Winter Landscapes and Climatic Change

Visualization of the weather—past and present

“…Prior to about 1400 most western art mainly depicted religion (Robinson, 2005). Burroughs (1981) attempts to explain this by suggesting that during this period the weather was so mild and benign that little attention was given to the weather, it was a rather insignificant event. By the early 1400s, however, the number of severe winters begin to increase (Lamb, 1982) and paintings started to display a truer depiction of the land and environment.…”

“…By the early 1400s, however, the number of severe winters begin to increase (Lamb, 1982) and paintings started to display a truer depiction of the land and environment. There are many paintings from the time depicting snow scenes, although before this there were few paintings depicting winters as cold and snowy (Burroughs, 1981). One such is Hunters in the Snow, a well known painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Bruegel, 1565) (Figure 1).…”

Cloud Classification Before Luke Howard

“…Other meteorological or climatological matters treated by artists are mentioned here only in passing, thus little attention is given to the history of representation of the various atmospheric optical phenomena such as rainbows. Lamb (1967) and Neuberger (1970) have already documented that the geographical means and temporal variations of cloud cover, cloud type, and visibility in painted skies are related to parallel variations in the observed climate, while Lamb (1967) and Burroughs (1981) showed that artists have recorded some particularly severe and snowy winters such as the winter of 1564-1565. A final point raised by Constable (1832) and only touched upon in this article is that many landscape paintings are surprisingly detailed and incisive documents of evolving weather situations.…”

“…Bruegel gave the stratus the same strange dark green color as the frozen ponds beneath. Burroughs (1981) pointed out that in the next two years Bruegel painted four other scenes with snow-covered ground. In one of these, the Adoration of the Magi in the Snow (1567, Winterhur, Oskar Reinhart Collection), snow falls from a featureless veil of nimbostratus.…”

Acid Rain

“…Many authors have written about the artist's perception of his or her climatic environment (Lamb, 1967;Botley, 1970;Gedzelman, 1989;Neuberger, 1970;Spink, 1970;Thornes, 1979Thornes, , 1999Burroughs, 1981;Walsh, 1991). A great deal of thought was given, not only to the esthetic aspects of clouds in landscapes, but also to the sudden and substantial increase of snowy landscapes in the sixteenth century, which coincided with the emergence of the "Little Ice Age".…”