0:00

10-Minute Challenge: Bruegel’s ‘Hunters in the Snow’

By Larry Buchanan

Feb. 2, 2025

Today, we bring you a new installment of our focus challenges, in which we ask you to spend uninterrupted time looking at one piece of art. We’ll now feature these on the first Monday of each month — starting today. Sign up here if you’d like to be notified.

With that, let’s take a breath, bundle up and sink into a painting that’s almost 500 years old.

A few things to consider during your time:

What mood does the painting evoke here? Is it joyful? Grim? How does that mood change as you look closer?

Where does your eye go? How does it travel through the painting?

What do you think this painting is about?

Loading image

Thanks for spending time with the art! (Did you feel the cold?) If you want to look a little longer, just scroll back up and press “Continue.” Now, we’ll tell you a bit about it.

Let’s start by going back in time. Imagine it’s the 1560s and your friend Nicolaes Jonghelinck, a well-to-do banker, invites you to dinner at his country house outside what is now Antwerp, Belgium.