above them. Similarly, skaters skate dangerously close to a hole in the ice at the bottom edge of the scene. These symbols remind the viewer not only of the inescapable perils of winter, but also of the dangers of thoughtlessness and human temptation. Despite the delights of winter, Bruegel insists on reminding us of the slippery, uncertain nature of life as reflected in the ice itself.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s winter landscapes gave birth to a much longer pictorial tradition which saw Dutch and Flemish landscape scenes boom in number and popularity. This popularity is still true today with Christmas cards and gifts often decorated with Bruegel’s famous snowy scenes.
Beyond expressing the joy we so often feel during the cold winter holidays, however, Bruegel’s works also stand as a stark reminder of the harsh realities of extreme climate change. I myself can’t help but draw the comparison between Bruegel’s landscapes and the severe winter weather that has consumed Vancouver this year and last as a result of climate change. While these comparisons are important and apt, there is also hope in the beauty and joy that Bruegel captures. Despite the cold, cultural customs and festivities continue today just as they did in 16th-century Brabant. Fires are heated to cook a warm meal, couples skate on frozen rivers, ice hockey is played amongst friends, children bundle up to play games outdoors – all while the immovable march of time moves ever forwards.
And so the next time you go ice skating or pick up a hockey stick I hope you remember not simply the fleeting reality of existence, but also the hope and beauty that can be found even in the harshest of circumstances.
I hope you hold onto that hope this winter season.
With love : Avery
Loving your essays so much!! Hope you keep on this good work! :) :)