"One of the more curious recurring images on 19th-century Christmas cards is the dead bird, which may symbolize mortality or something more ritualistic.
"...To understand why you might send a friend or family member this morbid missive, we must mentally journey back to the 19th century. And no, it was not madness from the arsenic laced wallpaper or tightly cinched corsets. According to Rebecca Baumann at Indiana University, the cards were particularly prominent in 1880s Britain. With the popularity of mourning rituals and posthumous portraits, death was visually present in daily life...
"The image of a dead bird in the snow is similar to the popular “Babe in the Woods” motif of children who are in their mortal sleep in the forest, and may have likewise been a call to empathy for the less fortunate. .....
"However, it wasn’t necessarily such a tempus fugit symbol. Hunter Oatman-Stanford at Collectors Weekly noted that the birds are often robins and wrens, and that “killing a wren or robin was once a good-luck ritual performed in late December.” Specifically, the Irish St. Stephen’s Day on December 26 is known as “Wren Day,” with a traditional hunt of the bird (albeit now a fake one on a pole, although that wasn’t always the case). So receiving a card with the little prone bird, feet curled in rigor mortis, could be meant to wish nothing more than good cheer on the new year."
Another example from this article:
This example is dated 1876, and is via the National Library of Ireland/Flicker.
No comments:
Post a Comment