The “Little Ice Age” of the 17th century influenced society and art in the Netherlands. Pieter Bruegel and Aert van der Neer depicted life in winter, from harsh hardship to cheerful ice skating. The ice symbolizes both pleasure and mortal danger.
Winter, art and life in transition
In the course of the 16th century, a spectacular drop in temperature changed the climate in large parts of Europe, which was to last throughout the 17th century: the “Little Ice Age”. The result is a dramatic food crisis caused by a shortage of grain, which particularly affects the populous cities dependent on food imports. This exacerbates the situation in which the continent's economy and society find themselves in the early modern period, already fueled by political and religious conflicts. People are forced to adapt to the more difficult living conditions, which in many places becomes a struggle for survival.
This climate change is reflected above all in Dutch art, as the cycle of seasons by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna demonstrates particularly impressively. Many individual scenes depict how people try to defy the all-pervading cold on the one hand and indulge in the pleasures of winter on the other. In the 17th century, the winter landscape became a separate genre within Dutch painting. Aert van der Neer in Amsterdam was one of the most outstanding representatives. No struggle for survival is depicted here: Here too, the painter's focus is on the more cheerful side of winter, the ice skating popular with all classes, as practiced on the great rivers and canals as well as on the frozen village pond. Of course, there is always the warning of sudden falls and the proverbial thin ice, which thus becomes a symbol of the danger to all human existence. But the pleasure aspect prevails. What was already popular fun in the past has now established itself as a sporting discipline in the Netherlands: the Elfstedentocht, a long-distance race on ice that connects a total of 11 cities.
Text: Ulrich Becker