Today: Pop Culture, Pop Art & The Popularity of Christ Images

The Sallman image of Christ is popular because it captures a feeling for many people that they want to have when they look at a religious figure. There is humility, awe, respect, humbleness and humanity reflected in the picture. There is no mystery or negativity at all in the Sallman portrait of Christ. It is non-controversial and therefore, embraceable and non-offensive at the same time.

Pop culture, by definition, is low art, as opposed to high art, or fine art. This art is popular rather than studied. Andy Warhol’s prints of Campbell’s Soup cans are a perfect example of pop culture. The wonderful thing about pop culture is that it’s immediately accessible to a wide range of people. You don’t have to be educated or sophisticated or well travelled to appreciate or participate in making pop art, in some of the ways you do with fine art.

Christmas, like pop culture, has become less about religion than it has about a cultural experience without religion. Christmas has become about consumerism and being kind, in general. For many children, single adults and families, Christmas is about gift giving, not about religion.

Whether or not you agree, if you accept that, it’s easy to understand why pop culture icons have become trendy on Christmas trees and as holiday decorations. Pop culture mixed with Christmas takes the holiday one more step away from church and one step closer to the masses to celebrate and make their own in their own way.

People who have only just started celebrating Christmas — either because they have married someone who grew up celebrating Christmas, because they have chosen to celebrate Christmas “suddenly” of their own accord, or because they’ve chosen the path of least resistance in school, offices and communities, don’t have the family history of Christmas with the family decorations wrapped in the attic and taken out once a year. They are making this holiday their own, and are doing so in their own way.