Snowflakes have been falling from the sky for two billion years. Yet it wasn’t until the 15th and 16th centuries that these delicate ice crystals began to appear in European art—first in illuminated devotional books, and later in the paintings of Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Not only did Bruegel stunningly capture the motion of falling snow. He was the first major artist to place the Holy Family in a winter landscape.
In Adoration of the Magi in the Snow, Bruegel depicts the Holy Family in a 16th-century Netherlandish village. Inside that rickety structure on the left, Mary and Joseph shield Baby Jesus from the biting cold.
Several villagers wait outside to see the newborn. Everyone else goes about their daily routines—collecting water, trimming willow branches, and sledding on the icy river. Is Bruegel suggesting that miracles happen every day, but we fail to notice them?
Further off in the distance, armed men gather near a castle. Are they soldiers? Or perhaps hunters? When this painting was made, Spanish dominance over the Low Countries was sparking so much resentment, it would lead to war within five years. What’s more, heavy snowfalls were causing crop failures. This was a bleak period for European peasants.
Yet the village appears warm and inviting, largely due to the artist’s depiction of snow. In one of the most convincing winter scenes ever painted, Bruegel uses golden highlights and blue shadows to create a vast blanket of white.
Even the foreboding sky looks beautiful on this holy day.
When snow feels cold as ice
In the 1830s, renowned woodblock printmaker Utagawa Kuniyoshi made a series of paintings that collectively tell the story of Nichiren, one of the most influential and controversial monks in Buddhist history.
In Nichiren in Snow at Tsukahara, he portrays the monk in exile due to his polemical views on church and state. Nichiren is shown walking alone on Sado Island, in the Sea of Japan, where it seems even natural forces have united against him.
An icy wind whips through his garments as he struggles to climb uphill, his bare legs ankle-deep in the snow. The artist uses a snowstorm to symbolize the cold reality facing Nichiren, condemned to live alone in an abandoned temple located in a graveyard.
To achieve this level of detail in a woodblock print, Kuniyoshi used more than a dozen ink colors in a printing process that required a separate block of hand-carved wood for each hue. By gouging dozens of notches into each block, he allowed tiny circles of un-inked white paper to peek through, beautifully evoking falling snowflakes.
This particular ukiyo-e print became so popular, admirers implored Kuniyoshi to convert the design into a tattoo.
A whiter shade of pale
Though snowflakes appear white, they are actually translucent. Acting as tiny prisms, these six-sided structures splinter light into a full spectrum of color—a visual phenomenon the Impressionists understood.
It’s one reason their effets de neige (effects of snow) are among the most beautiful and daring works of the late 19th century.
Winter scenes by Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, and their colleagues offer a masterclass in depicting snow saturated with reflected light and color.
If the sky is blue, the same blue must show up in the snow. In the morning, there is also green and yellow in the sky and these colors must appear as well. In the evening, red and yellow should be reflected in the snow.
French Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir
To create Rooftop View (Snow Effect), Gustave Caillebotte studied the rooftops of Paris on a dreary winter afternoon. Snow blankets every mansard roof, dormer window, and chimney stack in this composition. The empty street below intensifies the feeling of frozen silence.
A softer side of the season appears in Winter; Woman with a Muff. Berthe Morisot’s painting captures an elegant Parisian woman bundled up against the snow. Of this piece, a critic remarked, “I have seen nothing more delicate in painting.”
Another reviewer thought Morisot’s diaphanous brushwork went too far:
Mademoiselle Morisot has reduced painting to its simplest expression. Everything is hardly indicated, and everything is charming. But, honestly, she leaves too much to the imagination. It is time to put an end to this pursuit, unless one wishes to reduce painting to a dreamlike state.
Art critic Eugène VĂ©ron, “L’Art,” 1880
If this is a dream, please don’t wake me
When artist Wassily Kandinsky attended a performance of Wagner’s opera Lohengrin in Moscow, it sparked a pivotal question: could art move the soul as deeply as music?
The question stemmed in part from his own biology. Kandinsky had synesthesia, a neurological condition which caused him to “hear” colors. For instance, when he saw green, the most tranquil of all colors, he heard the soothing sounds of a violin. Violet suggested the deep notes of a bassoon, while light blue evoked the airy notes of a flute.
Soon he began to paint as if he were conducting a symphony:
I had little thought for houses and trees. I drew colored lines and blobs on the canvas with my palette knife—making them sing just as powerfully as I knew how.
Wassily Kandinsky, “Kandinsky,” 2007
In Winter Landscape I, fairytale colors convey the magic of freshly fallen snow at sunset. A slushy, lavender footpath gently lures us home, just in time for dinner.
Although non-representational colors and unblended brushstrokes distance the work from reality, the composition remains grounded as a landscape. Here, much like Matisse, Kandinsky uses imaginative colors to turn a physical setting into a deeply emotional experience.
Silence, broken by the sound of a shovel
In 1945, Beijing-born artist Zao Wou-Ki moved to Paris, where he fell in love with French Impressionism and European Expressionism. Yet it was the innovative work of Paul Klee that inspired him to merge Eastern and Western traditions and break from strict figuration.
In Swirling Snow, Zao combines Abstract Expressionism with calligraphic elements that “convey the Chinese spirit.” Splashes of blue, orange, and lavender channel the wild energy of a snowstorm, while vaguely figural black lines amplify the impression of movement.
Zao’s seemingly effortless brushwork achieves remarkable clarity. He creates a feeling of depth on a flat surface while boldly stepping away from the rules of perspective drawing.
As critic John Russell noted, “Zao’s work takes us to a place not yet defined but in abeyance, hesitant, hovering one last moment before plummeting into order.”
Silence, soon to be broken by the sound of a snowblower.