My late Mother had a huge print of this painting behind her writing desk in our home so i grew up knowing this image and remember being completely fascinated by it's complexity. The picture stirred all manner of emotions in me and i loved it. it imbues feelings of struggle against the elements but with a hint of the warmth of community and a feeling of "We are going to make it through this together" Only now as an adult and looking at it again i noticed the man in the foreground by the fire, looks as though he is about to throw a table onto the fire, suggesting problems in sourcing wood to burn, it must be bad when your furniture becomes fuel. Also notice the figures in the centre background trying to extinguish a chimney fire, one of them rushing across the bridge with a ladder towards the house with the burning chimney. The two females on the ice in the bottom right near the bridge, one pulling the other across the ice with a rope
A masterpiece and a beautiful,. complex, world unto itself. Go to Tarkovski's stunning homage in the 1970 Solaris film adaptation, the levitation scene.
I agree and so do many others. These two missed the boat on that one. They also missed the rabbit prints in the snow just past the butt-end of the hunter's spear. You need a zoom version on Google or Wikipedia to see that.
I think this is my first Netherlandish painting. Despite my Baroque orientation, genre paintings are a favorite focus of mine too. I love seeing the little slices of real life. Prosaic = commonplace, unromantic. Good vocab for me.
Am I just ignorant, or is this a rather unusual style of painting for the 16th century? Looks more to me like something one would see in the late 19th! So much is familiar even to the contemporary eye despite being almost half a millennium old!
I enjoyed this video too. It was a nice explanation and recap of what I learned about the seasons today in an exhibition at Atomium in Brussels! I've been talking about it so day.
i enjoyed this, thank you. It's a shame that your reference to Italian painting shows a painting made a good 50 years before the painting you are discussing, otherwise I really liked the idea of cutting to show what other people where up to in europe painting at that time
The painting is also seen as corroborative evidence of the Little Ice Age, which at this point was at its peak and northern European winters were harsh.
I recently purchased a print of this painting and it looks very old. I found an embossed Anton Schroll and Co. Vienna. I was curious when it was printed and if it`s of any value. Thanks.
