Pekka Halonen is considered one of the most important artists of the Finnish national romantic era and a central figure in the construction of a Finnish national identity. Like his contemporary countryman and colleague Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Halonen finds his motifs in the Finnish folklore, the mythological tales of the national epic Kalevala and the lyrical landscape.

While the imagery comes from the close vicinity of his homeland, his idiom is strongly influenced by the international trends of the period. Halonen is educated in the 1890s in Paris – first at Académie Julian and later under Paul Gauguin. Halonen’s early work is carried out inspired by the French impressionism, but later the influence of Gauguin and Halonen's own fascination with Japanese woodcuts becomes more apparent.

Halonen is particularly known for his atmospheric winter sceneries with snow-covered rocks and pine forests, which this painting offers a beautiful example of. The sun flickers faintly in the background and is a sign that the winter cover will soon be veining as part of the natural yearly cycle of nature – the coming of spring and the beginning of new life. The brush strokes are tangled, the subdued palette emphasizes the contrasts of the motif, and hence the untamed power of the landscape is depicted with great finesse and a good deal of artistic reverence.