This presentation examines how European artists documented and reacted to "The Little Ice Age," from 1300 to 1870
Lecture Highlights
- Historical Masterpieces: The lecture traces the evolution of winter imagery, starting with iconic early works such as the medieval manuscript Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.
- Dutch Masters: It places a heavy focus on the famous winter landscape paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hendrick Avercamp, who captured the vibrant, freezing daily life of the Low Countries during the height of the cooling period.
- Contemporary Evolution: The session concludes by transitioning into the modern era, investigating how contemporary artists continue to utilize winter not only as a visual subject but also as a physical medium
How to book this event:
Please book via email to wensleydaleartssociety@gmail.com
Anna Bianco
Anna Bianco is a researcher and curator specializing in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century visual
culture, with a focus on the intersections between music, drawing, and manuscript production. Her expertise lies in the analysis of decorated cantata manuscripts, Old Master drawings, and the material history of graphic collections.
Since 2010, she has served as curator of the Ton Koopman Art Collection in Amsterdam, overseeing
cataloguing, conservation, and exhibition organization. She has also worked as a specialist in works on paper for Antiquariaat Arine van der Steur (The Hague), contributing to the production of scholarly catalogues (nos. 37–48). Her past affiliations include the RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History, where she contributed to the ICONCLASS system and the RKDimages and RKDartists databases.
She has presented her research at leading conferences in Rome, Bologna, Bremen, Istanbul, and
Matera, and her publications include The Master of the Roman Songbook (2023) and contributions to Studies in Baroque (2014). Her 2012 exhibition catalogue De Heilige Cecilia met Orgel reflects her continued interest in sacred iconography and performance contexts.
In addition to academic writing, she has authored numerous art and exhibition reviews for an Italian
journal, focusing on early modern painting and contemporary museology.
She is currently based in The Hague and works across archives, libraries, and collections in Italy, the
Netherlands, and the UK
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