Hope To Go on a Walk Like This Soon

12/11/2022

The temperatures have dropped dramatically here in the northwestern part of Hungary, and it will remain quite cold for the better part of next week. The forecast calls for some light snow. Who knows? Maybe it will accumulate and remain for short while, but chances are it probably won't.

Snow was a big part of winter when I lived in North America, and I loved going for long walks in snowy forests and fields. Large snowfalls are quite rare where I live now. In all honesty, I don't really miss the inconvenience abundant snowfalls inherently bring with them.

Still, it would be wonderful to go on a snowy walk at least once this winter.

Winter Landscape - László Mednyánszky - Date unknown

5 Comments

NLR

12/11/2022 23:18:28

Good picture

Francis Berger

12/12/2022 20:24:07

@ K - I like that this depiction of winter is not idealized. The beauty is there -- but it doesn't "jump out at you". It is not perfect and it is not better than reality. You can feel the cold, the looming grayness; see the treacherous ice; yet still, it is beautiful.

Wade McKenzie

12/13/2022 02:53:42

"I like that this depiction of winter is not idealized...,etc."

A compelling assessment. The painting makes a fitting analogue, I think, for your prior post about the coming night. The depicted image is beautiful despite, or even because, it's dank, dreary and somewhat foreboding. Perhaps the sun is about to set and the traveler will soon be alone on the dark, cold, wet, muddy wood-path. Even so, the forest is enchanted, if a little sinister...

Anyway, thanks for sharing these beautiful artworks with us, Francis.

(I was surprised to read that snowfall in Hungary is less than what you knew in North America. Looking at an online map, I see that Hungary's latitude is approximately the same as the northern end of Minnesota...)

Epimetheus

12/13/2022 13:29:30

All the world's life is waiting under the snow and ice, waiting to rise from the dead.

Francis Berger

12/14/2022 08:17:24

@ Wade - Thanks. I've been thinking a lot about what Novalis's spiritual and philosophical call to "romanticize the world", and I get the sense that people have mistaken romanticism with idealism.

Both strive to present the world as better than it is. Idealism relies chiefly on emphasizing the positive while diminishing or avoiding the negative. A classic Christmas landscape -- the kind you see on Christmas cards -- is a good example of idealism. The problem with idealism is quite obvious -- it isn't true.

On the other hand, romanticism seeks to push beyond the given world, the world of appearances, and connect with the spiritual behind the material to find true meaning. In this sense, it too presents the world as better than it appears, but this better world is not perfect or kitschy -- it is simply reality (not realism "reality" but real "reality". On the contrary, romanticism depicts a world full of meaning. A world in which everything is connected in relationships. The inherent entropy of the temporal world is acknowledged but not feared.

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Hope To Go on a Walk Like This Soon

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