Christmas is less than a week of away. “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year…” according to Andy Williams and his happy jingle anyway. The festive atmosphere has descended upon all corners of the globe in the handful of weeks leading up to the New Year. And, while it seems Justin Bieber is tied up with his new wife and no longer available to meet you, ‘shwaty’, under the mistletoe there’s still a lot to rejoice in!
Those nearest and dearest to us: friends, family, loved ones, gather round tables and fireplaces to celebrate having each other in our lives. We revisit old traditions and make new ones in the process. There’s always a scramble to find the perfect gifts for white elephant parties, lug trees through doors, dust off mantels, and queue up Christmas classics like It’s a Wonderful Life and Home Alone on our TVs.
All of this is to say that there is something contagious about the holiday spirit. A spirit that the art world cannot help but indulge in as well. Artist’s throughout history have furnished their works with the Christian festival of Christmas the same way we string up lights and garland. From early-Renaissance Nativity scenes to polaroids of Santa; painters, illustrators, photographers, and sculptors alike have rendered the holiday season beautifully.
Mystic Nativity by Sandro Botticelli (1500).
Photograph: The Art Archive
Mystic Nativity (1500) is the sort of highly detailed and decadent [I mean, it’s shrouded in gold for — you know — Christ’s sake…] Italian Renaissance oil painting you’d imagine in a grandiose cathedral or in the private chapel of a 16th-Century patron. Long story short, it summarizes the birth of Jesus faster than your niece’s Nativity play.
In poor form, the Three Kings on the left have shown up to the party without a hostess gift. No, instead, they brought their unbridled love and devotion. Bah humbug.
The angels circling above the Holy Family and a menagerie of farm animals — as well as the angels in the foreground, can be seen pulling throngs of people out of the religious state of limbo. So, all things considered, being saved from eternal damnation is a pretty lit present. In this case, the angels’ presence is truly a present. Not to mention, their white, green, and red robes, which aren’t only on-brand Christmas looks. They symbolize faith, hope, and charity.
Winter Landscape by Caspar David Friedrich (1811).
Photograph: The National Gallery
This 19th-Century German Romantic landscape painter is often admired for his adept ability to portray dudes in the midst of extensional crises [Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818), anybody??]. So, it won’t surprise you that Friedrich’s Winter Landscape is littered in motifs, religious symbolism, and a dash of woe. Not necessarily what you might have in mind for your unforeseen Christmas itinerary.
In the landscape, Friedrich depicts a crippled man who has ditched his Tiny Tim-esque crutches to lean against a rock. The nameless man lifts his hands as a prayer for a crucifix that emerges — like a sinewy stem — from a patch of evergreen trees.
To say that the painting lacks Christmas glee is an understatement…seriously, it’s depressing. You may even wonder why it has made it into the compilation of artists and works featured in this article — Can’t say that I blame you. However, the morbidity aside, Friedrich’s work is particularly interesting because the modern Christmas trees we now adorn with candy canes and ornaments originated in 16th-Century Germany, Friedrich’s fatherland. The pointed, triangular shapes of the evergreens in the foreground parallel the spires of a Gothic cathedral peeking through the dark mist in the background. This optical event helps describe that Christmas trees are more than mere decorative house plants. They have religious significance as symbols of faith, tradition, and the everlasting life of God.
Christmas Surprise by Norman Rockwell (1955).
Photograph: Norman Rockwell/Hallmark Archives, Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, M.O.
Norman Rockwell’s Christmas-themed art was and remains a hit. A Mariah Carey “All I Want For Christmas Is You” level hit.
His works notably capture an idyllic — almost utopian — view of the United States’ identity and everyday American life. As such, his oeuvre has been well received by the masses. Christmas Surprise is, of course, no exception.
Rockwell was so beloved that Joyce Clyde Hall, the founder of Hallmark, commissioned the artist to create 32 original holiday cards between 1948 to 1957. Christmas Surprise was an instant hit selling more than 150,000 copies during the 1955 holiday season — not too shabby, Norman.
The card captures a bucolic image of a nuclear, American family in the 1950s. A waggish husband dressed as Santa sneaks up behind his wife and lands her a kiss. The scene may as well have been plucked out of an episode of I Love Lucy. For real. I can just imagine the wife saying, “Oh, you scoundrel!”, or whatever the 1950s equivalent is for “Fuck! You scared me!” As the slapstick scene unfolds the couple’s little boy bears witness to their Christmas Surprise from the staircase above. He definitely missed the memo regarding his dad’s highly specific, and seasonal, roleplaying kink. The poor thing looks shook af and is probably wondering if he’s going to have to start calling his former gift-giving hero “daddy.”
There’s no question that Rockwell got the inspo for this print from his Xmas playlist. We’ve all heard “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” from 1952, right? If you haven’t, the title basically sums it up. Jimmy Boyd, aka the O.G. “Yodelling Boy at Walmart,” sings a tale of his two-timing mommy locking lips with Old Saint Nick. Juries out on whether that places her on Mr. Claus’ naughty or nice list…
Tiffany & Co. Illustrations by Andy Warhol (1956-1962)
Photograph: Christie’s
Norman Rockwell ain’t the only illustrator who managed to secure a Christmas card gig in the States. After all, “it’s the land of opportunity,” and in 1956, an emerging artist by the name of Andy Warhol landed a job at Tiffany & Co. to make illustrations and paintings for a series of Christmas cards.
The playful paintings and drawings are in the quintessential style that characterized much of Warhol’s early career as a commercial and advertising artist. In his 1975 autobiography The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, Warhol writes:
“That was my life in the ‘50s: greeting cards and watercolors and now and then a coffee house poetry reading.”
Pre-Pop, pre-silkscreen, pre-Marilyn, and so on, Warhol became known for his lively prints reminiscent of Théophile Alexandre Steinlen and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, both of whom participated in the French Art Nouveau movement.
By the age of nineteen, Warhol had invented his “printed” drawing style during his time at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Using leaky old fountain pens and watercolors on water-resistant paper Warhol developed his blotchy light-hearted prints. There’s something a bit “third-grade” art project about this particular style, but he went to ~*~art school~*~ so if you don’t get it, that’s your cross to bear.
The card comprised of a wreath of butterflies in warm reds and oranges, blush pinks, and deep purples, is just one of the many prints he made for Tiffany and Co. over a seven-year period.
Santa Claus by Andy Warhol (1981)
Photograph: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Art, Inc.
Given the volume of work that Andy Warhol churned out over the course of his career, it’s no wonder why he’s featured a second time on this list.
Warhol loved Christmas — he REALLY loved Christmas.
The Pittsburgh native came from a home of devout Catholics from Eastern Europe and had a very religious upbringing. But Warhol’s adoration for the holiday went beyond religion. The commercialized aspects that have been pushed to the forefront of Christmas enticed him.
It was the early-80s and his career and public life had exploded. Warhol had become synonymous with the Pop Art movement throughout the art world and mainstream media. His obsession with celebrity culture, commodity culture, and consumerism were evident in many of his works. Naturally, Christmas plays into the various themes Warhol toyed with — like an elf in his own workshop (the Factory) — making Santa Claus his ‘Yuletide Marilyn.’
P.S. Whatever foundation Warhol’s Santa copped at Sephora is just wrong, so very wrong. Hard nope.
P.P.S. By the looks of him, Warhol’s Santa is on a registered watchlist of his own.
Hallmark Cards & Vogue Christmas Edition (1946) by Salvador Dali
Photographs: Retronaut
It just so happens that famed Spanish, Surrealist Salvador Dali, like Norman Rockwell, was commissioned to create a number of Hallmark Christmas collection cards. It’s sort of strange that an artist who is known for — well — being strange and making strange art would be among the chosen to work on Hallmark’s project. His unconventional prints, unfortunately, were not as well received as his peers’, in fact, they were quite controversial.
Dali never shied away from his surrealist leanings. The prolific painter transmuted the jolly world of Christmas into an uncanny, unsettlingly, stylized interpretation of his own invention. The bizarre imagery of headless angels, grizzly camels, and a faceless portrayal of The Holy Family were among the 10-images he submitted to Hallmark. It comes across a bit tongue-in-cheek when coupled with the classic “Christmas Greetings,” font at the bottom of the prints.
Oddly enough, like Warhol, Dali fashioned a Christmas tree entirely out of butterflies. Images of Lepidoptera flutter around numerous works in Dali’s Hallmark cards. Warhol’s first Christmas card for Tiffany and Co. titled Butterfly Tree (1956) was published three years prior to Dali’s… *cough* where’s Diet Prada when you need her *cough.*
Dali dabbled with Christmas quite a lot actually. Vogue commissioned the surrealist on four occasions for the fashion magazine’s issues, two of which (December 1946) and (December 1971) were intended for Christmas.
Vogue is no stranger to collaborating with artists throughout the publication’s history. It has partnered with artists like acclaimed AbEx painter Jackson Pollock. More recently, portraitist, John Currin created an original painting of Jennifer Lawrence for the magazine’s esteemed September issue, which also happened to mark Vogue’s 125th anniversary.
Dali’s cover of the December 1946 Christmas edition appears to be an extension pulled directly from the artist’s surrealist universe. A universe home to melting clocks, elongated elephants with morphed long, spidery legs, and contorted human forms. A universe of nightmares that would even make eccentrics like Tim Burton blush.
The Vogue 1946 cover is framed by two decaying tree stump arches that serve as altars for two large, barren fir trees mirroring each other on either side. The viewer is given hints that this is a “Christmas” illustration via the muted stars that shiver in the middle of each tree. Dali signals the, “So, this is Christmas??” vibe with green ornaments and icicles dangling below the arches, and a sprinkling of snowflakes. But it wouldn’t be a Dali without some weird shit, so he threw in two Corinthian columns with human lips and noses…because fuck it.
Christmas Tree – Tracey Emin (2002)
Photograph: Getty Images — Tracey Emin with her 2002 Christmas Installation for Tate Britain
For over the past 30-years Tate Britain has commissioned well-known contemporary artists to create a seasonal installation inside the walls of its gallery. More often than not the decoration is a modern adaptation of the traditional Christmas tree. For instance, in 1993 Shirazeh Houshiary hung a tree upside down with roots gilded in gold leaf.
In 2002, Tracey Emin, a notable member of the YBAs decided to get freaky with it presenting museum-goers with a sort-of conceptual take on the “idea” of a Christmas tree in lieu of the actual thing. At first this might seem like a cop-out; However, Emin’s tree was an act of charity.
The three-sided red podium was covered in messages to visitors of the museum to make donations to the Terrence Higgins Trust charity with a considerable incentive. An opportunity to win an original piece by Emin’s herself.
Emin’s had originally designed a traditional 12-ft spruce decorated with tinsel and the works. However, when it came time to present the tree, she decided to donate it to Lighthouse West London — a drop-in medical clinic for HIV and AIDs patients and their families. The center is funded by the Terrence Higgins Trust — hence Emin’s call to action at Tate Britain.
Any visitor that donated £10 or more pounds would have the chance to acquire Emin’s artwork.
In the end, it would appear that Emin’s Christmas tree for Tate Britain — or rather lack of a tree — encapsulates the true meaning of Christmas. The importance of charity and good deeds to those who need it the most is what the holiday is all about. That’s the real spirit of Christmas.
Happy Holidays!
Your’s truly,
TheArtGorgeous 🙂
- Mac McDonough
