Winter

Winter, painted in 1725 and now at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya alongside its companion Autumn, represents the cold season within Pater's Four Seasons series. Winter posed a particular challenge for outdoor-gathering painters because the typical Rococo idiom — warm parks, silk costumes, soft light — was inherently opposed to the conditions of a cold, grey winter day. Pater resolved this by setting the scene in a manner that acknowledges cold through the figures' clothing — furs, cloaks, hats — and the bare branches of the trees without surrendering the social animation and elegant deportment that defined his pictorial world. Winter scenes also gave painters opportunities to depict ice-skating and other cold-weather recreations, extending the range of human activity available in the four-seasons format.

The Winter canvas exhibits a cooler, greyer palette than the Autumn companion, with blue-grey sky tones and less warmth in the foreground lighting. Pater adjusted his handling of costumes to suggest heavier fabrics through broader, less fluid brushstrokes than those he used for summer silks, and bare tree branches above the figures replace the leafy canopies of the warmer seasons.