In 1948, Salvador Dali partnered with Hallmark to paint a Christmas card, a drastic deviation from his distinct surrealist style which has captivated onlookers for decades. The card depicts a giant Santa Claus with drawers coming out of his chest, as melting clocks rest on the drawer edges. Sitting in a pile of snow, a barren tundra surrounds him, with miniature onlookers exploring a large mistletoe in the background. Despite being a fantastic work of art, Hallmark unfortunately rejected Dali’s concept, deeming it an uncanny deviation from the holiday imagery that consumers had come to anticipate from their products. While it may have never seen retail shelves, the collaboration between Hallmark and Dali spurned an unconventional representation of a popular character and an exploration of widely recognizable holiday themes. Dali’s piece made an attempt to challenge popular culture and introduced the concept that while we can recognize the season based on conventional imagery, breaking tradition can allow us to reflect on the holiday values we possess and how our cultural representations of seasonal celebrations reinvigorate the “holiday spirit”.
Santa with Drawers by Salvador DalĂ
Courtesy of artsy.net
While Dali’s piece was not widely recognized until the recent decade, other artists such as Tim Burton have followed in his footsteps, exploring the meaning of the holidays while challenging norms. Certainly not a Christmas movie, but rather a Halloween movie that is Christmas themed, The Nightmare Before Christmas is an excellent example of how introducing unique imagery to the holiday theme allows us to reflect on the meaning and spirit of the holidays. While there are other holidays aside from Christmas celebrated during the holiday season, Christmas decorations or imagery retain shared recognition during the holidays because of their sustained commercialization and consistent thematic components. Burton’s film reminds us that the holidays are about more than these symbols. By combining gothic elements with festive themes, Burton shows that even novel interpretations of the holiday season can illustrate the generosity, joy, and togetherness that define it.
Throughout the film, Burton introduces a variety of explorative imagery influenced by his zany art style: disproportionate landscapes, expressive claymation characters, and dampened color palettes, all without jeopardizing the holiday spirit. The clashing festivities of Halloween and Christmas Town in the film allow for a deeper appreciation of the grandeur of both themes. Furthermore, Jack Skellington’s journey provides viewers a valuable opportunity to reflect on the role of identity in the holidays; Skellington takes Halloween for granted because of the splendor of Christmas Town, captivated by its gifts, bright lights, and joy. However, towards the end of the film Skellington discovers that he has overlooked the true importance of the holiday spirit, recognizing that sharing in the gratitude, generosity, and togetherness is the captivating nature of the holiday season. An exploration of the values of holidays conveyed through Burton’s artistic perspective exemplifies yet another successful unconventional approach to reinvigorating the holiday spirit.
Reflecting now on the importance of art in the holiday spirit, without both contemporary and reimagined artistic approaches to representing this time of year, it would be easy for people to lose sight of the meaning of the holidays. I believe that artists who have challenged traditional holiday imagery are actively reinvigorating the holiday spirit by straying away from universal representations, creating their own unique perspectives on holiday imagery to remind us that while tradition is important, we can best reflect on the values of the season by exploring it through our own unique lens.
