With several art critics and other literati contributing pieces, including Grayson Perry, Will Self, Kirsty Wark, Dr. James Fox and Dpn McCullin, this program traces the development of how winter has been represented in art in Europe and the United States.
Beginning with Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the mid-sixteenth century, the documentary shows how artists tried to represent the unrepresentable and thereby humanize it. Bruegel was interested in showing how humanity made sense of extreme cold, both by enjoying it and by trying to find the best ways to survive. His detached approach contrasted starkly, for example, with that of Sir Henry Rayburn during the Scottish Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century, whose famous picture of a cleric skating on ice outside Edinburgh was both witty and pleasurable, showing how human beings at that time really believed that they had conquered the mysteries of nature.
Contrast that complacency, for instance, with the work of J. M. W. Turner, only three decades later; through his portrait of the Alps he showed how nature still had the power to conquer humanity, even though Napoleon had shown during his campaigns how it was possible to take an army across the Alps over the St. Bernard Pass, supposedly the world's most impassable area.
In the mid-nineteenth century John Ruskin experimented with drawing winter scenes - although mystified by the beauties of nature, his work had the effect of domesticating it, to such an extent that tourists in the late nineteenth century began to view the Alps as a possible tourist destination rather than an inaccessible area.
In the United States, Ashcan artists such as George Bellows demonstrated a social conscience by showing how the underclass in New York were completely excluded from the city's rapid architectural and commercial development. Forced to live under the newly-opened Brooklyn Bridge, they were the kind of people who were quite literally swept under the social carpet.
The program also looked at the work of photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz in the United States and Bill Brandt in the United Kingdom, whose work provided a valuable insight into long-forgotten mores and behaviors during winter. In many ways their work offered a cinéma-vérité view of society that contrasted with the more representational work of artists painting at the same time.
What made this program particularly interesting was its focus on non-canonical artists and photographers, making us aware of just how varied the responses have been over the centuries to the presence of winter. Quite literally there was something in this documentary to cater for all tastes.
Beginning with Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the mid-sixteenth century, the documentary shows how artists tried to represent the unrepresentable and thereby humanize it. Bruegel was interested in showing how humanity made sense of extreme cold, both by enjoying it and by trying to find the best ways to survive. His detached approach contrasted starkly, for example, with that of Sir Henry Rayburn during the Scottish Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century, whose famous picture of a cleric skating on ice outside Edinburgh was both witty and pleasurable, showing how human beings at that time really believed that they had conquered the mysteries of nature.
Contrast that complacency, for instance, with the work of J. M. W. Turner, only three decades later; through his portrait of the Alps he showed how nature still had the power to conquer humanity, even though Napoleon had shown during his campaigns how it was possible to take an army across the Alps over the St. Bernard Pass, supposedly the world's most impassable area.
In the mid-nineteenth century John Ruskin experimented with drawing winter scenes - although mystified by the beauties of nature, his work had the effect of domesticating it, to such an extent that tourists in the late nineteenth century began to view the Alps as a possible tourist destination rather than an inaccessible area.
In the United States, Ashcan artists such as George Bellows demonstrated a social conscience by showing how the underclass in New York were completely excluded from the city's rapid architectural and commercial development. Forced to live under the newly-opened Brooklyn Bridge, they were the kind of people who were quite literally swept under the social carpet.
The program also looked at the work of photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz in the United States and Bill Brandt in the United Kingdom, whose work provided a valuable insight into long-forgotten mores and behaviors during winter. In many ways their work offered a cinéma-vérité view of society that contrasted with the more representational work of artists painting at the same time.
What made this program particularly interesting was its focus on non-canonical artists and photographers, making us aware of just how varied the responses have been over the centuries to the presence of winter. Quite literally there was something in this documentary to cater for all tastes.
