National Gallery’s new exhibit embraces the cold with art depicting winter’s impact across cultures

Kate Taylor | The Globe and Mail | 2nd January 2026

Canadians are world experts on winter. How does their chilly environment express itself in their art? Indigenous Canadian art gives winter a spiritual quality including, recently, through the use of Indigenous iconography. Harris, a Group of Seven artist, depicted snowy landscapes in a somewhat more abstract way compared to “naturalist Scandinavian styles”. Works in an Impressionist style regularly depict a harsher wintery light than artists like Monet. “A vast, ambitious show”.