The Hunters in the Snow
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| Artist | Pieter Brueghel the Elder |
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| Year | 1565 |
| Type | Oil on wood |
| Dimensions | 117 cm × 162 cm (46 in × 63¾ in) |
| Location | Kunsthistorisches Museum[1], Vienna |
The Hunters in the Snow (also known as The Return of the Hunters) is an oil on wood painting by Pieter Bruegel in 1565. The painting is one in a series of six works, five of which still survive, that depict different times of the year. The painting is in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, located in Vienna, Austria. This painting is an example of the Northern Renaissance movement.
The painting shows a wintry scene in which three hunters are returning from a hunting expedition accompanied by their dogs. By appearances, the expedition was not successful: the hunters appear to trudge wearily, and the dogs appear downtrodden and miserable. One hunter carries the "meagre corpse of a fox" illustrating the paucity of the hunt. The whole visual impression is one of a calm, cold, overcast, day: the colours are muted whites and grays; the trees are bare of leaves; woodsmoke hangs in the air.
The landscape itself is a flat-bottomed valley (a river meanders through it) with jagged peaks visible on the far side. A watermill is seen with its wheel frozen stiff. In the distance, figures ice skate and curl on a freezing lake; they appear as silhouettes.
Writing in the opinion section of Nature, art historian Martin Kemp points out that Old masters are popular subjects for Christmas cards and states that "probably no 'secular' subject is more popular than ... hunters in the snow"[2].
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![[1]](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder23.jpg){kind=link}