Grimani Breviary, Bruges (?) ca 1510-20

Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Cod. lat. I, 99, fol. 2v

The winter picture of February, perhaps the best known calendar picture in the Grimani Breviary, bears all the signs of a style born both from medieval tradition and from the new Renaissance. The view is a rustic idyll of a clay-plastered timber hut with an adjoining hen-house. This portrayal is a manifestation not only of the artist’s accurate knowledge of life in the countryside but also of his painterly skill in rendering light and atmosphere by his sure sense for composition; all the details are meaningfully incorporated into the whole.