Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps

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Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps is an 1812 oil on canvas landscape painting by the English artist J. M. W. Turner. The painting depicts a black storm, a snow avalanche and an attacking Alpine tribe threatening Hannibal's army during his crossing of the Alps in 218 BC, at the start of the Second Punic War. Accounts of the expedition, written by ancient historians Polybius and Livy, recounted that these difficulties were surmounted by Hannibal during the crossing. The work constitutes a pivotal moment in Turner's aim to demonstrate that principles of the sublime aesthetic ideal – proposed by Edmund Burke in the 18th century – could be achieved not only in poetry, but also in painting. Snow Storm's composition is notable due to its radical departure from classical traditions, as it uses a vortex and swirling arcs instead of linear perspective. Snow Storm was also important in Turner's persistent efforts to elevate the status of landscape paintings in the long-established...

Read on Wikipedia · Image J. M. W. Turner, Public domain