Any time I visit an art museum, I quickly find my way to the gallery featuring seventeenth-century Dutch art.
I am fascinated by the winter scenes of what is known as the "Golden Age of Dutch Painting."
Interestingly, climate scientists are fascinated by them as well.
This period coincided with part of the Little Ice Age, a long interval of cooler climate lasting roughly from the 1300s to the late 1800s.
Although glaciers did not dramatically advance, average temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere dropped by about 0.6 degrees Celsius compared to twentieth-century averages, with some regions experiencing much harsher winters.
Rivers and canals frequently froze, and communities adapted by using ice skates and sleds for transport. These colder conditions contributed to crop failures, famine, disease, and social unrest across Europe.
Dutch artists documented these realities in detail.
Paintings of frozen canals crowded with skaters, hunters crossing snow-covered landscapes, and figures dressed in heavy clothing provide visual evidence of prolonged cold conditions.
For climate scientists, these artworks function as visual data sources, especially when combined with other historical evidence.
Researchers compare these images with tree-ring data, where narrower rings indicate slower growth during colder years. Some scientists have even suggested that the dense wood formed during this period may have contributed to the exceptional quality of instruments like Stradivarius violins, although this claim remains debated.
Written records of harvests, trade, and disease further support the picture of a climate under stress.
While artists may have idealized winter scenes for aesthetic or commercial reasons, the repeated depiction of frozen waterways across many works suggests sustained climatic conditions rather than isolated events.
The Little Ice Age also affected North America. In the Great Lakes region, at the time of first European contact, vast boreal forests covered the land. Northern wildlife supported the French fur trade which was driven by European demand for warm pelts, producing lasting environmental and cultural consequences.
Dutch art does not prove climate change on its own, but it contributes to our understanding of how climate shapes societies.
Studying how people adapted—and struggled—during past climate shifts offers important lessons as we confront climate change today.
