An Early, Complex Picture of a Really Cold Sky: 1550

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 357

This woodcut engraving from the Italian edition of Sigismund Herberstein's Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii (literally Notes on Muscovite Affairs) is a fantastic and early image of a terrifically cold scene in deep bleak Russia.  Herberstein (1486-1566) was a Cariolan/Slovene writer, explorer, ethnographer and exceptional diplomat of 69 missions who write this book full of observations of customs, village life, the military--and of course sleighing on frozen rivers and lakes.  But what exactly is going on in the sky? Is this  the aurora borealis?  Or a diffused sunset? Or are these simply clouds in an enormously dry and frigid environment?  I'm not sure precisely what we're looking at here, but I do know that it is a very *cold* picture.

See here for a digital version of this work. work.

Comments

[Jeff]

I think it's an homage to Ansel Adams' "Clearing Winter Storm."

[John Ptak]

Interesting! They do look similar. I need to ask one of the National Weather folks down here what they think that cloud mass is....