Sale Neige (Dirty Snow) is typical of Joan Mitchell's lyrical, yet mysterious paintings from the early 1980s. Like most of her pictures, it is larger than human scale, so the abstracted landscape-or, rather, Mitchell's memories of and feelings for the landscape-literally becomes the viewer's environment.

Thick layers of pigment contrast with parts along the edges of the canvas where there is no paint at all. Mitchell creates a nervous rhythm through myriad crisscrossing brush strokes. As a result, the top two-thirds of the canvas-a complex mass of gray, pink, blue, lavender, and white-seems to be melting down onto the more vividly colored lower third. Mitchell's title encourages onlookers to perceive the composition in this way. It also relates the painting to several of the artist's most vivid early memories: of gazing at frozen Lake Michigan from the windows of her parents' apartment; falling through the ice in a childhood sledding accident; and being a champion figure skater in high school. Mitchell associates the cold, a common theme in her art, with silence and loneliness, and although many writers have referred to the joyous quality of her abstractions, scholars have also noted the influence of Mitchell's preoccupation with death and abandonment. Sale Neige was painted shortly after Mitchell's companion, the Canadian painter Jean-Paul Riopelle, ended their twenty-four-year relationship. This may explain the stress on the dark section at the bottom of the canvas, but the light green areas could just as easily refer to the coming of spring.

Although it seems spontaneous, with numerous drips of paint amid the thick brush marks, this painting is actually the product of careful consideration, preparatory drawings, and many months of work.