Winter

Corrado Giaquinto

National Gallery of Art

Eight men and women, two children, and a baby sit or toil in a barren landscape under a thick blanket of clouds in this horizontal painting. The people all have pale, peachy skin, and they wear tunics and robes in shades of golden yellow, salmon or rose pink, crimson red, lapis blue, and honeydew or laurel green. A man to our left of center raises an ax high over one shoulder as he braces a sandaled foot on a fallen tree trunk. Another person squats and holds another thick log nearby, in the lower left corner of the painting. A third person reaches up to brace a bundle of logs, which are bound with a rope, across his back. A bit behind this group, at the center of the composition, two women, a man, and a baby huddle on the ground around a fire. Logs are tied to create a frame from which a big-bellied pot hangs. Closer to us and to our right, a bearded man, woman, and two children sit in the shelter of a rocky overhang. The man sips wine from a glass as he holds the bottle with his other hand. The woman holds a bowl, and the children sit in front of a pot with glowing embers. One child puts food in their mouth, and the other holds a hand up over the heat. A loaf of bread and a jug sit on a white cloth on a bench nearby. Two cows or steers stand near the arched opening of a bridge to our left, and dark blue clouds press down on snow-covered huts in the distance.