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The painting presents a landscape close to the town of Miraflores de la Sierra, with the Morcuera mountain pass in the background, which in the winter of 1891 became the base of the artist's pictorial campaigns. The impressive snowed hillsides occupy a great part of the composition and are scored by diagonal lines that converge in the centre. The placid appearance of the view is determined by the horizontal profile of the mountains, by the sides of the path and by the line of oak groves and bushes that cross the landscape, where the range of greys and tans forms a contrast with the blinding white of the snow of the mountains and with the foreground. Morera insists on the colouristic technique he had learnt from De Haes, in which the range generated by three shades-black, white and grey-blends into the tans and bright blues of the skies. Finally, in the centre he introduces a minute human figure carrying a faggot of firewood, which provides a reference of scale compared to the immensity of the mountains in a late Romantic approach.

Morera is one of the chief Spanish landscape artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After studying from 1871 to 1872 at the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, where he met his master Carlos de Haes, he moved to Rome in 1874 and remained there until 1877. Back in Madrid he became a collaborator and friend of De Haes, and together the two artists embarked on painting expeditions throughout Normandy, Brittany and Holland. However, Morera, "the painter of snow", would be best known for his pictures of the Guadarrama sierra, that made high mountains one of the key motifs in Spanish Realist landscape painting. Simultaneously and as a result of his summer sojourns in Algorta (Bizkaia) with De Haes, during the first decade of the 20th century Morera painted a number of seascapes inspired by the bay of Biscay, a choice favoured by his marriage to Bilbao-born Felisa Alday. [Javier Novo]

Selected bibliography

• Morera, Jaime. En la Sierra del Guadarrama : divagaciones sobre recuerdos de unos años de pintura entre nieves : cuadros, estudios, dibujos. Madrid, Ruiz Hermanos Editores, 1927. Lám. XII. (Con el título Alrededores de la Fuente del Cura (Miraflores))
• Bengoechea, Javier de. Catálogo de arte moderno y contemporáneo del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao. Bilbao, Banco de Vizcaya, 1980. p. 169. (Con el título Paisaje nevado).
• Jaime Morera i Galícia, 1854-1927 [Cat. exp.]. Lleida, Museu d'Art Jaume Morera, 1999. p. 66. (Con el título Puerto de la Morcuera. Sierra del Guadarrama).
• Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 114.
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 114.
• Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 114.
• De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Salamanca, Caja Duero, 2006. pp. 194-195, n° cat. 47.
• De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Valencia, Consorci de Museus de la Comunitat Valenciana, 2006. pp. 194-195, n° cat. 47.
• De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Salamanca, Caja Duero, 2007. pp. 194-195, n° cat. 47.
• De Goya a Gauguin : el siglo XIX en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2008. pp. 370-372, n° cat. 74.
• Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2011. p. 114, n° cat. 79.
• Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa : gida. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2012. p. 114, n° cat. 79.
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. p. 114.
• Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. p. 114.