Perhaps, in no European country, winter landscapes have never been as popular as in Holland. Dutch artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries countless times depicted winter fun in the midst of nature – ice skating, festivities, and sleigh rides.
Less often, but still met lyrical landscapes, glorifying the beauty of the snow-covered landscape. As for Reysdal, his winter scenes do not fit into any of these categories. Neither winter fun, nor poetic winter landscapes, he did not depict. He wrote winter without embellishment – in the style of realism. Some of Reisdal’s winter landscapes can be called almost tragic in mood.
For several centuries in a row, this has given many art historians reason to interpret them as symbols of the approaching death. But, in our opinion, it would be more fair to consider them as symbols of desolation and loneliness. In total, we reached about 25 winter scenes of the Ruysdael. None of them is dated, but researchers are inclined to believe that most of these paintings were written no earlier than the 1660s.
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