Now we’re into January, the proper winter weather should be here. It’s time to don our duvet jackets, woolly hats and mittens and go out to see lakes and rivers transformed from their usual liquid state into solid ice. This weekend I tour the world in search of those paintings seizing this opportunity to explore the physical and optical properties of ice in nature, in this article up to the advent of Impressionism in the late nineteenth century, and tomorrow from then until the First World War.

Among the best-known of winter paintings, Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap (1565) was copied repeatedly by his son Pieter, and by others in the family workshop. At least sixty copies are believed to have been made, one dated as late as 1626, sixty years after the original. This is among the early landscapes showing people walking or skating on a frozen river, and to the right of the canoe-like boat a small group is engaged in the popular game of colf. As is usual with many rivers, the ice here has a pale ochre tinge.

Aert van der Neer’s beautifully-lit Sports on a Frozen River (c 1660) includes several playing colf, an antecedent of golf that was also played during the warmer months, but was most distinctively played on frozen rivers and canals. The reflection of the low sun on the ice is particularly well shown here, giving the ice a polished sheen.

Scenes of frozen rivers and canals became increasingly popular during the Golden Age. Although Aelbert Cuyp doesn’t appear to have painted many of these, his Ice Scene Before the Huis te Merwede near Dordrecht from about 1655 is among the finest. Notable here are his foreground reflections on the mirror-like surface, and the wonderful sky with its warm clouds. The castle seen here was built to the south-east of Dordrecht in the early fourteenth century, and ruined a hundred years later.

Jacob van Ruisdael painted several seasonal landscapes, including two similar versions of Winter Landscape (c 1660-70). This is the Mauritshuis version, which is perhaps slightly preferable to that in Birmingham, Alabama, although both show similar finely detailed frost on the trees and vegetation, heightened by the darkness of the ice and sky.

Caspar Wolf painted this finished version of The Geltenbach Falls in the Lauenen Valley with an Ice Bridge in about 1778, from what appears to have been a sketch made en plein air. Although not particularly early for a plein air oil sketch, given the logistic problems associated with working outdoors in oils in this remote rural location, it’s quite an achievement. These falls were little-known at this time, but when nearby Gstaad became an internationally-known spa town in the nineteenth century, they were added to many tourist itineraries.

In 1839, François-Auguste Biard travelled with a French expedition to Spitsbergen and Lappland. The only painting from this expedition that I’ve been able to locate is this view From Magdalena Bay, Spitsbergen, apparently made in oils in front of the motif, despite its considerable detail. Although much of the sea is shown unfrozen, there are several small bluish icebergs and ice covering the shallows along the coast.

Two years later, Biard completed Magdalena Bay; View from the Tombeaux Peninsula, to the North of Spitsbergen, Effect of the Aurora Borealis. This was exhibited in the Salon of that year, and again at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855. Lit by the eery light of the aurora is a small group of survivors, who are not mentioned in the title. Five rest on the snow in the foreground, all but one apparently already dead, and there is wreckage down among the heavier sea ice behind them. One person’s footsteps lead up to the viewpoint of the artist.

Johan Jongkind’s fine View of Maassluis in Winter from 1848 is a good example of his early work. Following the long tradition of landscape painting in the Netherlands, he sets his horizon low and paints a wonderful winter sky. Underneath that, the locals are skating along a frozen canal, which has both rutted areas and some that are more polished.

Jongkind revisited this theme in 1873, when he painted this Canal in Holland in Winter with his mature rough facture.

Although now exceptionally unusual, during the nineteenth century and earlier the River Thames in London often froze solid for long periods most winters. This afforded James Whistler the chance to paint The Thames in Ice in 1860, with its monochrome relieved only by earth browns. It’s thoroughly painterly, and its details appear to have been sketched in quickly, suggesting it might have been painted in front of the motif. However, it’s a relatively large canvas, and Whistler is known to have painted from memory in the studio.

In 1869, the marine artist William Bradford travelled on board the steamship Panther on an expedition to Greenland. An Arctic Summer: Boring Through the Pack in Melville Bay (1871) shows their ship working its way through pack ice close to the west coast of Greenland. Melville Bay is a huge bay on the island’s north-west coast, and an important area for whaling fleets in the nineteenth century.