The colors in this painting are very cool, indicating it was perhaps an overcast day. As with the earlier painting by Levitan, hue is not a strong feature of this painting. Instead, value contrast is heavily relied on with there being mostly different blue and green tones.
What You Can Learn From These Master Winter Landscape Paintings
In this post, I will be taking a look at several master winter landscape paintings.
Sadly, I don’t get much of a chance to paint snowy, winter landscapes. There is not much snow in Australia as you would expect. But next time I travel to the snow, I will draw inspiration from the master paintings in this post.
Before I get into it, I want to reiterate that everything you learn from this post can be applied to other subjects. It is just as much a post about how to see and analyze art as it is about painting winter landscapes.
- Alfred Sisley, a Village Street in Winter, 1893
- Isaac Levitan, Winter in the Forest, 1885
- Richard von Drasche-Wartinberg, in the Deep Winter, 1923
- Ilya Efimovich Repin, Winter Landscape, 1903
- Paul Gaugin, Breton Village Under Snow, 1894
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(Before diving into this post, make sure to pick up a copy of my free Landscape Painting Starter Kit.)
Alfred Sisley, a Village Street in Winter, 1893
As with most of Alfred Sisley’s work, this painting demonstrates some very confident and loose brushwork. It is one of those paintings which do not look like much up close, but come together from afar.
In terms of composition, there is an interesting contrast between the linear objects (being the buildings and fences) and the organic objects (being the trees, bushes and the subject walking on the path). The linear objects also provide a strong sense of one point perspective, with all the lines converging towards a vanishing point around the middle of the painting.
This painting is a great example of how to paint the illusion of detail and texture. Notice the building walls – they are painted with nothing but scattered brushwork and broken color within a tight value range. You should also pay close attention to the use of edges in this painting. The edges and accurate values are what give the painting a quality of realism without there actually being much detail.
There is a strong warm light, cool shadow relationship. This indicates this may have been painted around sunrise or sunset. This is particularly evident in the snow, which is painted with light yellows in light, and dull blues and grays in shadow.
Isaac Levitan, Winter in the Forest, 1885
This is one of Isaac Levitan’s more intricate paintings. He usually painted in a much looser style.
There is a strong vertical theme in this painting, contrasted against the horizontal lines which represent the bottom and top of the tree line. The trees provide rhythm to the painting, much like the beating of drums in music. The small plants, twigs, lone wolf and other details add interest and complexity over the top, much like a violin solo in a symphony. There are many connections you can draw between music and art.
Hardly any color is used. Instead, it would appear Levitan relied on a strong value contrast between light and dark to create interest. Levitan also organized most of the values into neat groups, forming a strong notan design.
Tip: If you are painting with a dull color palette, then it is important that you look to other elements like value or brushwork to create interest. Otherwise, you may end up with a bland and uninviting painting.
The main subject appears to be the lone wolf, which is painted with fine detail. This seems to contrast against the bold and imposing trees which surround it.
Really Easy Beginner’s 5 MINUTE Winter Trees Experiment! Watercolor ink landscape panting Tutorial
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Today I’m painting another short format video to share one of my experiments rather than a full length painting. I’m experimenting with beginner-friendly, really quick Winter Trees with a glass dip pen and fine brush, just using black Indian ink and a water spritzing bottle! You can use any inks for this, it takes about 5 minutes or less and is lots of fun. Let me know in the comments if you would like to see more short vids like this!
Pixabay photo link: https://pixabay.com/photos/windswept-tree-cliff-top-coastal-484796/
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