Landscape under snow (Paysage sous la neige)

Dated 1867 and now in the Musée d'Orsay, this winter landscape subject belongs to Courbet's extensive series of Franche-Comté snow scenes, in which he explored the specific visual character of the Jura plateau under winter conditions. French landscape painting had largely avoided the winter months as too harsh and unbeautiful for picturesque treatment, but Courbet embraced the Jura winter — its grey skies, blue-shadowed snow, and stripped tree forms — with the same commitment he brought to every season. By 1867 his winter landscapes were well established as a critical and commercial success within the larger body of his work.

The full winter palette requires Courbet's most radical departure from warm academic conventions: cool grey-blue skies, blue-shadowed snow, bare brown trees, and the occasional warm accent of an animal or human figure. Snow surfaces are built with varied impasto — thick where snow lies deep, thinner where it thins over exposed earth. Blue shadows in snow were a consistent observation across his winter work.