Messages From a Snowy Landscape

February 14th, 2011 · 8 Comments · Beyond Gotham

How often have you heard the phrase “sick of winter” lately? It’s a phrase on many lips. As the frigid, single-digit temperatures and biting wind of recent days finally are giving way to the feeling-utterly-balmy 40s and the beginnings of melt – the inexorable winding into spring – take a long look and walk through the snow-covered landscape. Because it isn’t the vibrant new growth of spring, the lush fullness of summer, or the enthralling palette of autumn, we can tend to write off its gifts. It’s like we are waiting it out.

A winter landscape, however, holds its own in wonder. Is there anything that conjures up the word “blanket” so much as the sight of rounded and rippled fields and hills of snow? It is a world that shows us the elemental forms of growth, conveys in its patterns how winds shape the world, gives off a scintillating light, and also possesses color that is pleasing, soothing, and subtle. So many have spoken of this wintry covering as if we are just waiting for it to be gone, when it asks for us to pause, look, and enjoy.

A Field and the Shawangunk Ridge

Snowy Landscape

Perhaps this frozen terrain feels somewhat familiar but almost forgotten. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania when snow covered the ground from December to March. This snowy landscape, therefore, has been a joyful, beautiful reminder that yes, a fourth season exists; humankind hasn’t yet warmed it away here — though climate change is, indeed, occurring; and this winter is real and long like those I recall from childhood. (My love of winter may be helped by being a “winter baby.” I was born in January.) It’s an honest time to face the elements and burrow in while the land rests.

Down To Basics

A snowy landscape is one of Nature’s simplest creations, beauty rendered in clear white with long, slender shadows and sculptured shapes. We can behold the basic elements of our natural surroundings, in twigs, branches, limbs, and stone, all in clearest detail. Their patterns are reflected in the snow or silhouetted against the sky. Writing of the “clean beauty” of winter’s elemental forms, journalist and nature author Hal Borland observed that “a tree in winter is so obviously a tree, skeletonized to its very branch and twig. You can see every inch of it, every ridge of its bark and every bud-knob.” Does a tree branch ever seem more likely to come alive in almost-human terms than in such a form?

Turkey Vulture In Tree Top

Frozen Creekbed

The landscape’s shapes and colors are all delicacy and not big show. Ripples and mounds in the snow reveal the sculpting of wind and water. From this unrelenting frozen world of weeks and months, we can have some intimation of change over eons, of glaciers in an ancient time. It is landscape that calls for gentle, swaying steps and strides, as skaters and skiers know.

The winter palette’s colors, similarly, are vivid though subdued. We wrongly consider winter a colorless season, as Borland pointed out, “of dull grays and lusterless browns.” A snowy winter landscape reveals a range of icy colors, from crystal-white hills and fields to creamy yellow sunlight on snow to the light blue-purple of shadows or the silvery blue-gray of tiny brooks and ocean waves. The tans, browns, and forest greens stand out against a white backdrop. On the horizon, these colors make a winter blue sky all the more tingly and brilliant, or at other times serene.

A snow-covered land is one of rest but not of waiting. It has its own singular gift and purpose, as the land prepares for another season of growth. Its snows hold the replenishment for the spring and summer crops and plants. Its buds contain the energy and promise that will burst come spring. Its skies present layers of billowy clouds coupled with gray, lavender, and pink light. For now, the winter landscape unfolds, for those awakened to it, in the season’s remaining show of beauty.

Winter Shadows

View the slide show larger in Flickr.

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8 Comments so far ↓

  • Ginny Williams

    Beautiful piece, Susan! The photos are enough to make me miss the snow and your description of winter’s beauty is riveting. Do you know what kinds of raptors were in the trees?

  • Susan DeMark

    Ginny,

    Thank you! I’m honored by your words and very happy that you enjoyed this column so much. Perhaps that is my goal — to make people miss snow!

    The birds were turkey vultures. I watched them gliding above for quite a while — beautiful! — and then found a number of them perched together in this tree. Finally, it was down to this sole bird who then took wing. I find that those words — “turkey vulture” — definitely do not match their soaring grace.

    Again, thanks!

    Susan

  • Lynne

    Fondant…. yep, fondant…. that’s what the icy glaze, perfectly glistening, reminds me of when I look across the virgin fields of snow. I like how the white covers everything, no matter how dingy underneath, and for a brief time, makes everything appear pure. The pictures are great. They each seem like a stage set for actors who are waiting to come in and bring life to the scene. (oops, and then mess up the snow).

  • Susan DeMark

    Lynne,

    Fondant…hmmm, you don’t say! Never thought about that. But you draw quite a picture. And now that I look at a photo of it, I can definitely see the comparison to those sweet moments and hours when the snow is untouched (or little touched).

    I love those times of pure snow, too. They are especially sweet in New York when the snow makes the streets clean, highlights the architectural swirls and such on buildings, and shines in the streetlights. Pure!

    Susan

  • Out walking the dog

    Beautiful: the photos and your words together evoke that childhood pleasure in winter’s beauties. And I have never yet seen a perched vulture – lucky you! – only soaring high above. I have thoroughly enjoyed this deep, snowy winter. It doesn’t hurt that I finally got a toast-warm down L.L. Bean coat for my long walks & a pair of waterproof boots. Winter’s a lot easier to appreciate when your body’s warm & your feet are dry! Write on, Susan.

  • Susan DeMark

    Melissa,

    Yes, I couldn’t believe I was seeing those vultures perched, especially the one who hung back on the tree awhile. The whole thing was an amazing sight, and their perching and soaring went on for a good bit.

    This is a great winter for that L.L. Bean coat and the waterproof boots. And readers of Out walking the dog are richer for your investment since you bring us many intriguing mysteries and totally unusual, wonderful observations of our city.

    Thank you!

    Susan

  • gberke

    Thanks. A bit of zen-sight.

    I love the way the light on the fresh snow puts a small burn on the eyes when first encountered, the irises stopping down to pin points and with the light bring a brilliant clarity to forms otherwise too far off, too hidden.

    Every transition is softened with a curve.

  • Susan DeMark

    Gerald,

    Great description! I can picture it, and you are so right about what happens to our eyes in that brightness. It’s so true about the clarity…the ripples, the branches, the curves in the landscape. Winter’s gift.

    Susan

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