Neige en Forêt (Snow in the Forest) plunges the viewer directly into the heart of a snow-laden wood. A narrow path winds into the depths of the forest, flanked by slender, dark-barked trees whose bare upper branches are etched white against a cool blue-grey sky. What makes this work sing is the tension between the deep cold of the whites and the fiery warmth of amber, russet and burnt orange. Boulders and leaf-strewn ground on the right bank are half-submerged in snow, rendered in Martin's characteristically bold, sculptural impasto strokes that give the surface an almost physical energy. Martin was frequently seen painting en plein air, believing this to be the only way to capture the immediacy of the scenery. His technique demanded a free and spontaneous style of painting in order to catch the rapid changes in outdoor light, extracting not just the colours and shapes but the very fragrances of nature, putting the total ambiance and experience directly onto the canvas.

By the early 1860s, the large and ancient Forest of Fontainebleau, to the south-east of Paris, had been attracting the artists of the Barbizon School, who painted realist landscapes in front of the motif. The next generation, including Bazille, Monet, Renoir and Sisley, started visiting in 1865, going on to form the French Impressionists. The influence of the Fontainebleau forest on the Paris art world was immeasurable. Martin, as a key figure of the Moret School working in the same beloved region of the Île-de-France, was the direct heir to this tradition, bringing his own Post-Impressionist energy and spontaneity to landscapes that Sisley, Corot and their contemporaries had made legendary.