Saint Nicholas and Father Christmas in Art

Santa (1940), Sundblom

Probably the best-known image of our modern-day Santa Claus is from the series of Coca-Cola ads painted by the Michigan-born artist, Haddon Sundblom. These iconic images appeared in the Saturday Evening Post from 1931-64. His Santa was inspired by Clement Moore's famous 1923 poem, A Vist From St. Nicholas or T'was the Night Before Christmas.

Courtesy of the National Endowment for the
Humanities and the Library of Congress

American story writer, Washington Irving, most famous for his The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, may have inspired Clement Moore's poem. His four Christmas essays, written in 1809 and illustrated by Cecil Aldin, showed his preoccupation with St, Nicholas. See How Washington Irving Shaped Christmas in America.

Courtesy of the National Endowment for the
Humanities and the Library of Congress

Published n 1843, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol was illustrated by John Leech, who contributed eight illustrations (four woodcuts and four hand-colored etchings). The theatrical and film adaptations of this classic tale are too many to mention. However, I must watch the 1988 version, Scrooged, starring Bill Murray as Frank Cross, whenever it is being aired.

Ghost of Christmas Present
(1843) John Leech

Who can forget John Leech's Ghost of Christmas Present from Dickens' 1843 publication of A Christmas Carol? I'm pretty sure that the ghost represents England's, Father Christmas. While his coat is colored green, even in A Muppet Christmas Carol, this early larger-than-life image of St. Nick eventually ages as the tale goes on making him become more like the jolly old elf he has morphed into today.

Courtesy of the Sartle Blog

Besides 'Sunny' Sundblom (1931-64), cartoonist Thomas Nast (1863), Swedish artist Georg Van Rosen (1883), and painter Norman Rockwell (1922) also contributed to the persona of our Santa Claus figure in the United States and abroad. Some say that English artist, Reginald Birch (1906) deserves the credit for Santa's red getup. There was also a Santa Claus Silent Movie created in 1898 by George Albert Smith. But maybe Japan came up with the red-suited guy first in 1914.

You can read more about the Art History of Santa Claus in the Sartle blog.

From Leydecker's Santas

Our modern-day Santa Claus was popularized as early as 1918 in illustrations by J.C. Leyendecker in the Saturday Evening Post. Notice the addition of the army boots and halo (depicting St. Nicholas).

Giving Santa His Seat (1955), Richard Sargent
from the Saturday Evening Post

This final image by Richard Sargent reminds me of when my Mom would dress us up in full-on snowsuits and take us shopping with her during the holidays. I remember my younger brother's pantleg got stuck in an escalator one year while we were at one of the New Jersey department stores. I'm sure the memory is much more traumatic for him!

Everyone looks so tired; especially the boy's mother. I imagine my Mom was equally exhausted after shopping with three boys.

This week she would have been 100 yrs old! I dedicate this final 2020 post to her memory.

Combining Hobbies -- Collecting and Miniature Photography

John Wayne Jigsaw Puzzle

Collecting Our Favorite Things

Do you have a hobby or a passion for collecting your favorite things? Maybe you like to read or watch old movies and have amassed your own library. My wife has a huge collection of DVDs that includes entire sets of movies from actors like John Wayne. My older brother collects baseball memorabilia and devotes an entire room of his house to display it.

Me

I seem to have acquired a significant collection of MLB bobbleheads; I even have my own personal mini-me (too narcissistic?) that my family gifted me one Christmas. I also have a miniature bobblehead of oil painting instructor, Bob Ross. My office also houses my baseball (et.al.) cap collection and lots of art supplies and art textbooks for teaching my various art lessons.

Does anyone remember the 2018 film, Welcome to Marwen, starring Steve Carell, about a man who becomes a heroic World War II fighter pilot and meticulously creates and photographs a Belgian town using posed realistic dolls and other miniatures? A rather creepy love story. Anyway...

Photography

Recently, a 12-yr-old autistic boy from Woodinville, WA was featured on KOMO’s Eric’s Heroes. His name is Anthony Ryan Schmidt and he collects all kinds of model cars. He has been photographing them from his iPhone and placing them outside making them appear to be full-scale. 

Small Cars, Big Inspiration

He’s even published a coffee table book and a 2021 Calendar of his amazing images. He is both an artist and a savant when it comes to miniature photography & automotive knowledge.

He's been consulted by forensic teams and successfully helped them solve unsolved crimes. Amazing!

I've managed to save my childhood collection of Matchbox cars in the original 1968 case. I was keeping them in the event I ever had grandchildren. So far, that hasn't happened, and I'm not sure they'd be worth anything much if I were to sell them now. So they sit gathering dust in a closet. Their scale would be too small to photograph!

One of my work colleagues likes to travel the world and photograph spectacular scenery. This is a long exposure landscape photo from Iceland taken by my friend, Jennifer.

Her husband, Ronnie poses his GI Joe figures and other miniatures on-location where he and Jennifer vacation.

Steel Brigade

Arctic Experts

In his world, rocks become mountains and puddles become lakes. He's found a way to creatively combine his collecting, travel, and photography into a leisure pastime he and his wife can enjoy together. Check out his Instagram page @mephistojoe9.

The Future Duke of Wellington
(1808), Richard Cosway

Historically, particularly in the Renaissance (16th and 17th Century), portrait artists painted miniature likenesses on materials such as ivory for jewelry. So, rather than turning collections into photographic art, these artists created wearable (and collectible) art from their painted portraits. They were primarily English artists such as Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619), Isaac Oliver (1565-1617), John Smart (1741-1811), and Richard Cosway (1742-1821). Cosway's wife, Maria was also an Italian-born painter and close friend of Thomas Jefferson.

Earlier this year, the Beinart Gallery in Melbourne, Australia hosted an exhibit dedicated to the tiny works of 30 artists from around the world. Check out this Miniature Art Show.

Photo from Gallery 1957, Joana Choumali

Although this is not an example of miniature art, I have to show the work of Joana Choumali, a visual artist/photographer based in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. She embroiders directly on top of her photographs using brightly colored thread. I've never seen such imaginative, creative use of multi-media. Beautiful! I guess you could say that this is like painting with thread or creating a tapestry from a photograph. It's maybe a stretch for this topic, but embroidery can be considered a hobby, and this stitchery is definitely tedious and on a small, delicate scale.

Artwork That Celebrates or Memorializes

Minion Santa for Jacob

During this time of quarantine, lots of people have been using Art as a way of coping with isolation and connecting with others. My last interview subject, artist and friend Patricia J. Moss, said it best when she wrote:

"It is the creativity of expression that drives connection with others. 

In turn that connection allows us to grow, expanding our perspectives, feeding our souls, and inspiring our spirits."

I want to start off this post with a pop-up Christmas card that I made for an ailing little boy named Jacob. I really hope that he received it and that it brought him joy.

A message from Bristol, England

Millions of people have been artfully creating cards and posters to celebrate healthcare workers, first responders, and caretakers of the sick during this pandemic. When I walk around my neighborhood, I see lots of signs, in windows using rainbows as symbols of hope, drawn by children who want to express their own messages to passersby. It's therapeutic for the kids and makes us smile during an otherwise sad time period.

Card by Karynne Patterson

My own grown daughter creates handmade birthday cards that celebrate her co-workers by using whatever scrap paper and markers are available in her office. I feel like she is channeling French artist, Henri Matisse, who in his later years used paper cutouts in his artwork. When my daughter was in elementary school, we did an art project that required tracing a shape from a Matisse work and incorporating it in a composition. Maybe that inspired my daughter to do art as an adult. Now, I'm sure she's too busy at work to carry on this office birthday tradition! And working from home to boot!!

Recently, you may have heard of the passing of longtime Jeopardy host, Alex Trebek. I've been faithfully watching his program for years and am trying not to miss any of these final Jeopardy episodes that Alex taped as recently as 29 October! I'm seeing lots of portraits memorializing him all over the Internet. This one is from a tribute by Canadian Geographic.

I also found this pair of artworks on My Modern Met memorializing Trebek in Black-and-white and color.

You can play Artist Jeopardy in one of my posts. I love the show so much that I created my own Jeopardy games for teaching art docents at Green River Community College, for a team project in my Project Management Master's Program at City University, and for my parents to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.

Who can forget the hilarious Celebrity Jeopardy tribute to a tormented and mustached Alex Trebek portrayed by SNL's Will Ferrel (and Darrell Hammond as Connery)? With the recent passing of James Bond actor Sean Connery, it may be in bad taste, though I wonder how it had been received by both. Apparently, there was also a Jeopardy spoof involving the now late Burt Reynolds.

Sean Connery (2015), Lovering

I am in awe of Scottish artist, Paul Lovering's watercolor portrait of Sean Connery. It is contemplative and peaceful. Lovering's celebrity portraits are indeed amazing! I also saw a photograph of Connery by Annie Leibovitz in 2017 while visiting the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. 

My favorite Bond is Sean Connery and my favorite of his seven Bond films is Goldfinger. My favorite scene is from his final unauthorized Never Say Never Again where he fires a miniature rocket grenade from a fountain pen (supplied by Q but not yet perfected) at the evil Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera), the delayed explosion leaving only her smoldering shoes.

You may also visit my post about Landmarks in James Bond Movies.

Self-Portrait After the Spanish Flu (1919), Munch

Recall that I visited the Edvard Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway in June 2019 during our Baltics cruise. There, I saw lots of depressing paintings of people who are sick or dying, including a self-portrait of Munch after the Spanish Flu (epidemic 1918-20). He survived until his death in 1944.

Even the choice of colors -- teals and mustardy golds -- along with the drippy washes and brushstrokes and exhausted expression make for overall sadness and despair. His use of contrasting colors is very effective.

Guernica, 2020, Tony Aguero

I also found a painting inspired by Pablo Picasso's Guernica (1937), painted by Tony Aguero, an interdisciplinary artist based in Portland, OR, originally from Costa Rica. This 2020 painting reflects the struggle with the current pandemic after Picasso's work depicting the tragedies of war.

In other posts from this year, I highlighted some great sculptures used as memorials to local heroes, famous authors, or historic cultural, religious, or military figures. See Sculpture -- Another Dimension of Art, my Art of the Pacific Northwest Series, and my Baltics series.

Our world is experiencing a very trying pandemic while producing some amazing art. Unfortunately, it has also been a period of civil unrest often accompanied by violent acts that devastate longstanding monuments that had for years celebrated people's lives and their contributions. It saddens me to think of the art that is being destroyed given how long and how many great works have survived and the effort to maintain, restore, and preserve them for generations to come.