At the beginning of December, as the city slipped into the glow of the Winterlights, the exhibition Pleasures on the Ice: Dutch Winter Landscapes, 17th–19th Centuries reminded us that, centuries ago, winter was not experienced as a pause in life, but rather as a driving force behind social interaction, artistic innovation and imaginative rethinking. Through a tightly curated selection of works spanning three centuries, the exhibition offered visitors a concise yet intellectually layered reflection on how cold weather had reshaped everyday experience and pictorial practice.

The Invention of the Winter Landscape

The emergence of winter landscape painting as an autonomous genre in the Netherlands around 1600 coincided with a convergence of climatic, economic and cultural factors. 

In a conversation with Culture.lu, the exhibition’s curator, Angelika Glesius, reflects on the origins and defining characteristics of the genre: “The Dutch winter landscape developed as a subgenre of landscape painting when artists in the late 16th and early 17th centuries began to depict specific seasons, weather conditions and times of day as independent pictorial themes rather than merely as backgrounds for religious or historical scenes. They emerged as an independent genre during the 17th-century Golden Age, when a prosperous art market encouraged painters to depict everyday life and the local environment. The Little Ice Age made frozen canals and skating scenes a familiar part of Dutch experience, giving artists rich visual material. While Pieter Bruegel the Elder had already introduced vivid winter scenes in the 16th century, 17th-century Dutch painters such as Hendrick Avercamp transformed the subject into a specialised genre, combining close observation of weather, light and social activity. In the 18th century, winter landscapes continued but often became calmer and more picturesque in mood. During the 19th century, under the influence of Romanticism, artists renewed the genre with greater emotional depth and dramatic atmosphere. Painters like Andreas Schelfhout emphasised grand scenery, expressive skies and the poetic qualities of snow and ice.”

Throughout these periods, the winter landscape evolved from socially grounded scenes to increasingly atmospheric visions of nature. The exhibition emphasises that these images were never neutral records, but rather carefully constructed representations that negotiated the tensions between pleasure and danger, freedom and control, and community and isolation.

Jacob Esselens: Winter as Lived Social Space

Both historically and conceptually, Jacob Esselens’ Winter Landscape with Skaters forms the foundation of the exhibition. Created in the mid-17th century, it belongs to the formative period of the winter landscape genre, when frozen rivers and canals became the setting for everyday life in the Dutch Republic. 

“Jacob Esselens was a 17th-century Dutch landscape painter and draughtsman,” Glesius explains, “who also worked as a cloth and silk merchant, a profession that took him on extensive travels through Germany, France, England and Scotland. During these journeys, he made numerous sketches of landscapes and towns, many of which later served as the basis for his painted compositions. Although Esselens painted mostly summer and coastal landscapes, the winter scene in this exhibition is unusual in his oeuvre – the only known winter subject by him. His experience as both traveller and observer is reflected in the carefully observed topographical details and in the figures he places within the landscape. The muted grey and brown tones of this winter view create a distinctive atmosphere, emphasising subtle shifts of light and texture in the snow and sky. Around the same time, a few Dutch painters – particularly in winter subjects – explored a near-monochrome palette, using restrained tonal ranges to convey the cold, still mood of the season. This aesthetic choice heightens the sense of quiet and lends Esselens’ scene an almost contemplative quality that sets it apart from more colourful landscape works of the period.”

Esselens does not present winter as an exceptional event, but rather as a recurring social condition that reorganises space and interaction. The frozen surface acts as a temporary public square, where people skate, chat, play, trip up and watch. Social distinctions persist, yet are momentarily recalibrated by physical balance and skill. While pleasure is central, it is never without risk.

Andries Vermeulen: Winter Between Observation and Memory

Positioned chronologically between the Dutch Golden Age and the 19th-century revival of winter landscapes, Andries Vermeulen occupies a transitional space within the exhibition. While his winter scenes draw on 17th-century models, they emerge from a context in which winter functioned more as a historical reference than an immediate experience. “Vermeulen’s position ‘between centuries’ – in the late 17th or early 18th century – is key to understanding his approach to winter landscapes,” Glesius notes. “Chronologically, his work bridges the Dutch Golden Age and the subsequent developments of the 18th century. He draws on the traditions of earlier Dutch genre painting, including the lively ice scenes of Bruegel and the intimate, everyday details seen in works by David Teniers, adopting their focus on human activity and atmospheric observation. At the same time, Vermeulen advances the genre by integrating a more refined composition, subtler tonal gradations and a calmer, less crowded depiction of the winter scene. The result is a work that maintains the narrative richness of 17th-century genre painting but also anticipates the more picturesque and atmospheric sensibilities of 18th-century landscape art. His ‘middle’ position, both in time and in the exhibition layout, makes his painting a visual and historical bridge, connecting the vivid realism of the Golden Age with the emerging aesthetic of later Dutch landscape painting.”

Vermeulen’s work in the exhibition demonstrates how the winter landscape adapted to changing attitudes while retaining narrative and social significance.

Andreas Schelfhout: Winter as Cultural Memory

With Andreas Schelfhout, the winter landscape entered the realm of conscious revival and aesthetic nostalgia. Active in the 19th century and associated with the Hague School, Schelfhout revisited winter scenes at a time when the conditions that had once shaped them had already become a thing of the past. As Glesius reflects: “Schelfhout’s work reflects 19th-century admiration for the Dutch Golden Age, particularly in its careful attention to detail and realistic depiction of landscapes. As one of the leading painters of the Dutch Romantic movement, Schelfhout combined a deep respect for the compositional and atmospheric qualities of 17th-century masters with the Romantic era’s emphasis on mood and light. His winter landscapes, called ‘Schelfhoutjes’, were highly prized in his own time and remain highlights in many major European collections today (another example can be seen in our ‘Pescatore Room’, which is part of our permanent exhibition). In these works, the almost photographic precision of snow, ice and sky demonstrates a direct inheritance from the fine, meticulous techniques of Dutch Golden Age painters, while Schelfhout also infuses the scenes with the Romantic ideal of picturesque, emotionally evocative landscapes.”

Here, winter is presented as a symbol of cultural memory, connecting 19th-century viewers to an idealised national past.

The Pleasure of Slow Looking

One of the most striking aspects of Pleasures on the Ice is its intimacy. While many exhibitions nowadays rely on quantity or immersive technologies, Villa Vauban has chosen to focus on intellectual closeness instead. The limited number of works encourages visitors to look slowly and engage deeply, which reinforces the exhibition’s thematic focus on attentiveness and balance. It also invites us to take winter seriously, not as a decorative backdrop but as a formative force in visual culture.

Open until 17 May, the exhibition at Villa Vauban demonstrates that curatorial restraint can be generative and that seasonal themes, when approached with intellectual rigour, can yield far-reaching insights. Winter, long marginalised in art history, emerges here as a time when society temporarily reshapes itself – and when painting discovers new perspectives.

Pleasures on the Ice: Dutch Winter Landscapes, 17th–19th Centuries, until 17.05.2026 at Villa Vauban, www.villavauban.lu