This is an accomplished en plein air execution of a view charged with poetical lyricism. The evocative pastoral interpretation of landscape made by the Danish artist who signed his work as Harald Pryn shows a snowed road in Gelskov (Denmark) on a sunny day, a quite regular subject in the work by this artist.

Pryn’s landscapes are known for capturing the brightness of a specific time of the day and weather conditions. There is an evident study of the tones in the gradations of light that instil the composition with great depth while the quality of the contrasting light and shadows produces dazzling results. The effect of the light on the snow is masterly rendered. Although this type of landscape is rather unusual in contemporary painting, where views of warmer Mediterranean climates are more frequent, a significant part of this artist’s production focuses on the snow-covered landscape of his home country, perhaps motivated by a nationalistic desire to represent and praise the beauty of his own land, absent from the main international movements at the time.

This type of landscape, with its lyrical and spiritual connotations, enhanced by the transparent and dramatic luminosity, can find a precedent in the mid 19^th century romantic landscapists, more specifically in Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) and later in Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875), which provided a fertile ground for the Impressionism of the late 19th century, a style that spread throughout Western Europe though adopting unique features in each country.