Louis Apol

Louis Apol painted winter. Snow-covered forests, frozen streams, a church in a white landscape, a bridge half buried in drifts: these are his subjects, usually with few or no people, and with a quiet, cold light that feels accurate.

He was born in The Hague in 1850 and studied privately with J.F. Hoppenbrouwers and P.F. Stortenbeker, receiving a royal scholarship from King Willem III in 1868. He belonged to the Hague School. In 1880 he sailed on the Willem Barents expedition to Spitsbergen, and the Arctic stayed with him for the rest of his career. His work is in the Rijksmuseum and the Kunstmuseum in The Hague, and a street in Amsterdam is named after him. He died in The Hague in 1936.

In pictures like A Late Afternoon in Winter, look at the colour of the snow. It is rarely pure white, and that is what makes it convincing.