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Train in the snow 03 Monet
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| Claude Monet, 1875, Train in the Snow |
The Train in the Snow (Le train dans la neige) is a landscape painting by the French Impressionist artist Claude Monet. The work depicts a train surrounded by snow at the Argenteuil station, France. Art historians see the work as a significant example of Monet's efforts to integrate nature and industry in his work. Many historians believe that Monet, out of all of the notable nineteenth century artists, made the most paintings of trains in his lifetime. Art historians typically emphasise the dividing lines of the piece created by the fence, trees and tracks as well as the dark smoke produced by the locomotive. However, these historians derive different meanings from the painting, though they all reference themes of industry and motion. Scholars also note the important connections between Monet's painting and contemporary works of literature, particularly those of the writer Emile Zola.
10 Artists whose last studio album was a Christmas one
1. Teddy Pendergrass This Christmas (I'd rather have love) 1998
2. The Moody Blues December 2003
3. Twisted Sister A Twisted Christmas 2006
4. Chris Squire Swiss Choir 2008
5. REO Speedwagon Not So Silent Night ... Christmas with REO Speedwagon 2009
6. Leningrad Cowboys Merry Christmas 2013
7. The Monkees Christmas Party 2018
8. Backstreet Boys A Very Backstreet Christmas 2022
9. Gregory Porter Christmas Wish 2023
10. Cher Christmas 2023
(Obviously the last few entries may need revising)
Penguin Christmas Classics
There is a lovely collection of uniformlydesigned hardbacks that came out a few years ago from Penguin. There are six titles altogether - Christmas at Thompson Hall (Anthony Trollope), The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (Frank L Baum), A Merry Christmas (Louisa M Alcott), A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens), The Nutcracker (E T A Hoffman) and The Night Before Christmas (Nikolay Gogol). I have most of them and have read a number. Great stuff.
December by The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues are the original prog rockers and so a Christmas album from them must be worth a listen. It is. With plenty of mellotron-like sounds and orchestras, the approach is a traditional but not very orthodox religious one (although When a child is born and What child is this?* towards the end are in that area as is their own version of Bach's Jesu Joy re-christened The quiet of Christmas morning). Half the tracks are originals penned by Hayward and Lodge (Don't need a reindeer is a stand out pop track and On this Christmas day a haunting pop ballad) with a judicious selection of covers - Happy Xmas (War Is Over), A Winter's Tale, When a Child is born, White Christmas. This is all very sincere and well done. Perhaps the track Yes, I believe which smuggles in a referene to "days of future passed" sums up the hopeful (but I would say naive or better misguided) attitude here. It begins
The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of love
Still there when the innocence has gone
But we have each other we laugh and we cry
The cares of the world still carry on
Yes I believe in a better world
And like the rest of us I pray
For peace on this earth and a better lifeWith every beautiful day.
*My edition has this Greensleeves song but others seem to have them doing In the bleak midwinter. This latter track is in fact from 1992 for charity and not from the December sessions.
Seventy Christmas Songs
By my reckoning there must be some seventy Christmas selections available from Kate Rusby on the six different Christmas studio albums.
That breaks down to about
31 carols or similar (including 7 versions of While Shepherds and 2 each of Hark the Herald, I saw three ships and Hark, hark).
9 novelty or joke songs - Kris Kringle, Santa never brings me a banjo, some Big Brave Bill tracks, The Ivy and the Holly, Hippo for Christmas, Arrest These Merry Gentlemen and Nothin' for Christmas
7 traditional Christmas songs - Paradise, Deck the halls, Serving Girl's Holiday, A miner's dream of home, We'll sing hallelujah, Mistletoe Bough and, with bawdy humour, The Christmas Goose.
6 songs are Kate's own compositions - Home, Christmas is Merry, The Holly King, Celestial Hearts, Let the bells ring and The moon shines bright
6 modern songs - Winter Wonderland, Let it snow, I am Christmas, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, A spaceman came travelling and The most wonderfultime of the year.
4 more songs are a pair of wassailing songs plus Yorkshire Merry Christmas plus Poor old horse about a similar Christmas tradition.
2 sort of counting songs - Seven good joys and The Dilly Carol.
2 more, The Wren and Candlemas mark post-Christmas celebrations
2 others, Drive the cold winter away and When the frost is all over are weather songs
1 slightly egregious track - Holmfirth Album
Light Years Album by Kate Rusby
The sixth Christmas album by Kate Rusby is avaiable from today. Kicking off with a nice version of Brightest and best of the sons of morning (Spean) followed by one of those atmospheric winter songs we have come to love (Glorious), the eleven track set is familiar in some ways yet fresh and will be much enjoyed over the next 25 days and beyond. Inevitbly, there is yet another version of While shepherds, of course. In the end it's that voice that's key. Wonderful.
Seasonal Quiz 09 (True/False)
Answer T(rue) or F(alse)
Q2. We are told in the Bible that Mary rode into Bethlehem on a donkey
Q3. The Bible says that Jesus was born in December
Q4. The Bible says that barn animals miraculously spoke the night Jesus was born
Q5. In Ukraine spiders and spider webs are a traditional part of Christmas decorations
Q6. The traditional hook-like red-white candy canes started out as straight white sticks
Q7. The first use of electric lights at Christmas was in the 1920s
Q8. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was invented by an American department store to sell goods
Q9. There are at least 20 S Claus's living in the UK today
Q10. White Christmases were once fairly common in London before the 1970s with at least 20 occuring between 1900 and 1950
Ans
1F (There is no 0 AD, Jesus was probablly born between 6 and 4 BC due to a miscalculation; 2F (They may have, though as poor people they woud probably have had to borrow it);3 F (No mention of the time of the year); 4F (no direct mention of animals); 5T (In Germany, Poland, and Ukraine, finding a spider or a spider's web on a Christmas tree is considered good luck).
6F;7F (actually Edison had Chrsitmas lights outside his house in the 1880s);8T (Rudolph first appeared in a 1939 booklet written by Robert L May and published by Montgomery Ward, the department store); 9T;10F (For more southern areas of the UK away from the highest hills there were only four classic widespread white Christmas days when snow fell and laid giving a good cover between 1900 and 1950. They were 1906, 1917, 1923 and 1938).
The Oxford Handbook of Christmas
I am hoping the family will club together and get this for me for Christmas. It is an academic book so has a crazy price tag. Looks lilke fun, however. PS They did! And it it was fun. Not all read this Season.
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