In the Welsh folkloric tradition of Mari Lwyd, a horse skull visits your home around Christmas, and you must best it in poetry or allow it inside.
Tag: Christmas
Posted inArt
Why Are There Dead Birds on Victorian Christmas Cards?
One of the more curious recurring images on 19th-century Christmas cards is the dead bird, which may symbolize mortality or something more ritualistic.
Posted inArt
The Victorian Christmas Card as Aesthetic Object
Christmas card imagery today ranges from the classic depictions of elves and reindeer to the more comical and topical, but every picture is assuredly holiday-themed: you wouldn’t be able to unironically give someone a Christmas card on their birthday.
Posted inArt
Have a Creepy Little Christmas with These Unsettling Victorian Cards
Anthropomorphic cats, murderous frogs, and insects dancing by the moonlight aren’t exactly part of our Christmas card tradition today.
Posted inArt
The Art and Artifice of Macy’s Santaland
In the midst of a tourist-filled holiday season, we decided to review a genre-busting installation at New York City’s hottest, most innovative museum.
Posted inArt
When Artists Make Holiday Cards
There are few small pleasures more delightful than opening the mailbox to find a holiday card from a friend.
Posted inArt
A Polar Bear’s Lap Is the Best Place to Be
CHICAGO — For the past three Christmas seasons at The Suburban, an artist-run project space in Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam’s Oak Park backyard, artist Diego Leclery has decided to become a polar bear.
Posted inArt
When Outsider Art and Christmas Collide
It’s easy to get obsessive around the holidays, what with the frantic shopping and cheerful imbibing and decorations to be placed. But some take it a long step further.
Posted inOpinion
3D-Printed Christmas Cookies!
If you need any more proof that 3D printing is taking over the entire world, an artist has created perfectly delicious, intricately designed Christmas cookies with the help of a computer model and a printing machine.
Posted inArt
Skip Rockefeller Center and See the Met’s Christmas Tree
You can bet most tourists (and some persuaded New Yorkers) will be gawking at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree this holiday season, but the tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has always been one of my personal favorites of decorated evergreens that spring up around the city for the holidays. Tucked away in the museum’s Medieval Sculpture Hall on the ground floor, the tree is a 20-foot blue spruce this year adorned with its traditional decor of 18th-century Neapolitan angels and cherubs.