ART IN CHRISTMAS CARDS.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7263, 24 January 1889, Page 2

ART IN CHRISTMAS CARDS.

How much ingenuity and harmless art is lavished on these trifles l A very great English poet is said to maintain that never was English poetry so good, so fruitful, and so cheap, on taking -quantity, as at present. The poetry.of Christmas cards is at least as excellent as much that would have won a place with a pension, for its authors, in the Augustan: age of Anne. For eiample, here we hare a picture of .a moderately intellectual, and not bad-look-inp;, girl in evening dress. That is all the poet has tbgo upon, for, like Mr = Arthur Peadennis, the Christmas minstrel; " writes up " to, illustrations. He gets his inspiration in rough proof, from the printer, now what can he say or siDg about the, ordinary girl in evening,, dress. He is not & bit at a l_-s.,<l, i < ~ ': M.M :

" As the sunshine gild 3 the lea. As the moss clings round the rose, Bright aud sweet, and full and free. •• : May llf e'.bleseiugS round thee close."Again take the case of a kitten drinking milk, for some reason a very popular illustraXibn of Christmas- .What shalPthe poet say ? What rhyme sha)! he find for his fair? ; Hp M not perplexed:— w _ " Fair, furry thing, that Bellas knew not, In days ere Christinas oells could ring. Kit. that the young Athenian slew not (Beenuse there then was no such thing). May Rose, li__ thee, have mirth in plenty. Be beautiful and soft like thee, And wed the man she loves at twenty, And often ask the Bard to tea." Masters of Arts are among tbe poets. Mr S. K. Cowan, _-A., has either written this rhyme for & kitteh, or else this rhyme has been appropriately placed - bek.MP a study .of kittens: — " Like MU«_c set to happy words,May all your New Year How alonpr. And may.your heart, on all its chords,

J Accompany the happy song." The test of appropriatfoiess in Christmas design: lias hitherto evaded the- curious research of science. Why; in wishing Ja friend a , _appjr new yeap.. should we present him with a sit—eh 6f-_-unch Of violets, aseasheU, a moonlitlandscape.an old cottage, a young-lady in last century dress kissing a young man in top boots, three children feeding a cock robin, a boat on the Norfolk Broads, a number of penguins i a Sun day .School, sever** humming birds, a view of an ostrich faim Puss in Boots with a letter bag, or an imitation in paperof Wedgewood cameo? The old Father Christmas, with tbe ivy and the hamper, is as extinct as the .Last of the Mohicans. Snow scenes, church spires, walte, we scarcely ever meet them, now. We are passed from the Christmas, of Washington, Irving, and Charles; Dicken*. into that of. cheap jprett—.esabf,

____T —• ' "-' == ~V every description. Anything tha_ prett7 will do for a Christmas ij? and astonishingly pretty many of »_ Are. Tbe old " Books of Be2S those expensive impostors, i eclipsed by the lovely design,^ 1 * i about fourpenco apiece Lord Teo-hJ* | Mr Ruskin, Sir Walter Scott. th 2*. I well as the Hon. Percy Popjoy, dip** disdain to write for tlie queer bot*._ beat—y, with portraits of j_e__«is languishing on steel. The new ChrijSJ* art is better than tbe old, though it _ju?s* admitted that the poetry U not q_ite_,»r the ancient sample. Democracy !* entered the realm of art, and brought*;!, colours, and often exquisite oa_** 1 within the reach of even poor chil__s 1 Perhaps a hundred years hence, iTi_S?J> tors still exist, they will pay for rare relics of the Christmas _tho_r» art. Such fugitive things nmt _*__ disappear, and may in far future ye»Si? treasured like first editions of the *'!_£! de ma Mere l'Oye," once no more iS*. 1 than contemporary studies of violetS 1 kittens. New "processes " will bat»£_ i discovered, or lost old arts will hav»ss 1 revived, and the learned may marv_iy§ I a chromo-lithograph.—Daily New_\ i