#Christmas imagery

[mask131]

As a continuation of my posts about the Père Noël (here and here already - this will become a full series), I want to expand a bit on what I said about the confusion between Père Noël (Father Christmas), and his "dark companion", Père Fouettard (Father Whipper) - the gift-giver and the punishment-giver.

There is this famous image (that appeared in a book about the evolution of Christmas symbols of mine, that I might talk about next year) that truly shows how the two figures were supposed to be so much look-alikes you had a hard time telling them apart.

Once again, they were the two sides of the same coin. Same stern look, same beard. The two have a basket: one filled with toys, the other filled with crying children. The two carry wood - but while Père Noël or Bonhomme Noël carries a small Christmas tree or a walking staff, Père Fouettard carries the branches used to whip children.

This explains why there is an overlap between the imagery of Père Noël...

... and the imagery of Père Fouettard.

Resulting in confusing images where you don't know if you have Noël or Fouettard in front of you...

Sometimes Père Noël is explicitely confused with Saint Nicolas, which is no surprise since he partially derives from him, and Saint Nicolas also acts as Père Fouettard's companion...

... But surprisingly, sometimes the Père Fouettard himself is confused with Saint Nicholas.

Here's an humoristic Saint Nicolas card depicting the saint with Père Fouettard (it was done in the honor of the end of a church's construction if I recall):

And here is an illustration that invokes not only Père Noël and Saint Nicolas, but another variation of the character rather related to the end of the year - Bonhomme Etrennes/Père Etrennes. More about him later:

[innervoiceartblog]

(via From Gift-Giving Koalas to Surfing Santa, How Christmas Imagery Gets Australianized - Atlas Obscura)

[galleryyuhself]

                G    A    L    L     E     R     Y    Y    U    H    S    E   L      F

                           RBC wants you to dream B-I-G

[bebs-art-gallery]

Christmas Night Mass Celebrated in a French Nunnery (1889)

— by Asta Nørregaard

[carcarrot]

the first two episodes of night court are better than entire seasons of some shows

[akkivee]

there was some display gallery showing off the various logos in hypmic and the ichikuu peeps on the tl were in shambles over both of them using halos in their mc name signatures lol

[strawberry-s0ap]

christmas stimboard with christmas lights, ornaments, cookies, snow globes and cosy jumpers for anon!

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ / ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ / ❄️ ❄️ ❄️

[lilirot]

I know it's not a topic that Obey Me will ever address because I think the devs like their offices not being firebombed but I have to wonder does like jesus exist? like how does/would that work?

[voidify333]

merry crisis :)

dimensions exactly 1080p

(also PLEASE read the companion fic by my friend and mutual beta reader team_stepladder! this fic answers the question "what happened to those signal samurai action figures?")

[nostalgicfun]

1991 JCPenney Christmas Book

[vacant2007]

[mask131]

As a continuation of my previous post here, to expand a bit more my explanation to @themousefromfantasyland about the French Père Noël, here is even more pictures of the "pre-50s" Père Noël, with a few additional comments about the visual depiction of the character. (Well technically speaking there are some Bonhomme Noël and even Bonhomme Etrennes pictures in there, but since they're all variations of the same guy...)

As you will note by looking at all these pictures (and those of the previous post), there are two main "fashions" when it comes to depicting the Père Noël. One is the "colorful" Père Noël, who wears clothes of brilliant colors - red (which led to the modern Santa Claus look), green, blue, purple... This is a visual habit that also occured in England for Father Christmas.

The other would be the "drab" Père Noël, depicted as a poorer and humbler person, with rather brown or dark clothes - usually a robe and a hood instead of fur-lined coats and large cloaks. This second incarnation of the Père Noël, much more unique to France, is also highlighted the disturbing connection if not gemellity between him and Père Fouettard, Father Whipper, the "evil companion" of Father Christmas in France. Père Fouettard is also depicted as an elderly man with a beard, also wearing brown or dark clothes. While sometimes Fouettard's beard is black, it can be white like Noël's, and Fouettard can also carry a wicker basket, but to take children away instead of giving toys... And you have many pictures where both Fouettard and Nël sport the same serious, judgemental, no-nonsense look (a far cry from the jolly Santa Claus).

In fact, you might notice in some of the pictures I shared that among the numerous toys Père Noël brings, there is... sometimes a whip... sometimes a bundle of branches, aka an old form of whip for children... Another one of the fleeting, confused, hesitating sides of Père Noël: sometimes, he doesn't need Père Fouettard as he is the one who gives both the toy and the whip.

I evoked the "monk-like" appearance of Père Noël, but the whole religious imagery needs to truly be explored, as Père Noël is essentialy a toned-down version of Saint Nicholas. The rich bishop clothes are gone - but there's still colorful, rich fur-lined robes with a hat on one side (colorful Père Noël), or clothes that distinctly remind of a monk's outfit (drab Père Noël). There's the ride that is very often a donkey. And the bishop staff is replaced by a walking staff or by a cane. Plus, sometimes Père Noël is shown holding a lantern to light his way through the snowy night - which evokes another archetype, the one of the semi-religious figure of the hermit. Think of the tarot card. The hermit is typically this elderly man with a beard, in simple brown robes, holding a lantern...

There is also in typical Père Noël depictions a certain tendency to give him robes or cloaks covered in moon or stars symbols. I don't know if there is anything to it, or if it is just an artistic fashion of the time, but I really like how these star-robes and moon-cloaks, coupled with his walking staff, hat and beard, make him look like some sort of fantasy wizard.

The fact the Christmas lore of Germanic countries reached France through the East is also manifesting itself in those imageries: you'll see leftovers of the Christkindel tradition in the shape of female angel, saint-children and other holy cherubs accompanying Père Noël.

[dont-hug-me-aesthetics]

Happy Holidays from DHMA! :D - Mod Roy

x x x 🎁 x 🌟 x 🎁 x x x

[black-salt-cage]

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚

[bebs-art-gallery]

A Merry Christmas postcard from 1926

— by Claude McKay

[yeonban]

MERRY CHRISTMAS FELLOW AVENTURINE ENJOYERS?!??!??!