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Hunters_in_snad

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9 views

Hunters_in_snad

Uploaded by

Sudhansu Mishra
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Hunters in the Snow (Dutch: Jagers in de Sneeuw), also known as The Return of

the Hunters, is a 1565 oil-on-wood painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Northern
Renaissance work is one of a series of works, five of which still survive, that depict
different times of the year. The painting is in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches
Museum in Vienna, Austria. This scene is set in the depths of winter during
December/January.

Background and origins

The Hunters in the Snow, and the series to which it belongs, are in the medieval and early
Renaissance tradition of the Labours of the Months: depictions of various rural activities
and work understood by a spectator in Breugel's time as representing the different months
or times of the year. For in 1565, this was the beginning of upcoming harsh winters down
the line, called Little Ice Age.[1]

Description and composition

The painting shows a wintry scene in which three hunters are returning from an expedition
accompanied by their dogs. By appearances the outing was not successful; the hunters
appear to trudge wearily, and the dogs, rather lean and gaunt, seem to share the hunters'
weariness. One man carries the "meager corpse of a fox" illustrating the paucity of the
hunt. In front of the hunters in the snow are the footprints of a rabbit or hare—which has
escaped or been missed by the hunters. The overall visual impression is one of a calm,
cold, overcast day; the colors are muted whites and grays, the trees are bare of leaves,
and wood smoke hangs in the air. Several adults and a child prepare food (preparing to
singe a pig) at an inn with an outside fire. There is a sign just above the entrance of the inn
that is nearly detaching from its hardware. The sign reads "Dit Is Guden Hert" ("This is the
Golden Hart").[2] Of interest are the jagged mountain peaks which do not exist in Belgium
or Holland.
The painting prominently depicts crows sitting in the denuded trees and a magpie flies in
the upper centre of the scene. Bruegel sometimes uses these two species of birds to
indicate an ill-omen as in Dutch culture magpies are associated with the Devil.[3]
The landscape itself is a flat-bottomed valley (a river meanders through it) with jagged
peaks visible on the far side. A watermill is seen with its wheel frozen stiff. In the distance,
figures ice skate, play bandy/ice hockey (before they became organized sports), kolf, and
play eisstock[4] ("ice-stick", similar to curling) on a frozen lake; they are rendered as
silhouettes.

Interpretation and reception

External videos
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow (Winter), 1565, Smarthistory
Writing in the "opinion" section of Nature, art historian Martin Kemp points out that Old
Masters are popular subjects for Christmas cards and states that "probably no 'secular'
subject is more popular than ... Hunters in the Snow".[5] The painting is the subject of
modernist poet William Carlos Williams's ekphrastic poem "The Hunter in The Snow".[6]
The surviving Months of the Year cycle are:


The Hunters in the Snow, Dec–Jan, also known as 'Winter'


The Gloomy Day, Feb–Mar, also known as 'Early Spring'


Spring, 1565, a drawing made to be engraved and suggestive of April–May. It was apparently
never painted by Bruegel himself, but after his death came dozens of versions in paint by his
son and others.

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