Paint & Words of Winter...

The Winter Solstice is a little less than a month away.  In anticipation of the coming seasonal shift, I put together a selection of winter themed paintings and quotes.  Yes, the theme of each painting is 'winter', but the key player in them all is the presence of snow.  Snow is one of the first things that comes to my mind when thinking about winter. 

Unfortunately, during my lifetime I never lived in a region where the winters brought snow.  Ice storms, yes...snow, not really.  For those that do enjoy the white powder of winter, I hope you get a white Christmas this year.

("Winter Landscape With People Strolling on the Banks of a Frozen River Where children Play"; Gijsbrecht Leytons)

"When the bold branches

Bid farewell to rainbow leaves-

Welcome wool sweaters."

~B. Cybrill

("Boulevard Saint-Denis, Argenteuil, in Winter"; Claude Monet; c. 1875)

"Winter is the time for comfort - it is the time for home."

~ Edith Sitwell

("Winter"; Alexey Savrasov; c. 1873)

"There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you...

In spring, summer, and fall, people sort of have an open

season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you 

have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging

to yourself."

~Ruth Stout

("Winter Landscape"; Joseph Tomanek; c. 1920)

"Over the river and through the wood,

To grandfather's house we go;

The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh,

Through the white and drifted snow."

~ Lydia Maria Child

("A Street Scene in Winter, Copenhagen"; Fischer Paul)

"Every mile is two in winter."

~ George Herbert

("Skating To Nirvana"; Barend Cornelius Koekkoek)

Winter came down to our home one night

Quietly pirouetting in on silvery-toed slippers of snow,

And we, we were children once again.

~ Bill Morgan, Jr.

"The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches."

~ E. E. Cummings

("Winter Stream"; Elizabeth Hubbell, c. 1960)

"In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen,

Snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter,

Long ago."

~ Christina Rosetti

("Snowy Day"; Mario Zampedroni; c. 2010)

"I like these, cold grey winter days.  Days like this let you savor a bad mood."

~ Bill Watterson

("Winter Lady - Cardinal"; Robert Bateman; c. 1983)

"Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed,

The speculating Rooks at their nests cawed

And saw from elm tops, delecate as flowers of grass,

What we below could not see, winter pass."

~ Edward Thomas

"Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments,

embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour."

~ John Boswell

("Winter Sun Dawn"; Yuliy Yulevich (Julius) Kleuer; c. 1981)

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape -
the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.  
Something waits beneath it.  The whole story doesn't show."

~ Andrew Wyeth