Winter Landscapes

Street in Winter: sunlight and snow (1872) by Camille Pissaro

I'm about to start a series of  posts on this blog about Winter Landscapes.  This will be a mixture of artwork by famous artists and by art bloggers who read this blog.  Most will be paintings - but they can also be fine art prints or drawings.

Some will be full of snow and ice - but not everybody has snow and ice and sometimes that's a bit more of a challenge!  I'm interested in paintings which communicate about winter whichever part of the world you are in.

The painting above is by Camille Pissaro and captures three aspects which I find very characteristic of winter - the low piercing sunshine, trees without leaves - and the slush!

Pissaro's work is characterised as being Impressionist.  He was also influenced by two great French landscape painters Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

How to get your paintings of Winter posted on this blog

If you are

1. active in blogging about your art
2. you're interested in having your images displayed as part of the seasonal changes. 

then all you have to do is

• drop me a line (see side column for email) with a brief explanation about your painting (if this is not already in your blog post), 
• identify and reference the URL of the blog post in which I can see the painting 
• and (this is important) use Readers Winter Landscapes in the subject line of your email (This is so I can find it in the masses I get each day!)

Places to Paint: This blog features and shares good places for painters to paint.  Please note that I'm also interested in the place as well as what led you to paint it in Winter.  Tell me if and why other painters might be interested in this place.

I can't promise to display all that I'm told about. Plus there is an absolute rule which is that this is for art bloggers only ie "no blog post, no feature on my blog".

Winter Landscape: Kinryusan Temple at Asakusa by Ando Hiroshige

Hiroshige was an artist of snow and rain 

This, for me, is one of the "all time great" winter landscapes of an urban area under snow. It was created by the famous Japanese ukiyo-e artist Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858) as part of the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo which was produced between 1856-8.  This one is Image #99.

Kinryusan Temple at Asakusa by Ando Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858)

From the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (JP2519)
Oban format, woodblock print; ink and color on paper;
H. 14 1/16 in. (35.7 cm), W. 9 1/2 in. (24.1 cm)

In Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (October 2006)

Here, a large lantern and a temple gate are so closely viewed that motifs are cropped, while the use of one-point perspective, a Western technique, to depict the pathway to the main hall of Kinryusan temple contrasts the powerful details of the foreground with the inexorability of the temple hall in the distance.

Source: Ando Hiroshige: Kinryusan Temple at Asakusa: From the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (JP2519) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Note also that:

• all the people are turned away from the artist; many are further obscured by umbrellas
• the leaden sky is captured perfectly - but the colour is also 'reflected' at the base of the painting
• the red vertical of the doorway is echoed by the vertical banner and the tiered tower in the rear of the image
• the terrific contrast between the red and the green of the buildings and the white and blue/grey of the natural elements - the snow and the sky - making this a very "look at me" image.

You can read more about the landscapes of Hiroshige and the One Hundred Views of Edo in my information site Hiroshige - Resources for Art Lovers

You can see more snow scenes by Hiroshige on John Stewart's excellent website about The Woodblock Prints of Ando Hiroshige

• Twelve Snows Scenes of the Eastern Capital
  
• Eight Snow Scenes of the Eastern Metropolis