Snow has fallen, snow on snow...

[shewhomust]

And to brighten the bleak midwinter, I sort through the cards we received at Christmas, as I did for Christmas 2007, 2008 and 2010. And where else to start but with the snow scenes?

Snow scenes: 18

• 6 conventional village scenes, of which my favourite is Winter Sheep (by Anauk Naumann, but quite unlike anything on the website, more conventional but with a pleasing serentity). One of these shows children making a snowman.


• one picture of snowmen, one child with unidentifiable cute animal and two of pillarboxes in the snow


• 6 identifiable locations: Bremen, Venice (very stylised, and I wouldn't have guessed it came from the National Gallery if I hadn't been peering at the small print), Leamington Spa, York, Coanwood Friends Meeting House (Northumberland) and a photo of the sender's home


• one Japanese snow scene; one very stylish Radio Times Christmas number

Birds: 12

• 4 doves, of which two are accompanied by the word 'peace' and one is the image by Agnieszka Jatkowska in this blog post (but without the text)


• one barn owl, one robin, one garden birds on a feeder (includes tits and a robin), two pictures of geese, one stylised piece of Japonaiserie


• Puffins! Same photo twice on different cards: Jan Vermeer's puffin in flight. And if anyone cares, this is a summer snow storm, not a winter one - that's the summer, breeding plumage.

Animals: 12

• 5 reindeer, of which three photographed in snow, one stylised, red and glittering, and one (credited as Setting Off by Martin Irish) Santa's sleigh as it might appear on Russian laquerwork, but with more glitter


• 3 felines: two identical leopard cubs in snow (is this possible?) and one domestic cat also in snow with big staring yellow eyes and a pink nose (rather unsettling, this one)


• a pair of foxes (Rachel Levitas's Still Life Disturbed), a soft toy which might be a polar bear, an elephant and a rather fine ice-skating cow

Christmas trees: 10

Total declared after much hesitation, and not including at least one tree featured in snow scene. From painted domestic scene with decorated tree, wrapped gifts and snow beyond the window, to the most indirect image of swirls and stars which nonetheless evokes that triangular silhouette; from the pure outline to a tree laden with decorations which is nonetheless not actually a Christmas tree; and including several decorated trees in the snow, in one case accompanied by three 'carol' singers (the accompanying text is "Have yourself a merry little Christmas...") whose bonnets at first suggested a troupe of Santas, but who I think are in fact garden gnomes (it's the dungarees...)

Other plants: 10

3 wreaths, one snowdrops, three red berries and one white (mistletoe and glitter), one impressionistic and unidentifiable on gold card and one Noble Fir

Baubles and other shinies: 10

• 3 baubles,


• one Christmas stocking (plus one sighted among the berries),


• 3 wrapped up presents (plus more under trees)


• 2 candles (and one accompanied by a Christmas tree)


• and one babushka 'from your paper boy'

The Christmas story: 12

• 3 scenes of magi on camels, plus one rather wonderful image of three crowned figures standing, displaying gifts, their robes decorated as manuscripts; and one adoration of the magi from an illuminated manuscript


• 4 adoration of the shepherds, two of them taken from the same stained glass, but cropped differently


• 'Away in a manger' - the family in the stable with kings and shepherds still distant, plus one mother and child with angels


• and a flight into Egypt. When I stop to think about it, this seems like an odd choice of story, but it's Burne-Jones, and a pretty shape, which goes some way to explain it.

Angels and ministers of grace: 3

Excluding the angels flanking the madonna (above), both angels are very obviously small children dressed up: one could wear her outfit to a Fairy Princess party and not be out of place, the other seems to be taking part in a school play, and is waving a wand topped with a star at a toy sheep, who isn't particularly impressed. And one striking retro Santa.

Twelve Days of Christmas: 4

Two of them have the text 'On the first day of Christmas...' but clearly show gifts from other days. One plumps for 'eight maids a-milking'. Why is this carol so much more popular than all the others? Yes, it has great visual potential, but it's not alone in that: if I were an artist, I would now be meditating a Christmas card design based on 'Down in Yon Forest'...

Misc: 13

A larger group than usual, I think: some words - 'peace', 'happy Christmas', a poem; the only other Christmas carol ('I saw three ships', nice design by Tony Fernandes, and, ah, in aid of the RNLI, which makes sense); unless you count Quentin Blake's Dickens postage stamp design; Darby and Joan pulling a Christmas cracker; a piece of nostalgia from Route 66; a misericord; a bowl of clementines and cranberries; and so on.

Our own card-sending was patchy this year - we bought cards as we saw some we liked, never finding enough of one kind; the system for printing out address labels broke down completely; at least one card was overlooked in the excitement and had to be handed over on New Year's Day. But looking through the cards we receive, amazed at how much effort some of our friends put into making them (hand-made cards is impressive enough, but hand-made paper?) and charmed all over again by designs which don't sound special when I describe them, but which are inexplicably pleasing to the eye - well, I do know why we carry on doing it.

Comments

[frumpo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. It's a different Jan Vermeer.
I missed the word "photo" and thought it sounded like a rather unusual subject matter for him.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

One of the people who sent us that card must have chosen it at random. The other one was Gail, who knows about my puffin fetish - and she made exactly that same comment.