Dashing through the snow: Francisco de Goya's Snowstorm (La Nevada)

This is actually one of Goya’s more lighthearted scenes. It is not one of the great Spanish artist’s nightmarish ‘black paintings’ of witches and savage gods but a design for a tapestry, done just after he became royal painter in 1786. But Goya is never merely decorative. Instead of a simple scene of fun in the snow, he proposes to decorate a palace with an acutely real and compassionate depiction of the poor toiling in bitter weather. While you keep warm with your fires and wines, he reminds his royal patron, others tread wearily through the deepest winter. Classical elegance and simplicity give his freezing workers a stark heroism
Illustration: Photograph: Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid