Hunters in the Snow

Weary hunters and their dogs crest a hill above a white valley where the whole village skates, slides, and carries on the business of winter.

Why it matters

Among the first true landscapes of European art — the season itself, not a saint or king, is the subject, and ordinary life fills it.

What to notice

Count the activities on the ice; follow the crows' diagonal flight pulling your eye into the valley. The hunters return with one thin fox.

Context

One of a series of the months painted for an Antwerp merchant's house in the year of a famously hard winter.

Themes

The dignity and rhythm of common life under the great wheel of the seasons.

Legacy

The ancestor of every winter scene since, beloved of filmmakers from Tarkovsky to von Trier.

About the artist

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525–1569). The great Netherlandish painter of peasants, proverbs and seasons — humanity observed whole, from a hilltop, with tenderness and irony.

Renaissance (c. 1400–1600): Born in the city-states of Italy, the Renaissance revived the learning of antiquity and placed the human figure — observed, measured, idealized — at the center of art. Painters mastered perspective, anatomy, and oil glazing, and the artist rose from anonymous craftsman to celebrated genius.

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