These Artists Will Change Your Mind About Winter: MFA Boston

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Last edited Tue Dec 22, 2020, 04:09 AM - Edit history (1)

- Cottages In Winter by Frits Thaulow, 1891.

NPR, Dec. 21, 2020.

I hate snow. Which means I most especially hate this week of the year. The week winter begins. It means snow could come. Or, G*d help us, snow is already here. I know, bah humbug. Still ...

I did like it once. Laughed my way through an 8-foot snowstorm years ago in Boston. But I was young. Now ... not so much. Although every time I look at this painting, it takes me back to those happy Boston snow days.

Frederick Childe Hassam (he never used the Frederick; a friend told him Childe was 'more exotic') was born in Boston and early on began painting cityscapes. At Dusk (Boston Common at Twilight) was his first. I visit the picture every time I'm at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and a postcard of it is taped up next to my bed. It exactly captures how I felt in the three winters I spent there. Cold. A little melancholy at sundown. But mostly content, loving the crisp air, the charming old buildings, the smell of the park. And the pink twilight.



- Childe Hassam, 'At Dusk' (Boston Common at Twilight), 1885-1886.

Museum of Fine Arts curator Erica Hirshler says in 1885, Hassam was painting modern Boston — new buildings lining the left side of the street, electric street lamps (not gas). "And the fact that the woman is walking unchaperoned in the city reflects a different way that women interacted in an urban environment." She and the little girls all carry muffs to keep their hands warm. Except for the muffs and a few other details, the place looks just the same today.

Hassam was an American impressionist. Camille Pissarro was a Danish French one who influenced Paul Gauguin and painted with Paul Cézanne. His gorgeous snowy scene looks like iced lace. Pissarro's snow barely has any white in it. If you look closely, you'll see blues, pinks, yellows. Curator Hirshler points out, "Each separate color remains distinct but blends to say 'snow.' "

All these pictures are in the MFA's collection (the museum just closed again — pandemic). They know their snow in Boston. And they introduced me to a Norwegian artist who not only knew snow but had some truly original perspectives on it. Look how that snowy hill just spills toward us. It takes up three-quarters of the painting. Frits Thaulow puts the horizon line almost at the top of his canvas. Very modern. You don't see much of anything but the snow and its shadows (and again, so many colors in this snow — the shadow is almost lavender). This fellow Thaulow makes a world in his snow. There weren't any ski lifts in the 19th century. That's why he paints those footprints, going up the hill...

More, https://www.npr.org/2020/12/21/946418719/these-artists-will-change-your-mind-about-winter



- Camille Pissarro, 'Morning Sunlight on the Snow, Eragny-sur-Epte,' 1895.