A winter day in the country.

H. A. Brendekilde's 'A Winter Day in the Country' (1888) is a seasonal Danish rural landscape — the Danish winter's specific character (cold but rarely deeply snow-covered, the light low and pale through the brief daylight hours) creating atmospheric conditions quite different from the dramatic snow landscapes of more continental European winter subjects. Brendekilde's engagement with the full seasonal cycle of the Danish countryside encompassed the winter landscape with its particular quality of bare trees, frost-hardened ground, and the subdued palette of the dormant season.

Brendekilde renders the winter countryside with attention to the specific atmospheric conditions of a Danish winter day — the low, pale light, the bare trees against a cold sky, and the quality of frost or frozen ground on the landscape surface creating the season's characteristic visual character. His palette shifts toward the cool, muted tones of the dormant season — the ochres and browns of dead vegetation, the grey-white of frost, and the pale winter sky creating a restricted but coherent color range.