"The Hunters in the Snow (January)"

Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Oil
This painting is an example of the Northern Renaissance movement. The work is one in a series of six works, five of which still survive, that depict different times of the year. The painting shows a wintry scene in which three hunters are returning from a hunting expedition accompanied by their dogs. By appearances, the expedition was not successful: the hunters appear to trudge wearily, and the dogs appear downtrodden and miserable. One hunter carries the "meagre corpse of a fox" illustrating the paucity of the hunt. The whole visual impression is one of a calm, cold, overcast, day: the colours are muted whites and grays
the trees are bare of leaves
woodsmoke hangs in the air. The landscape itself is a flat-bottomed valley (a river meanders through it) with jagged peaks visible on the far side. A watermill is seen with its wheel frozen stiff. In the distance, figures ice skate and curl on a freezing lake
they appear as silhouettes.