The Snowflake Reindeer

About this work

Night blue sets the tone before anything else. The reindeer stands at the centre of a birch forest painted in deep, cold blues, calm and upright, with a soft white ruff at its chest that gives the darkest part of the picture its brightest note. From there the eye climbs into the antlers, which branch out wide and gold and reach into a round opening of sky where gold snowflakes hang. Around the whole scene runs an ornate border in gold and navy, threaded with fir boughs and curving in the Art Nouveau manner. At a distance three things carry: the pale chest, the gold antlers and the circle above. Step closer and the single flakes, the fir needles and the fine work of the border come forward. The mood is hushed, like a forest just after snowfall.

The halo comes from Alphonse Mucha, who often placed his women before a circle of ornament, a device that became a signature of Art Nouveau posters around 1900. Here the circle is made of snow and given to a reindeer instead. Reindeer became part of the Christmas story in the early nineteenth century, above all through the 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, which named the eight that pull the sleigh. Fir branches carry their own winter meaning: evergreens stay green through the darkest months. The Snowflake Reindeer is inspired by Mucha, not a copy.

Keep it up through the whole winter in a hallway, a nursery or over the fireplace, where the gold antlers pick up the glow of a fire or candles. Soft white, cream, sage or forest green walls suit its quiet, festive feeling. A thin gold or brushed brass frame repeats the ornate border, and a white mat gives the navy room to breathe. Its round snowflake halo links it with The Winter Muse, and adding The Robin Muse makes a trio. A small print fits a narrow hallway wall; a large one holds its own above a mantelpiece. The file prints sharply to roughly 76 cm on the long edge at 300 dpi.