Walcott-Bartlett Professor of Religious Studies Jay Williams will give a lecture at the Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont, as part of its Winslow Homer and Thomas Nast Exhibition on Thursday, Nov. 16 at 6 p.m. in the Museum's Education Center. The exhibition features works of popular art from the nineteenth century that depicts how Americans celebrated and enjoyed the fall and winter seasons.
Homer and Nast were two of the most adept and insightful illustrators for the popular nineteenth-century periodical Harper's Weekly. Homer started his artistic career around 1857 as a freelance illustrator, honing his skills of observation. He later went on to great fame as a painter. Nast is noted as a powerfully satirical political cartoonist but he was also the person, more than anyone else, who invented the way we picture Santa Claus today.
Homer and Nast were two of the most adept and insightful illustrators for the popular nineteenth-century periodical Harper's Weekly. Homer started his artistic career around 1857 as a freelance illustrator, honing his skills of observation. He later went on to great fame as a painter. Nast is noted as a powerfully satirical political cartoonist but he was also the person, more than anyone else, who invented the way we picture Santa Claus today.
