Christmas Card.

Art in Christmas card

  We always get busy around this time. As the Christmas season begins soon, we prepare gifts and cards.

 Christmas card is a greeting of love and friendship.
It is said that around 1782, when the author Charles Dickens published [A Christmas Carol], students in British boarding schools drew pictures on Christmas cards and sent them to their parents and friends at home. This is the beginning of the officially known Christmas card.

​These Christmas cards were first commercialized in England in 1843.

At that time, Sir Henry Cole of the Royal Society of England had his friend, designer John C. Horsley, draw a Christmas card and printed it.

As cards, which used to be made by hand, were produced on a large scale, Christmas cards became a global custom with the wings of postal development.

World's first commercial Christmas card

  It has been commercialized in this way, and now, if people like it, they can buy a variety of cards through the Internet or a store and send them to their friends and family.

 But I have a painter that comes to mind when I think of Christmas cards. He was an American painter, Thomas Kinkade, who is called the painter of light. Because his paintings, which are bright and warm like a fairy tale, make you feel nostalgic for Christmas, but above all, it is because of his anecdotes about Christmas cards. 

Blessings of Christmas, 2002, Thomas Kinkade, source: official site

  Kinkade visited his mother's (Maryann Kinkade) home in his hometown of Placerville around Christmas 1977. He tries to help by selling his painting after hearing from her mother that she will soon sell her house because of the mortgage payment. However, his paintings do not sell quickly. One day he visits the home of his master, who taught him how to draw. He finds and is moved thereby his master, who is ill and working hard until late at night. The teacher advises the desperate disciple to paint for the people he loves and those who love his paintings. Encouraged by his teacher's words, he draws Christmas cards distributes them to his neighbors. After then the miracle of Christmas comes. His paintings and passion are spread through neighbors and people who are moved by his paintings. Those who previously criticized and turned away from his paintings are now enthusiastic about his paintings. He earned more than 100 million dollars (about 110 billion won) every year and was renowned as the world's best-selling painter. His teacher's advice and his love for his mother became the most loved painting in the world. The most distinctive feature of his paintings is that each house is lit with a warm yellow light. The artist's warm consolation towards the cold world seems to be felt. The warm yellow light conveyed to us who are weary of the world gives us a sense of energy when we are tired and suffering from life.

 This year, thanks to such warm comfort, I made a Christmas card image.
​

Chrismas tree with snow, 2021, Myungja Anna Koh

Christmas market, 2021, Myungja Anna Koh

Christmas decorating room, 2021, Myungja Anna Koh

Christmas trees, 2021, Myungja Anna Koh

Happy Christmas, 2021, Myungja Anna Koh

  ​Like the painter Kinkade, who wanted to give a bright light to a dark heart, I want to convey a warm heart during the Christmas season. Hope you all have a happy season. I hope that even at this time, there will be a lot of comfort and hope for those who have to just watch this warm light outside in the cold.