Winter (The Vicarage Garden under Snow)

Van Gogh's 1885 Winter (The Vicarage Garden under Snow) at the Norton Simon Museum shows the parsonage garden — his family's outdoor space — transformed by winter snowfall into a simpler, more geometric landscape. The garden under snow reduces complexity to essential forms: the paths, the trees, the boundary walls, all emphasized by white accumulation. This is one of several paintings Van Gogh made of the parsonage's changing appearance through the seasons, his family home providing him with a subject he could observe continuously across different conditions. The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena holds this as part of its distinguished collection.

Snow provides the palette's dominant note — whites and grays against the dark structure of dormant vegetation. Van Gogh captures the specific quality of northern winter light with observational accuracy. The garden's underlying geometry is revealed by the snow, paths and beds defined by their differential covering.