Winter

Today is the beginning of winter, and with the rain and current local temperature at 9 degrees, the season is announcing its presence.

The National Gallery of Victoria has many artworks that reference the season – most of them snowy landscapes – including Peter Booth’s chilly and evocative painting (above). Winter has been a common theme for artists across time and space and there are many beautiful examples online. The BBC’s culture website has a lovely selection in its article ‘How great artists depict winter in 10 sublime paintings’ at: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20131224-the-10-greatest-winter-paintings. Today’s post will provide four different views of winter based on myth and allegory.

Persephone

The Greek myth of Demeter, Persephone (Proserpine in the Roman version) and Hades provides an explanation for the existence of the seasons. Persephone is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter – goddess of grain and agriculture. One day while Persephone is picking flowers in a meadow, Hades (the god of the Underworld) is so struck by her beauty that he carries her off in his chariot to live with him in the dark Underworld.

Unaware of the abduction, Demeter is distraught when she can’t find her daughter and searches the earth. During her wanderings, she arrives at Eleusis near Athens and causes a famine, refusing to let grain grow until her daughter is returned to her. As a result, Zeus orders Hades to return Persephone so that humankind will not starve to death.

However, before releasing Persephone, Hades places a pomegranate seed in her mouth which means that she is not able to leave the Underworld permanently. Under Zeus’s mediation, Demeter agrees to a compromise whereby Persephone spends one-third of the year with Hades, and the remainder with her mother on Olympus. Persephone’s return to the earth in spring is marked by the flowering of meadows and the growth of new grain; her return to the Underworld in winter sees the earth becoming colder and less fertile.

Although the myth is recounted in the ‘Homeric Hymn to Demeter’ and also in Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’, it is probably pre-Greek in origin and similar stories can be found in both Sumerian and Minoan mythology. At Eleusis, the most famous Greek religious sanctuary, the myth was performed as part of the rites to promote the fertility of the crops.

Due to Persephone’s connection with regeneration when she re-emerges each spring, she became a symbol of immortality and was frequently depicted on sarcophagi. The pomegranate also played a part in the rites associated with Persephone. Initiates were often allowed to eat nothing but pomegranate seeds which were emblematic of this renewal of life. An extension of this is the later adoption of the pomegranate as a Christian symbol of the Resurrection.

Horae

In Greek mythology, the Horae (etymologically from the Proto-Indo-European for ‘year’) were the goddesses of the seasons. As the daughters of Zeus and Aphrodite, as well as their role with regulating the seasons, they were also wardens at the gates of Mount Olympus. The change of the seasons throughout a year was known as the ‘Dance of the Horae’.

The ancient Greeks usually only recognised three seasons – each associated with a particular Hora. Thallo (meaning ‘blossom bringer’), was the goddess of springtime and buds and flowers; Auxo (meaning ‘increaser’), the goddess of summer and plant growth; and Carpo (meaning ‘ripening’) the goddess of autumn and harvest. The Horae were regarded as beneficent goddesses and usually depicted as beautiful young women surrounded by vegetation, flowers and other fertility symbols. Winter did not have a Hora associated with it, as it was associated with the story of Persephone.

However, a later writer, the Greek epic poet, Nonnus of Panopolis, described four Horae in his ‘Dionysiaca’ from the 5^th century CE and, while re-naming them, also included ‘winter’ as the Hora ‘Kheimon’. The depictions of these Horae – with spring flowers, summer corn and autumn grapes – were the inspirations which gave rise to the ‘images of the seasons’ created by the porcelain factories in Europe and England during the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Initially, Kheimon was typically depicted as well-clothed with head covered, standing near a tree deprived of foliage with dried and withered fruits. Over time this image morphed into either an elderly man struggling due to the passage of time or someone (often a putto) scantily-clad seeking warmth from a fire.

Yuki-onna

It is believed that if a woman dies from the cold in the mountainous regions of Japan, she can become a snow entity with magical powers known as a Yuki-onna. This individual is a form of youkai (supernatural creature) and is a malevolent soul-stealing entity.

Yuki-onnas appear on nights when there is snow and can be recognized by their appearance and dress. They are often beautiful with pale, almost transparent skin, long black or white hair, violet eyes and blue lips.  Dressed in a white kimono, the kimono will be fastened from right to left in the manner of clothes designed for the dead. Moving about by ‘floating on the snow’ Yuki-onnas may appear as helpless and caught in a snowstorm but typically kill people coming to their add with their icy breath. A Yuki-onna may also appear carrying a child but, once again, trying to hold or rescue the child results in death. While there are no images of a Yuki-onna in the NGV collection (although other ghost stories are depicted in the art of Yoshitoshi and Kunisada) , the geisha in Kunisada’s colour woodblock work (below) that ‘snow is not always welcome’!

There are ancient accounts of Yuki-onna in Japanese folklore, but the first written records come from the Muromachi period in the 14^th century. The most well-known versions to circulate in the west come from Patrick Lafcadio Hearn’s translations in ‘Ghostly Japan’ (1899) and ‘Kwaidan: Stories and Studios of Strange Things’ (1904) which deal with an early interpretation of Japanese culture and customs. Lafcadio Hearn’s ‘Japanes Ghost Stories’ was reprinted by Penguin Classics in 2019 and there is a fascinating article on his life and times in the ‘Paris Review’ at: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/02/the-many-lives-of-lafcadio-hearn/

Three Friends of Winter

The ‘Three Friends of Winter’ – the pine, the bamboo and the plum – are common features of Chinese artworks in both painting and calligraphy. They are celebrated in pairs or together as it has been observed that these plants don’t wither as winter deepens but continue to flourish and display vitality. The pine and bamboo are evergreen, while plum trees blossom at the end of winter and signal the approach of spring. This gives them the symbolic significance of steadfastness, perseverance, resilience and hope. In this context they are highly regarded and represent the scholar-gentleman’s ideal in Confucianism.

First recorded as appearing together in a 9^th century Tang Dynasty poem by Zhu Qingu, they became a popular grouping in paintings from the Song Dynasty onwards. The term ‘Three Friends of Winter’ is mentioned in the ‘Record of the Five-cloud Plum Cottage’ by the Song Dynasty author Lin Jingxi in the 13^th century: ‘For his residence, earth was piled to form a hill and a hundred plum trees, which along with lofty pines and tall bamboo comprise the friends of winter, were planted’.

The motif of this grouping has also been taken up by other East Asian cultures and features in the art of Korea, Vietnam and Japan.  In Japan they are known as Sho Chiku Bai and are sometimes used as a three-tier ranking system with the pine as superior, the bamboo in the middle and the plum as the lowest rank.  The chrysanthemum is often included in Vietnamese art with the same symbolic importance.

With the inclement weather, it is easy to enjoy ‘the art of winter’ in a cosy and comfortable ‘lockdown space’.