Winter paintings often evoke challenges, with icy winds, long nights, and dreary weather. It’s no surprise that, in the Northern Hemisphere, we’re conditioned to complain about the cold season. But, as author Katherine May reminds us in her book Wintering, there is another side to winter—one that offers a time of rest, reflection, and connection with the natural world. The frozen landscapes of the North, once a muse for many artists, offer us a powerful reminder of winter’s beauty and resilience.

Winter’s Quiet Resilience

While many of us dread the long, harsh winters, Nordic countries have long embraced the season. With concepts like the Norwegian friluftsliv (the practice of embracing the outdoors) and Denmark’s hygge (the art of enjoying cozy moments at home), these cultures have found joy in the cold and quiet. The landscape, stark and quiet, encourages us to slow down, reflect, and appreciate the little moments.

This theme of embracing the seasonality of life is beautifully reflected in the paintings of Nordic artists from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their works, inspired by the frozen lands of Scandinavia, Finland, and Canada, convey a profound connection with nature—highlighting both the beauty and harshness of winter. The exhibition Northern Lights showcases these captivating works, offering us an opportunity to explore the emotional power of winter landscapes.

The Frozen North as a Muse for Artists

Artists like Hilma af Klint, Edvard Munch, and Harald Sohlberg were deeply influenced by the winter landscapes they lived in. These artists didn’t just painting what they saw—they painted what they felt. In vast, snow-covered fjords and eerie, silent forests, they found a blank canvas for exploring their emotional responses to the seasons and the land.

Ulf Küster, the curator of the Northern Lights exhibition, notes that the snow-covered landscape of the North became a central subject in the works of these painters. For many of them, snow represented purity and natural beauty, a stark contrast to the industrialized world they were living in. The simplicity of the landscape offered them a space to reconnect with the rawness of nature and explore their feelings of solitude and isolation.

Nature’s Scale and Solitude

The vast, empty spaces of the North are often reflected in the unconventional compositions of these paintings. Many of the artists chose to portray landscapes that felt “boundless,” with compositions that extend beyond the edges of the canvas. These sweeping painting views evoke a sense of isolation and quiet contemplation, as seen in works like View from Pyynikki Ridge (1900) by Finnish artist Helmi Biese.

In Winter Night in the Mountains (1914), Harald Sohlberg captures the sensation of loneliness in the vast, snow-covered mountains. The vastness of the landscape, coupled with the quiet beauty of the night, creates a sense of profound stillness. Sohlberg himself wrote about the deep emotional impact the scene had on him, likening it to a spiritual experience. For these artists, nature wasn’t just a backdrop—it was a source of profound reflection and emotional insight.

The Enchantment and Dangers of the Boreal Forest

Beyond the snow-covered plains, the dense, dark boreal forests of the North held a different kind of allure for these artists. These forests, rich in folklore and mystery, were both enchanting and foreboding. The wilderness was a place of untamed beauty, but also one of danger, where unknown threats lurked. Artists like Gustaf Fjaestad and Akseli Gallen-Kallela captured the mysterious power of these landscapes, with their pointillist techniques and intricate details that made the snow sparkle and the trees seem to come alive.

The mystical quality painting of these forests also fueled the imagination of writers like Hans Christian Andersen, who filled his fairytales with the magic and danger of winter’s icy grip. This blend of beauty and danger is central to the allure of winter landscapes, as they evoke a deep sense of mystery and wonder.

Climate Change and the Nostalgia of Winter

Today, these artists’ portrayals of the frozen North are imbued with new significance. As climate change

threatens the very landscapes they immortalized, there is a growing sense of nostalgia and loss. Many of the places these artists painted are no longer as pristine as they once were. The Baltic Sea no longer freezes every winter, and the once-unbroken forests are now threatened by logging and development.

This awareness of environmental change adds a layer of urgency to the appreciation of these artworks. They not only capture the sublime beauty of winter but also serve as a reminder of what is at risk. Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s interactive work Boreal Dreams uses virtual reality to connect the past, present, and future of the boreal forests, offering a haunting vision of what might be lost.

Embracing the Seasonality of Life

Ultimately, the painting of these early 20th-century artists, along with the contemporary reflections on climate change, ask us to reconsider our relationship with winter. Instead of seeing it as a season of hardship and darkness, we are invited to embrace it as a time of introspection, renewal, and connection with nature. As Katherine May writes in Wintering, winter is a time to be blanked and made new again, to confront the challenges of life and come out stronger.

Winter, with all its harshness and beauty, is part of the natural cycle of life. By reframing our view of the season, as these artists did, we can learn to appreciate the quiet, the solitude, and the resilience it offers. And in doing so, we might find the strength to face the darker periods in our own lives with the same grace and acceptance.