If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. What all the compositions have in common is the so-called balcony motif, i.e., the depiction of a hill in the foreground from which an overall view of the landscape unfolds. The Hunters in the Snow (Dutch: Jagers in de Sneeuw), also known as The Return of the Hunters, is a 1565 oil-on-wood painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.The Northern Renaissance work is one of a series of works, five of which still survive, that depict different times of the year. His most famous painting The Hunters in the Snow is a brilliant case in point. Fans of Hunters in the Snow / Return of the Hunters should certainly take the time to check out the rest of the career of Pieter Bruegel the Elder as well as the rest of this family dynasty who have a considerable amount of art amassed over several generations. Originally part of a six-part series of the Seasons, it depicts winter. On top of the hill a group of hunters accompanied by a pack of dogs is seen, making their way back to the village below. by Dr. David Boffa. In many ways, Pieter Bruegel the Elder set new standards. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow (Winter), 1565, oil on wood, 118 x 161 cm (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) Pieter Bruegel’s Hunters in the Snow offers a bird’s eye view of a world locked in winter that is nevertheless teeming with life, with hunters and their dogs and ice skating peasants and a wheeling crow and the busied preparations for the cold weather. The immediate shift between the hunters and the other peasants indicate that Bruegel wanted to contrast these two groups of people; This was probably to contrast the two sides to winter; These figures appear to be playing a version of hockey and iceskating and do not have the give of the same negative feelings that the hunters do