FAT clouds roll across the sky, above a horse-drawn cart that approaches a riverside farmhouse guarded by naked poplars and blanketed in snow. Au Temps des Giboulées, Neige et Soleil, by French artist Alexandre Louis Jacob, captures the glory of a serene winter day.
Post-Impressionist landscape painter Jacob (1876–1972) was born to a tailor and a laundress in Paris. He trained at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, before exhibiting at the Salon between 1899 and 1914, when he won a gold medal. The First World War put a temporary stop to his career—he was drafted into the army, which he only left in January 1919—but new successes came: another gold medal (this time for the Universal Expo) in 1937 and the title of, France’s highest recognition, in 1957.
