The Art of Advent: Day Twenty
By Alice Lindman
With every December day that passes, the excitement of the Christmas holiday broods more and more within the hearts of the youth, summiting at a pinnacle climactic eruption of euphoria on the 25th of December. And while presents remain greatly responsible for eliciting such childhood delight, equal accountability must be given to the bearer of those gifts – Father Christmas, more commonly known as Santa Claus, the personification of the joys and meaning of Christmas.
Thomas Nast, Santa Claus in Camp (from "Harper's Weekly," vol. 7, p. 1), Published in Harper's Weekly American, 1863, wood engraving.
Yet Father Christmas wasn’t always known as the burly red and white clad figure we know and love today. No, those who lived in the nineteenth century would have been more accustomed with Santa as the small, dainty, elf-like creature depicted in the art of Thomas Nast. Nast’s original image of Santa was published in the 1862 Christmas issue of Harper’s Weekly, an age where the trials and tribulations of the Civil War plagued the North American continent. Here, Father Christmas was emblematic of Nast’s own melancholic disdain of the faltering Union war effort, while simultaneously symbolic of the sadness of the separated families. Santa thus functions as an emblem of hope. Combining European traditions of St. Nicholas with images of elves representative of the artist’s own German heritage, Nast creates the jolly gift-giving Santa Claus modern society associates with December, spreading the Christmas cheer to isolated soldiers during the holidays.
Haddon Sundblom, Campaign from 1931, featuring in the Saturday Evening Post.
As society grew, so did Santa – literally. It may come as a surprise to many that the cumbersome jovial popular image of Santa was moulded by none other than, Coca-Cola. By utilising Father Christmas in their advertisements, the company hoped to overcome the stereotype that Coke was a hot-weather drink, evident by their slogan: “Thirst knows no season”. In 1931 the soda brand commissioned illustrator Haddon Sundblom to paint Father Christmas for the company’s Christmas advertisements. Sundblom transformed Nast’s modest figure of Santa Claus into the large, red, and white icon of Christmas; a man adorned with rosy cheeks, a bushy white beard, his face etched with laughter lines. The company had struck gold. They had secured not only financial success, but also created the most iconic symbol for Christmas there is. It can therefore be argued that were it not for the art of Nast and Sundblom, the Santa which holds the special place in our hearts may have never existed.
Bibliography
Coca-Cola. “Did Coca-Cola Invent Santa?” www.coca-colacompany.com, n.d. https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/faq/did-coca-cola-invent-santa.
Coca-Cola . “Haddon Sundblom and the Coca-Cola Santas.” www.coca-colacompany.com, n.d. https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/haddon-sundblom-and-the-coca-cola-santas.
The MET. “Thomas Nast | Santa Claus in Camp (from ‘Harper’s Weekly,’ Vol. 7, P. 1).” The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accessed December 19, 2023. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/429261#:~:text=Nast%27s%20image%20was%20published%20in.
The Ohio State University. “Santa Claus | Thomas Nast: Prince of Caricaturists.” The Ohio State University: University Libraries, n.d. https://library.osu.edu/site/thomasnast/santa-claus/.