And the Symbol of Welcome is Light by Norman Rockwell, 1920Richard Scarry, The Golden BookThe Mystery of the Russian Ruby Iain Smyth
It’s that time of year again in Australia, where the land becomes brown and dusty, I’m stuck inside to avoid the heat, prepping for Christmas, looking at artwork from the Northern Hemisphere, where 90% of humankind live.
Yellow windows in art and illustration are, in the West, heavily associated with Christmas.
Away In A Manger advent calendar published by Simon and SchusterNativity postcard, illustrator not found circa 1930Stories For Christmas Bernadette WattsMargaret Tarrant Christmas VisitorsJohn Sargeant Noble – Their Christmas EveSvend Rasmussen Svendsen (1864-1945) Winter’s Night with Cabins (1910)Hunter Trader Trapper magazine December 1927 art by Edwin Bolenbaugh‘The Village at Night’, George Clausen, oil on canvas, 1903Jan Bogaerts (1878-1962) Evening Twilight in Mategna near Merano 1931Joseph Israels (Dutch, Groningen 1824–1911 Scheveningen) Going HomeJohn Dolman – Les Miserables (London cab stand)Winter Evening by Raphael Gleitsmann, c 1932Woman’s Home Companion Magazine Christmas December 1928 cover artMark English. (American,1933-2019)“Christmas Eve”, an 1878 painting by J. Hoover and Son If you look at this and think, “That’d make a good jigsaw puzzle,” well, Buffalo Games thought so, too. The art is by Charles Wysocki (1928-2002).こんやはおつきみ by 北田卓史 1980Goodnight, Everyone 1987, illustrated by Paul Zelinsky (Japanese edition)George William Sotter (1879 – 1953)Leeds was his home John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893) Knostrop Old HallLinden Frederick is a Maine-based realist painter known for night and dusk paintings of small-town America. The yellow window in this painting serves as a focal point, as yellow windows often do. The square of light to the left, against the bricks, suggests another light source, but where is it coming from? Ah, the beautiful mystery.From Peter Pan by Mabel Lucy Attwell 1879-19641930, Better Homes and Gardens, Seymour Snyder
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:
