Ivan Aivazovsky – my daily art display

Ivan Aivazovsky. Part 2. The Master of seascapes.

In the first part of my blog featuring the Russian seascape and marine painter, Ivan Aivazovsky I concentrated on his seascapes and marine paintings which, on the whole, depicted calm and idyllic seas. However, what made me choose Ivan Aviazovsky for my blog was the masterful way he depicted the raging fury of the sea and man’s fight for survival in those terrifying conditions. I experienced that ferocity during my years working on ships but never have I seen it being depicted so graphically. His vivid depiction in his paintings of the terrifying power of the raging seas is masterly.

The Ninth Wave by Ivan Aivakovsky (1850)

One of my favourite seascape paintings by Aviazovsky is his 1850 work entitled The Ninth Wave. It is also probably his best-known work. The title refers to a popular sailing legend that the ninth wave is the most terrible, powerful, destructive wave that comes after a succession of incrementally larger waves. In his painting, set at night, he depicts a raging sea, which has been whipped up by a storm. In the foreground we see people clinging to the mast of a vessel which had sunk during the night. Note how the artist has depicted the debris the people are clinging to in the shape of a cross and this element can be looked upon as a metaphor for salvation from the earthly sin. The people clinging to the debris are lit by the warmth of breaking sunlight and this gives one to believe that they may yet be saved. The painting was originally acquired for the State Russian Museum of St Petersburg and was one of the first paintings in the collection of the Emperor Alexander III Russian Museum in 1897.

The Billowing Sea by Ivan Aivazovsky (1889)

There are many great paintings by Aviazovsky depicting raging seas. I particularly like one entitled The Billowing Sea.

The sheer size of this work, 304 x 505cms (119 x 199 in) is breathtaking.

Another one of his works which I saw at the Tretyakov Museum in Moscow the other week was his painting entitled The Rainbow which features a sailing ship foundering on rocks whilst two lifeboats full of sailors try to manoeuvre their boats ashore through the fierce seas. It is a truly remarkable work in which Aviazovsky created a scene of a storm as if seen from inside the raging sea. In the foreground, we see the sailors who have taken to a lifeboat and abandoned their sinking ship which had foundered on the rocky shoreline. They had spent the whole night in the boat. Suddenly they see a rainbow and feel that all is not lost. The reflection of the rainbow can just be seen to the left of the painting. Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Russian novelist, was an admirer of Aivazovsky’s art and The Rainbow was his favourite work. Of the painting, Dostoevsky wrote:

“…This storm by Aivazovsky is fabulous, like all of his storm pictures, and here he is the master who has no competition. In his storms there is the trill, the eternal beauty that startles a spectator in a real-life storm…”

Shipwreck near Gurzuf by Ivan Aivazovsky (1898)

In 1842 Aivazovsky had completed his two-year stint in Italy. He had spent many hours in various museums studying paintings by the Italian masters and became heavily influenced by Italian art and he looked upon his time at the museums as time in his “second academy”. He was awarded a gold medal by Pope Gregory XVI for his artwork. Aivazovsky left Italy in 1842 and travelled around Europe for the next two years. He had his work exhibited in an international exhibition at the Louvre, where he was the only representative from Russia. During his stay in France, he also received a gold medal from the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. In 1844 he returned to Russia.

Upon his return to Russia, Aivazovsky was made an Academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts and was appointed the official artist of the Russian Navy to paint seascapes, coastal scenes and naval battles. In 1845, Aivazovsky travelled to the Aegean Sea with Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich and visited the Ottoman capital, Constantinople, and the Greek islands of Patmos and Rhodes. After years of travel Aivazovsky decided to settle down in his hometown of Feodosia In 1845. He built a house and studio and cut himself off from the outside world just maintaining a friendship with close friends.

Chaos (Anno Mundi) by Ivan Aivazovsky (1841)

As in life itself, time moves on and change is inevitable. So was the case with Russian art in the mid nineteenth century. Aivazovsky’s love of painting romantic seascapes was becoming unfashionable with the new style of Russian art – Russian Realism, becoming more and more popular. Aivazovsky could not accept the change and persevered with his Romantic style seascapes and his artwork began to be criticised.

Among the Waves by Ivan Aivazosky (1898)

For a beautiful seascape one needs look no further than the one which the eighty-one-year-old Ivan Aivazovsky completed in 1898, just two years before he died, entitled Among the Waves. For once it is a pure seascape without any ships, afloat or sinking, and no sailors in lifeboats trying to survive their watery ordeal. However, with this painting came an interesting tale with regards the depiction. Before us we see that a storm has already erupted in full force and the black stormy sky threatens worse to come. Look how the water in the foreground is almost translucent, a mixture of greyish-green and silvery blue, dependent on how the sunlight, which bursts through from behind the storm cloud, falls upon the water. The waves are topped with white caps of foam. It is a pure sea and sky painting but it was not always so. Originally Aivazovsky had included in the depiction his “signature” boat which was struggling to survive but when Ivan asked his grandson what he thought of the painting his grandson told the elderly man that it was admirable work but queried why his grandfather had added to the depiction a “toy-like” boat with people in it. According to the memoirs of his grandson, the artist was terribly angry with his comments and, without a word, turned and walked away. The next day when the family members looked at the painting they found that the little boat full of sailors had been removed from the canvas !

In 1847, Aivazovsky became the professor of seascape painting at the Imperial Academy of Arts and was elevated to the rank of nobility. That year, he also was elected to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Aivazovsky with his first wife, Julia, and their four daughters

In 1848, Aivazovsky married Julia Graves, an English governess. She was the daughter of a St. Petersburg doctor, the Briton Jacob Grevs. It is believed that he may have been more than just an ordinary physician as rumour had it that he was personal physician of Tsar Alexander I. Grevs mysteriously disappeared after the death of the emperor. Julia was an eighteen-year-old well-educated beauty when she married thirty-one-year-old Aivazovsky. The couple went on to have four daughters: Elena (1849), Maria (1851), Alexandra (1852) and Joanne (1858). Their marriage foundered after twelve years and they separated in 1860 with Julia leaving the marital home and taking the children. The breakdown of their marriage seems to have been the result of Ivan’s all-consuming passion for his art which left him little time for his wife. Anna finally could not accept this kind of marriage. The couple divorced in 1877 with permission from the Armenian Church, since Graves was a Lutheran and Julia remained in her new home in Odessa.

Battle of Chesme at Night by Ivan Aivazovsky (1848)

Aivazovsky completed a number of paintings depicting Russian naval battles and one of his most famous works was his 1848 painting entitled Battle of Chesme at Night which illustrated the Russian-Turkish naval battle which took place on July 7th, 1770. At this significant battle, the Russian Navy defeated the Turkish navy at the Bay of Chesme. This was quite an upset as the Turkish navy at that time was the strongest in the world. It would seem that the Turkish fleet had all the advantages – a significant advantage in the power of their fleet, the backup of their on-shore batteries, a good location and the glory of the strongest navy in the world. But for the Turks nothing quite went to plan. Early into the battle, following a bombardment by the Russian ships, one of the Turkish ships exploded. That night, the remaining part of the Russian fleet came to the bay, including their four fire-ships (specially converted small vessels of the fleet, which were intended to set fire to enemy ships of the line). Just one of them reached the Turkish warships and the Russian sailors set fire to their fire-ship and took flight in their lifeboats. The tactic succeeded and the Turkish battleship which had been rammed by the Russian fire-ship exploded and started a chain reaction. Soon more Turkish ships were ablaze and by the end of the night the Turkish navy had been destroyed. The horror of the battle was perfectly conveyed by Ivan Aivazovsky in his painting.

The Battle of Sinop by Ivan Aivazovsky (1853)

In 1853, the Crimean War erupted between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, and Aivazovsky was evacuated to the northern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. When the Crimea became safer, he returned to the besieged fortress of Sevastopol to paint battle scenes. He also depicted the famous Battle of Sinop, at which the Russian navy was victorious over the navy of the Ottoman Empire on November 30th 1853 at Sinop, a sea port in northern Anatolia. It was during this maritime battle that a squadron of Imperial Russian warships struck and defeated a squadron of Ottoman ships anchored in the harbour. It resulted in an ignominious defeat of the once all-powerful Turkish fleet at the hands of the Russian navy.

The Battle of Sinop (Night after the Battle), by Ivan Aivazovsky (1853)

In another painting of the battle often referred to as Night after the Battle, the sky is black, and the light from the stars has been extinguished. The fierce battle resulted in the death of a large number of sailors. In the background of the picture we see the burning ships of the Ottoman navy. The Turkish fleet is burning and a ship is exploding in the darkness. Part of the Turkish fleet went to the bottom, the rest of them burn out. In the foreground we see fragments of a sunken ship, on which people try to escape from imminent death.

Tempest on the Sea at Night by Ivan Aivazosky (1849)

Many honours were bestowed on Aivazovsky in the 1850’s. He had been working in Paris during 1856 and 1857 and became the first Russian, actually the first non-French artist to receive the prestigious Legion of Honour for his services to art. Leaving Paris in 1857, he visited Constantinople and was awarded the Order of the Medjidie. Also that year, he was elected an honorary member of the Moscow Art Society and the following year he was awarded the Greek Order of the Redeemer in 1859. In 1865 he was further honoured, this time by his homeland, when he was given the Russian Order of St. Vladimir. It was also the year that Aivazovsky opened an art studio in Feodosia and was awarded a salary by the Imperial Academy of Arts the same year.

The Seashore with a Lighthouse at Night by Ivan Aivazovsky (1837)

Aivazovsky had become such a talented and prolific artist that he no longer needed to go outdoors for inspiration. During his almost 60-year career, he created around 6,000 paintings, making him one of the most prolific artists of his time. He had spent so many years observing his treasured surroundings that he was able to produce canvases with remarkable speed. It had got to the point in his artistic career that he often astonished his visitors by creating a large canvas in a matter of hours. Aivazovsky frequently compared his work to that of a poet saying:

“…The artist who only copies nature becomes a slave to nature. The motions of live elements are imperceptible to a brush: painting lightning, a gust of wind or the splash of a wave. The artist must memorize them. The plot of the pictures is composed in my memory, like that of a poet; after doing a sketch on a scrap of paper, I start to work and stay by the canvas until I’ve said everything on it with my brush…”

Moscow in Winter from the Sparrow Hills by Ivan Aivazovsky (1872)

Although most of Aivazovsky’s paintings were seascapes or marine depictions he did complete a number of works featuring landscapes and I particularly like his 1872 winter scene, Moscow in Winter from the Sparrow Hills.

Aivazovsky’s painting of his second wife Anna Burnazian-Sarkisova (1882)

Aivazovsky had been living alone since his wife left him, taking their children. It was four years after his divorce was finalised that he happened to attend the funeral of a Feodosian merchant, named Sakrisov. At first sight of the grieving widow, Anna, following her husband’s coffin, he fell in love. Realising it would be inappropriate to approach her at such a time he bided his time but never forgot the sight of the young woman. After waiting for the sake of decency, he made an offer of marriage, which Anne accepted. Aivazovsky married his second wife, Anna Burnazian-Sarkisova in 1882. She was twenty-six-years of age and her husband was sixty-five. Aivazovsky believed that as his second wife was Armenian this marriage had brought him closer to his Armenian nation. Anna, unlike his first wife, Julia, was content with her husband devoting most of his time on his paintings and artistic career without becoming jealous, whilst she was able to enjoy her free time.

Tomb of Ivan Ajwazovsky in Feodosia, Crimea.

Ivan Aivazovsky died, aged 82, on April 19th 1900 in Feodosia. In accordance with his wishes, he was buried at the courtyard of St. Sargis Armenian Church. A white marble sarcophagus was made by Italian sculptor L. Biogiolli in 1901.

After Aivazovsky’s death, Anna lived a life of a recluse and for 25 years she did not leave the walls of the house, where she had been happily married. During World War II, she refused to leave her home when the country was under occupation and managed to survive by exchanging the last of her jewellery for bread and cereal. When the Germans left Feodosia, Aivazovsky’s widow, aged 87, forgotten by all, was found by the artist Nikolai Samokish and taken to his home in Simferopol. Anna died a year later, aged 88 and is buried next to her husband, in the square of the Armenian church, where they were once married.

American Shipping off the Rock of Gibraltar by Ivan Aivazovsky (1873)

On June 14, 2007 his painting “American Shipping off the Rock of Gibraltar” sold for £2.71 million pounds, and was the highest price paid at auction for an Ivan Aivazovsky painting. Ironically, he is also said to be the most forged of all Russian painters.

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky

Two weeks ago, I went on a four-day city break to Moscow. I had always wanted to visit the Russian capital and especially visit the famous Tretyakov Gallery which houses the largest collection of Russian art in the world. I had read books about the wonders it had to offer and I knew I had to go and see it first-hand. Recently I wrote five blogs on the museum and the works of its leading proponents of portraiture, including Repin, Serov and Kramskoy but in the next few blogs I want to concentrate on lesser known artists (that is lesser known to me!) whose works also graced the walls of this outstanding Gallery.

Sunset in Crimea by Ivan Aivazovsky (1865)

As I have mentioned before, I live on the coast and a large number of paintings by local artists feature seascapes or marine paintings. My featured artist today is looked upon as one of the greatest maritime and seascape painters of all time and regarded as one of the most successful Russian painters of the 19th century. His work was admired by many seascape painters such as Turner. Let me introduce you to the Russian Romantic painter, Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky.

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky was born on July 29th 1817. At his baptism at the local St. Sargis Armenian Apostolic Church, he was given the name of Hovhannes Aivazian. His father, Konstantin, was an impoverished Armenian merchant whose family originated from the Polish region of Galicia, a historical and geographic region between Central and Eastern Europe. In the early 1800’s Aivazosky’s father settled in the Black Sea port of Feodosia in the Crimea and it was here that he met a local girl, Ripsime, who later became his wife. They had five children, three daughters and two sons. Ivan’s elder brother, Gabriel, was to become an important historian and an Armenian Apostolic archbishop. Ivan began his education at Feodosia’s St. Sargis Armenian Church school and it was also during this period that he received his first tuition in art. His tutor was Jacob Koch, a local architect. In 1830, at the age of thirteen, he moved with the Taurida governor, Alexander Kaznacheyev’s family to Simferopol, the Crimean capital, where, through the good auspices of Jacob Koch, he was enrolled at the city’s Russian grammar school. Three years later, in 1833, having now established himself as a talented painter, sixteen-year-old Ivan transferred to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts where he joined the class of the landscape painter, Maxim Vorobiov. He was a model student and progressed well. In 1835, he was awarded the silver medal for his painting Air over the Sea.

The Roads at Kronstadt by Ivan Aivazovsky (1836)

In 1836 the French artist Philippe Tanner arrived in St Petersburg to teach at the Academy and was immediately impressed by the talent of nineteen-year-old Ivan. Tanner’s forte was his marine paintings and during the time Aivazovsky worked as his assistant, he taught the young man marine painting techniques. In the autumn of 1836 Ivan had five of his works shown at art exhibitions, including his painting, The Roads at Kronstadt. Soon Ivan’s work was noticed and praised by both the press and the art critics alike.

Frigate under sails by Ivan Aivazovsky (1838)

In 1837, Aivazovsky joined the battle-painting class of Alexander Sauerweid and participated in Baltic Fleet exercises in the Gulf of Finland.

In October 1837, he graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts with a gold medal and received the official title of artist. He left the St Petersburg Academy in 1838 to carry out a commission to paint views of several Crimean towns and to do this he moved back to his home town of Feodosia in the Crimea where he set up a shop and started painting vistas of the Crimea and his beloved Black Sea. He would paint en plein air carefully recording the elements and then return to his studio to put the finishing touches on his masterpieces. He remained in his homeland for two years.

The Landing at Subashi by Ivan Aivazovsky (1839)

In 1839 Ivan Aivazovsky was invited to participate in a Navy operation which was taking place off the Crimea shores. There he took part in military exercises off the shores of Crimea, and where he met prominent Russian admirals Mikhail Lazarev, Pavel Nakhimov and Vladimir Kornilov and soon a long friendship blossomed between the artist and the military men. His canvases depicting sea battles were remarkably true to fact and so full of accurate details that they are now considered as illustrations of naval attack tactics. One of his paintings depicting a naval battle was entitled The Landing at Subashi.

Mhitarists on the Island of St. Lazarus, Venice by Ivan Aivazovsky (1843)

In 1840 the Imperial Academy of Arts of St Petersburg sent Aivazovsky to increase his knowledge in art by going and studying in Europe. His first stop-over was Venice which he reached after travelling through Berlin and Vienna. In Venice he went to San Lazzaro degli Armeni, a small island in the Venetian Lagoon which has been home to the monastery of the Mekhitarists, an Armenian Catholic congregation, since 1717. This was the home of Aivazovsky’s elder brother Gabriel.

The Bay of Naples by Ivan Aivazovsky (1841)

Whilst here, Aivazovsky studied Armenian manuscripts and familiarised himself with Armenian art. From Venice he travelled across Italy and arrived in the Tuscan city of Florence and later took in the sights of Amalfi and Sorrento. He took up residence in Naples and stayed there until 1842. In that two year period in Italy, Aivazovsky fell in love with Italian art. Among the people he met whilst in Italy was the Ukranian-born Russian writer Gogol and the Russian Neoclassical painter Aleksandr Ivanov.

View of Amalfi by Ivan Aivazovsky (1843)

Aviazovsky returned to Russia in 1842 and he was given an official title within the General Naval Office. As such, he was allowed to join Russian research and science expeditions which travelled to Turkey, Greece, Egypt, America and Asia. From these journeys Aivazovsky was able to bring home hundreds of sketches which he later turned into his famous paintings.

The Bay of Naples at Moonlit Night. Vesuvius by Ivan Aviazovsky (1840)

He then visited Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain, where he met English painter J. M. W. Turner who, was so impressed by Aivazovsky’s painting, The Bay of Naples on a Moonlit Night that he dedicated a rhymed eulogy in Italian to Aivazovsky.

“…Like a curtain slowly drawn
It stops suddenly half open,
Or, like grief itself, filled with gentle hope,
It becomes lighter in the shore-less dark,
Thus the moon barely wanes
Winding her way above the storm-tossed sea.
Stand upon this hill and behold endlessly
This scene of a formidable sea,
And it will seem to thee a waking dream.
That secret mind flowing in thee
Which even the day cannot scatter,
The serenity of thinking and the beating of the heart
Will enchain thee in this vision;
This golden-silver moon
Standing lonely over the sea,
All curtain the grief of even the hopeless.
And it appears that through the tempest
Moves a light caressing wind,
While the sea swells up with a roar,
Sometimes, like a battlefield it looks to me
The tempestuous sea,
Where the moon itself is a brilliant golden crown
Of a great king.
But even that moon is always beneath thee
Oh Master most high,
Oh forgive thou me
If even this master was frightened for a moment
Oh, noble moment, by art betrayed…
And how may one not delight in thee,
Oh thou young boy, but forgive thou me,
If I shall bend my white head
Before thy art divine
Thy bliss-wrought genius…”

The Golden Horn, Turkey by Ivan Aivazovsky (1845)

In 1845, Aivazovsky travelled to Istanbul upon the invitation of Sultan Abdülmecid. He would return to this Turkish city many times during his lifetime. He became court painter to the Ottoman Sultans Abdülmecid, Abdulaziz and Abdulhamid, and thirty of his commissioned works are still exhibited in the Ottoman Imperial Palace, the Dolmabahce Museum and many others at various other museums in Turkey. One of his paintings from this time was The Golden Horn. The Golden Horn is a horn-shaped estuary which divides the European side of Istanbul and is one of the best natural harbours in the world. The Byzantine and Ottoman navies and commercial shipping interests were centred here.

In the next part of my bog looking at the life and works of Ivan Aivazovsky I will be looking at his beautiful depictions of the ferocity of the sea and its devastating affect on the seagoing fraternity.

Winter landscapes

For many of you, the sight of snow is a curse, for others it is a sight of wonderment. Maybe the falling of snow, like Christmas presents, is just a meaningful event for children. Many believe snow should only be enjoyed if seen in a photograph or postcard and not deep on the ground in front of one’s house or in one’s driveway. For all you snow-sufferers, let me offer you some works of art which highlight the beauty of snow depicted by different artists, some of whom may be better known for other artistic genres. Artists love to see the trees in winter, devoid of their foliage, leaving just exposed skeletons. Such winter scenes have their own exquisiteness.

Sunset scenery with snow-covered road and a small farmhouse by Harald Julius Niels Pryn

Sunset Scenery with snow-covered road and a small Farmhouse was one of many paintings featuring wintery conditions by the Danish artist Harald Julius Niels Pryn. Pryn was born on April 11th, 1891 in Frederiksberg, Denmark and lived and worked in Bagsværd, a northern suburb of Copenhagen. He was a self-taught artist and eventually developed the skill to be considered one of the great landscape artists of his time. In his own country he was a well-known Danish landscape painter. His specialty and main subjects were light-filled winter landscapes. Look at the many colours he used to depict the snow.

Winter Caravan on the Road by Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, but baptized as Hovhannes Aivazian, was born in July 1817 into an Armenian family in the Black Sea port of Feodosia in Crimea and spent most of his life there. He was a Russian Romantic painter and although this work, Winter Caravan on the Road, is a winter landscape, he is deemed to be one of the greatest masters of marine art with the vast majority of his works being seascapes. He also often depicted battle scenes, Armenian themes, and portraiture. He was educated at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, Aivazovsky travelled to Europe and lived briefly in Italy during the early 1840s. He then returned to Russia and was appointed the main painter of the Russian Navy. He was sponsored by the state and was well-regarded during his lifetime. The saying “worthy of Aivazovsky’s brush”, popularized by Anton Chekhov, was used in Russia for describing something lovely. It is the haunting image of the horse-drawn procession emerging from the forest mist which appeals to me. It gives the painting a mystical quality.

Christmas Eve along the Hudson with the Palisades across the River by Samuel S Carr (c. 1879)

Christmas Eve along the Hudson with the Palisades across the River, was painted by the American artist, Samuel S Carr around 1879. Carr was born in England in 1837. He trained at the Royal School of Design in Chester, and around the age of twenty-five immigrated to America and went to live in New York where he studied mechanical drawing. He never married and moved to Brooklyn in 1879 where he lived with his sister Annie and her husband, and remained there for twenty-eight years. He became the president of the Brooklyn Art Club. Much of his work were pastoral scenes which were quite popular in the 1890s and Carr would vary the times of day and seasons in his work. In the background seen between the large houses we can just make out the steep cliffs on the Jersey side of the Hudson River known as the Palisades.

Probably because of the inclement winter weather in the Low Countries many of the Dutch and Flemish artists painted winter landscapes. Lodewijk Frederik Hendrik (Louis) Apol was a Dutch painter and one of the most prominent representatives of The Hague School. He was born in September 1850 and as a young man received private art lessons. In 1868, aged eighteen, he received a scholarship from the Dutch King Willem III in 1868. He specialized in winter landscapes and this painting, entitled Winter Landscape, demonstrates his extraordinary talent. This painting, like many of his other landscape works are devoid of people and other figures (except the black crows). In 1880 Louis Apol went on an expedition on the SS Willem Barents to Spitsbergen (Nova Zembla) in the Polar Sea. This sea voyage proved to be a great influence on his work.

Ivan Fedorovich Choultsé, a Russian realist landscape painter, was born in St Petersburg on October 21st, 1874. After finishing school, he became an electrical engineer and painted in his free time. It was not until he was thirty-years-old that he seriously studied art. Like our previous painter, Louis Apol, Choultsé travelled to Spitzbergen where he completed a number of depictions of the Arctic landscape. By 1916 Choultsé was already known for his art and members of the Tsar family bought his paintings. He painted spectacular snow scenes in which the light seems to come from behind the canvas and glow. The critics were not as complimentary with regards his art and called them photographic and, as such, non-art. However, the public did not agree, and his intricate style of painting is termed “magic-realism”. Look carefully at his depiction of the snow. Look how powdery it seems. It is so life-like. His fame spread across Europe and as far as America and Canada where his paintings sold well. Toronto art dealer G. Blair Laing wrote in his book Memoirs of an Art Dealer, 1979:

“…He painted spectacular snow scenes in which the light seems to come from behind the canvas and glow. The critics scorned these pictures as photographic and called them non-art – but today this style of painting is called “magic-realism” and is much admired by critics and museum..”

Winter Landscape by Caspar David Friedrich (1811)

If ever you wanted a haunting winter scene, none could probably surpass the 1811 painting, Winter Landscape, by the nineteenth-century German Romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich, who many believe is the most influential German artist of his generation. This is not just a winter landscape there is an element of religious symbolism. Look carefully at the foreground and you will see a crippled man sitting on the ground with his back against a large rock. Often at first glance observers miss the figure who seems to blend with the rock. His crutch lies abandoned in the snow. It appears he has given up on life. He looks upwards at the crucifix, hands clasped in prayer. It is thought that the evergreen trees symbolise faith and the Gothic cathedral which looms out of the mist in the background, symbolises the promise of life after death.

Claude Monet worked on his painting La Pie (The Magpie) during the winter of 1898/9. Monet tackled the great challenge of a snow-covered landscape. The setting for this work is near the commune of Étretat in Normandy. Monet lived in a house near here with his girlfriend, Camille Doncieux and their one-year-old son, Jean. This painting of a place in the countryside near Etretat, was painted en plein air by Monet and uses very unusual pale, luminous colours. In the work we see a solitary black magpie perched atop a gate. The light of the sun shines upon freshly fallen snow creating blue shadows. The work is hailed as one of the best winterscapes by Monet and is part of the Musée d’Oresay permanent collection. It is said to be one of its most popular.

Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1565)

One of my favourite sixteenth-century painters is Pieter Bruegel the Elder and I am particularly fond of his painting Hunters in the Snow. The painting is one of a series of works that featured different times of the year. This is a depiction of a wintry scene in a flat-bottomed valley. Three hunters, with little to show for their labours, are returning from an expedition accompanied by their dogs who also appear tired and demoralised after their fruitless outing. The hunters’ backs are bent as they trudge wearily through the snow. It appears to be a cold, yet calm overcast day, and Breugel has used whites and greys to convey the state of the weather. As we look down into the valley we see a number of frozen lakes and a river, on which we can see the silhouettes of the villagers enjoying the weather by skating and playing on the ice.

Skating in Central Park, by Agnes Tait (1934)

Another painting featuring winter pastimes on frozen lakes is the painting Winterscape, Skating in Central Park which was painted in 1934 by the American artist Agnes Tait. I particularly like this work as whenever I visit New York I always visit this beautiful park. Agnes Tait was born in 1894 and was a “Jill of all trades” being a painter, pen-and-ink artist, lithographer, book illustrator, muralist and dancer. Tait depicted the park in late afternoon as the low sun produces a beautifully coloured sky. Her modus operandi for this work was to complete the painting of the landscape first and, only then, add the figures which she would forge into small groups and by doing this she achieved a colourful pattern against the snow and ice. The very dark, almost black tree trunks is in contrast to the white snow on the ground and the white mist atop of the background trees.

Winter Landscape with Skaters by Hendrick Avercamp

Many of the Dutch and Flemish winter paintings focus on how the people enjoyed the winters when lakes and canals were frozen over and they were able to go out on them and skate. One great exponent of that genre was Hendrick Avercamp. Avercamp was born in Amsterdam in January 1585, a time of the The Little Ice Age, which brought colder winters to parts of Europe and no doubt as a child he had spent the winters skating on the frozen lakes and canals. He later moved to Kampen, a town to the east of Amsterdam. Averkamp, who was mute, was known as “de Stomme van Kampen” (the mute of Kampen). I particularly love this type of work. I specifically like the busyness of the depiction. Everywhere you look there is something going on.

The Drum Bridge and Yuhi Hill at Meguro by Utagawa Hiroshige (1857)

Utagawa Hiroshige was born in Edo in 1797 and originally it was envisioned that he would follow the career of his father, who was a fire-watchman. Both his parents died in 1809. Hiroshige is one of the two great masters of the Japanese landscape woodblock print, the other being Hokusai. Hiroshige’s forte was for his depictions of scenes which featured snow and rain, and has led him to be known as “the artist of rain, snow and mist”. For me, there is something special about Japanese woodblock prints and so one which incorporates a winter scene such as Drum Bridge and Yuhi Hill at Meguro, from the series “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, had to me in my list of favourites.

Riverside near Mustio by Victor Westerholm

Two contrasting paintings, both depicting winter conditions and yet so different you would not believe they were from the same artist. In his painting Riverside near Mustio, look how Westerholm has, with just a few brushstrokes, and use of tones of grey and green, depicted the glass like surface of the water with its reflective quality.
Victor Axel Westerholm was born in Finland on 4 January 1860, at Nagu island in the Turku archipelago. He was the son of Vicor Westerholm, a ship’s captain, and Maria Westerholm (née Andersson). At the young age of nine, he attended the Finnish Art Society’s Drawing School in Turku. Later he would go to Germany and study under Eügen Ducker in Düsseldorf and then later enrolled at the Académie Julian in Paris. In his late twenties, he became a teacher at the school of the Society of Art in Turku, and in 1891 became the director of the Turku art museum.

He often painted winter landscapes and sunsets in the archipelago of Åland, where he had his summer residence, Tomtebo, close to the Lemström Canal. It was here that he founded and artists’ colony. In his work, Evening Sun, look how the red colour of the buildings draw your eyes to focus on them.

I don’t suppose I could give you an insight into winterscapes and the hint of Christmas without including a painting by the American artist Thomas Kinkade who was the King of homely, some would say syrupy depictions. His painting Christmas Moonlight certainly evokes a feeling of happiness, serenity and contentment, all of which are things we strive for in life. It is sad to think that the artist himself, in the latter days, could not achieve these feelings for himself.

Poor Woman of the Village by Gustave Courbet

In complete contrast to the Kinkade painting, I thought I would look at a work by the Realist painter, Gustave Courbet. Gustave Courbet was a French painter who came from an affluent family but preferred the company of the ordinary folk. Courbet led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting and was unswerving in his belief that his depictions of life must be truthful, “warts and all” and by so doing, rejected Academic teachings and the Romanticism movement.
In his painting, Poor Woman of the Village, we see his realistic attitude to a winter scene. The snow-clad landscape is no different to most but the main subject, an old woman, is a study of hardship. In the foreground we see a young child accompanied by an old woman dragging along her goat. This is not a painting oozing with symbolism. It is a painting which evokes a sense of realism as to the plight of the woman and the child as they battle the elements. It is a depiction of the unforgiving severity of winter.

It is for you to choose whether you like the Kinkade style or the Courbet style. Do we need a period of escapism to make us feel better about life? Whatever your choice, I wish you all a Happy Christmas.