Garden in Snow

Gauguin's Garden in Snow was painted in Copenhagen in the winter of 1884–1885, when he had moved his family to his wife Mette's home city after the collapse of his banking career. The Copenhagen winter was miserable for him — he was unable to sell paintings, spoke no Danish, and felt artistically isolated. The snow-covered garden has the quality of a study made from the window of the family apartment, the white ground and bare branches providing a formal exercise in tonal restraint. This Scandinavian period left few works and ended with Gauguin's return to Paris alone in the summer of 1885.

The snow-covered garden is rendered with a restricted palette of white, grey, and pale blue, with dark bare branches providing the primary linear structure. The handling is relatively quiet and systematic, lacking the boldness of the Brittany and Polynesian work. The spatial organisation is straightforward, with the garden seen from above at a mild angle.