Season’s greetings from the Saint Louis Art Museum

Borrow warmth from the Museum while you admire wonderful winter scenes from indoors. Here are five works inspired by the cold weather.

Road Down the Palisades

In this painting, the curve of the road directs attention deep into the landscape, past a screen of wiry trees to the Hudson River beyond. A cloud-filled sky and dirty patches of snow communicate the dreariness of an overcast winter day, but the scene is invigorated by bright spots of blue and red.

The painting is currently on view in the May Department Stores Company Gallery 334.

Travelers Awaiting a Ferry

Philips Wouwermans has created a fanciful place. It is known that such topography does not exist in the regions in which the artist worked. His evocative rendering combines the careful structure of Italian landscapes with precise markers to indicate specific depths (here suggested by different rocky outcroppings) with the atmosphere of an alpine scene. The white horse, seen in profile, occurs frequently in Wouwermans’ landscapes.

The painting is currently on view in the Opal and Arthur H. Meyer, Jr. Gallery 238.

On the Ice Near Dordrecht

The low horizon line of this picture emphasizes the most prominent characteristic of the Dutch countryside—its flatness. Several Dutch artists working in the middle years of the 17th century focused on this aspect of their native land. Using a limited number of colors, Jan van Goyen captures the tonal variations in the clouds and the reflected light on the cool ice below.

The painting is currently on view in the Opal and Arthur H. Meyer, Jr. Gallery 238.

The following works can be seen via reservation in the Study Room for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.

The Study Room houses more than 16,000 works, including European and Asian art and art from the Americas. To visit the Study Room, schedule an appointment online at least two weeks before your desired date.

Winter, Yosemite Valley

Taken by American photographer Ansel Adams in 1933, this picture depicts a view of the dense forest of tall Yosemite Valley pine trees in winter. Tree boughs are laden with snow which adheres to the sides of their dark trunks as well. The ground, visible in the very foreground of the image, is covered in snow.

This print, along with six others, was made specifically for SLAM in the spring of 1945 after Charles Nagel, then director of the Museum, viewed a selection of prints that Ansel Adams had brought with him on a trip to St. Louis in February 1945. Adams proclaimed, “these are the best I have ever made of these particular subjects.”