Disillusioned with Parisian artists’ café society and the oppressive gloom of the urban winter, Vincent van Gogh left Paris in mid-February 1888 to find rejuvenation in the healthy atmosphere of sun-drenched Arles. When he stepped off the train in the southern city, however, he was confronted by a snowy landscape, the result of a record cold spell. Undaunted, Van Gogh painted Landscape with Snow around February 24, when the snow had mostly melted, just prior to a new inundation.
This painting may have been inspired by the snowy scenes common to the Japanese prints Van Gogh avidly collected, but it also follows conventions of 17th-century Dutch landscape painting. If you don't have enough of van Gogh landscapes, please check our paper calendars for 2021! : )
P.S. If you like snowy paintings, check here for a wintery depiction of The Train in the Snow by Claude Monet. <3