Decorating the Christmas Tree Review

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Featured image via Wikimedia.

The Simplicity of Christmas

When you think of Christmas, art is not the first thing that comes to mind. And if art does come to mind, it’s likely some variation of the Birth of Christ.

“Decorating the Christmas Tree” is a painting painted in 1898 by Marcel Rieder. Marcel Rieder was a French painter who is most well known for painting scenes often lit by oil lamps or electric lighting.

The painting depicts a woman decorating a Christmas tree in a study lit only by an electric lamp on a desk and a smaller lamp in the woman’s hand. The painting itself captures a rather simple and mundane moment in everyday life.

Through the use of the singular lamp and the red walls and curtains of the study, Rieder is able to give the painting a dark red hue, so dark that the details of the woman’s face are obscured. 

The woman is dressed in a long green dress with her hair pulled up. The lamp that she holds  casts a red light on the right side of her face, which is turned away from the viewers.

The only detail of the paintings that is entirely visible is the table that the lamp sits on, where there are clearly toys and ornaments lying haphazardly. The lamp itself has a white lampshade that is tied with red ribbon.

The tree itself is not big but sits in a small pot on a stool, and beneath the tree sits a rocking horse. The details of the tree are hidden by the heavy black and red shading, but the ornaments glimmer on the tree as the light hits them.

The lack of intense detail with the mixture of the red haze gives the painting the impression of a memory. The painting feels as if it is from the perspective of a child.

The lighting of the lamp draws your eyes immediately to the Christmas tree in the middle of the painting. The tree lands around the woman’s knee to mid-thigh, around the size of a child on a short woman.

The painting gives the impression that it is a fuzzy memory from a forgotten child–the memory of waking up in the middle of night and searching for your mother to find her setting up the Christmas tree before you woke.

The simplicity of the painting is reminiscent of the simplicity of childhood, when you had no worries but if the Christmas tree would be ready in time for Santa.

It is also reminiscent of what Christmas is meant to be. This family is likely well off, but there is not an intense sense of grandness. It’s completely simple with a small tree. There is no need for more.

Christmas is a time of simplicity that allows us to reflect on what we have, what we want, what we get and how to be grateful for the ability to own things, the ability to want and the ability to be given things. Each one is a luxury that Christmas celebrates.

Your Christmas does not need to be luxurious or grand to be remembered, so this Christmas, enjoy the simple and mundane things that you may usually overlook during the holiday season.

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