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Enjoy Winter Art Favorites at the National Gallery

5 min read
A person and dog trudge through ankle-deep snow to approach a barn and farmhouse under a heavy, lead-gray sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The person has pale-toned skin and wears a brown hat and suit. He carries a sack over one shoulder and a handled basket looped over his other forearm. He walks away from us and to our right so the side of his face is painted with a triangular touch of peach. The dog is mostly brown with some gray spots. The pair approach a break in a stone wall built with light and dark gray boulders. Snow sits in the crooks of branches in barren trees and bushes to the left and right. A short distance away, six cows stand looking off to our left or nuzzle through the snow to find grass. A gray-sided, snow-topped barn is just beyond them to the right of center. More trees and other smaller structures are around and behind the barn. Another stone wall stretches from the right side of the barn and off the right edge of the painting. The main section of the three-story house to the left is butter yellow. A single-story structure jutting off the right side of the house is pale terracotta red. Laundry hangs on a line outside the house, and a person, also wearing brown, stands nearby. On the roofs, the snow is painted white where the low sun falls and mauve-pink where it falls into shadow. The distant horizon, which comes about a third of the way up this composition, is lined with slate-gray hills. A strip of warm yellow light lines the horizon beneath piles of gray clouds that mostly obscure a lavender-blue sky. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed a boulder in the lower right corner, “DURRIE N HAVEN.”
George Henry Durrie, Winter in the Country, c. 1858, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1994.59.1

The coldest season of the year is upon us—at least in the northern hemisphere.

With over 150,000 works in our collection, only 2 percent are on view at any given time. So, this winter, we've selected some of our favorites from more than 100 winter-themed artworks in our collection for you to enjoy online.

Explore snowy, rural scenes from American painters of the 1800s, playful abstract drawings by 20th-century artists, and searing images of winter captured by contemporary photographers. We hope you’ll enjoy these works and share them with family and friends.

Looking for more ways to celebrate? Visit our ice rink and enjoy other programs and events this season.

  • A person and dog trudge through ankle-deep snow to approach a barn and farmhouse under a heavy, lead-gray sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The person has pale-toned skin and wears a brown hat and suit. He carries a sack over one shoulder and a handled basket looped over his other forearm. He walks away from us and to our right so the side of his face is painted with a triangular touch of peach. The dog is mostly brown with some gray spots. The pair approach a break in a stone wall built with light and dark gray boulders. Snow sits in the crooks of branches in barren trees and bushes to the left and right. A short distance away, six cows stand looking off to our left or nuzzle through the snow to find grass. A gray-sided, snow-topped barn is just beyond them to the right of center. More trees and other smaller structures are around and behind the barn. Another stone wall stretches from the right side of the barn and off the right edge of the painting. The main section of the three-story house to the left is butter yellow. A single-story structure jutting off the right side of the house is pale terracotta red. Laundry hangs on a line outside the house, and a person, also wearing brown, stands nearby. On the roofs, the snow is painted white where the low sun falls and mauve-pink where it falls into shadow. The distant horizon, which comes about a third of the way up this composition, is lined with slate-gray hills. A strip of warm yellow light lines the horizon beneath piles of gray clouds that mostly obscure a lavender-blue sky. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed a boulder in the lower right corner, “DURRIE N HAVEN.”

While we are closed on December 25 and January 1, you can plan your visit for any other day. We look forward to seeing you soon.

Want more winter art? Browse our winter art prints for sale.

 

Top image: George Henry Durrie, Winter in the Country, c. 1858, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1994.59.1

Holidays at the National Gallery

Find nine ways to make the most of your visit this winter.

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We look slightly down onto a scene showing light-skinned men, women, and children ice skating on a frozen river in this horizontal landscape painting. We get the impression of hundreds of people gathered on the ice creating a crowd that extends into the hazy distance. The couple dozen closest to us are the most defined. A few clusters of people and individuals in particular draw our attention. For example, a group of three men wearing dark cloaks and hats stand in conversation on our right. Two boys nearby hold sticks and play a game similar to hockey. A small child holds two smaller sticks, perhaps to help balance. A man in the front center wears puffy scarlet-red pants with white stockings, a red jacket, and a tall brown hat with a cloud of scarlet feathers. He stands next to a woman wearing a black hooded cloak over a black skirt and raspberry-pink bodice. She tucks her hands into a cylindrical muffler held at her waist. Another elegantly dressed man in golden yellows and black and a woman in mauve pink and butter yellow stand nearby. Some of people throughout the scene wear white frilly collars and others are more simply dressed in shades of brown, gray, and black. To our right, a faded rose-red windmill stands at the river’s edge, and to our left a large house with steeply pitched and stepped roofs is enclosed within a solid fence painted with pink diamonds against black and white. Smoke rises from one chimney, and other houses and a church line the riverbank into the distance. A wooden bridge near a grove of bare trees connects spit of land near us in the lower left corner with the village beyond. Brilliant azure-blue sky is visible through breaks in the steel-gray clouds above.

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