It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, wherever you are in the world! Although it does not snow everywhere, snow is a motif of the holiday season. Seeing snow in art and film and photography naturally conjures a sense of nostalgia, peace, and hope. Whether your year has been relatively good or especially difficult, art will always be there to lift your spirts. Here are 5 snow scenes to get you in a spirited mood for the holidays, and perhaps instill hope for the coming year.
With the glowing moon overhead the pristine, snow covered peak, Mont Blanc at night is a more meditative and sublime view of the popular skiing destination. This scene is a quiet prayer without words.
This winter landscape is placid and bare, the sweeping multicolored horizon draws the attention off to the distance. The spare and clever use of color would provide a much needed pop of color in minimally adorned rooms or a refreshing simplicity to rooms that already have a lot of décor.
This absolutely stunning wintery stretch of enchanted forest is guarded by a highly emblematic mountain of the Slovak Carpathians, often mentioned by the locals as the "most beautiful mountain" of their country.
Sleigh Ride on a Sunny Winter Day by Peder Monsted
A nostalgic scene of a pair going sledding, their world is blanketed in a thick layer of white snow and the day is young, containing only possibilities. The masterful realism is very evocative and perfect for lovers of snow and winter.
Monet created this painting after a very rough patch in his life. His girlfriend Camille Doncieux had given birth to their first son, Jean, in 1867. Although Monet had some success exhibiting his art, he struggled financially and could not afford to live with his new family. He fell into such a deep depression that he tried to drown himself in the Seine. Luckily, he caught a break when Louis Joachim Gaudibert, an art collector, became the artist’s first patron. Gaudibert helped Monet rent a house in Étretat in late 1868 so he could be with Camille and Jean. By December, Monet was in great spirits, "surrounded by everything that I love", he wrote, and began to focus on painting. The Magpie was one of the paintings completed during his time here.
