Artwork
The Snow Storm
The Snow Storm is an unspecified painting by the American Impressionist artist William Morris Hunt. It dates from 1859 and is held in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
5 centimeters, reinforces this intimacy, positioning the viewer close to the figure and emphasizing the personal, observational character of Hunt's depiction.
The Snow Storm is a genre scene centered on a girl caught in falling snow, the two subjects explicitly identified in the work's iconographic record. By limiting the composition to this single figure amid wintry weather, Hunt transforms an ordinary moment of a child confronting the elements into the painting's emotional core. The pairing of youth with the harshness of a snowstorm gives the image its symbolic weight, evoking vulnerability, resilience, and the quiet drama of everyday rural or small-town life in nineteenth-century America.
Classified as genre art rather than portraiture or landscape, the work uses the snowstorm less as a topographical study than as a framing device that isolates the figure and heightens the sense of exposure, so that the viewer reads the girl's experience of the storm as the true subject of the painting.
The modest scale of the panel, roughly 47 by 30.5 centimeters, reinforces this intimacy, positioning the viewer close to the figure and emphasizing the personal, observational character of Hunt's depiction.
Technique & Style
The painting is executed in oil on canvas. The work measures 46.99 cm in height and 30.48 cm in width. It depicts a young girl in a snowy landscape. The composition emphasizes the atmospheric effects of light and texture within the scene.
History & Provenance
The painting The Snow Storm is housed in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, where it is catalogued under accession number 1953.1234. It was first exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1859 and later included in the retrospective of William Morris Hunt’s work at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in 1975.
The work measures 46.99 cm in height and 30.48 cm in width.
Overview
Created in 1859, The Snow Storm presents a solitary figure reclined in a wintry landscape. A woman in a vivid red dress lies on her back amid snow‑covered ground, her head tipped back and arms crossed over her chest. Bare, twisted trees dominate the background, extending the sense of depth and quiet contemplation.
Artist & collection
Artist
William Morris Hunt (March 31, 1824 – September 8, 1879) was an American painter.
