Powder snow and cold are his elixir of life, he is extremely sensitive to the sun: the snowman is a classic winter symbol. Where it comes from – and why it wasn’t always as popular as it is today.
Berlin – Three balls of snow, coal or pebbles for the eyes and mouth, a carrot for the nose – and a snowman shines in wintry splendor.
In addition to Santa Claus and Christkind, the ice-cold popular figure is part of the cold season for many. When snow falls, young and old have been building snowmen with enthusiasm for generations. Snow women, snow animals or fantasy creatures are of course also popular. Where does the fascination for the frosty, spherical shape come from? Facts and curiosities about a cult figure of winter:
Image change – from curmudgeon to spherical friend
The snowman was not always a happy figure. In fact, it went through quite a change of image in hundreds of years, as Franziska Honer says. She heads the Museum of Fine Arts in the district of Neu-Ulm, which currently has a special exhibition about the cult figure.
One of the oldest known illustrations, a copper engraving from 1780, still shows an extremely sinister-looking, human-like snowman. “For a long time, people experienced winter primarily as grim and threatening. The snowman was also portrayed accordingly,” explains Honer.
The bad-tempered illustrations lasted until around the end of the 19th century, when high industrialization began and many inventions took some of the horror out of winter. From then on, the season was no longer experienced only as severe and full of deprivation, but also as characterized by peace, contemplation and the anticipation of Christmas. “So the snowman slowly began to transform into the happy, spherical figure that we know today,” says the expert.
The first snowman
While searching for the roots of the popular character, US cartoonist and journalist Bob Eckstein came across a snowman in a Christian prayer book from 1380 for his 2007 book The History of the Snowman.
The sculptor and painter Michelangelo is associated with an early tradition of a real figure made of snow: He is said to have created a beautiful snow figure in the 1490s, which was reported in many stories. However, expert Honer assumes that people with their sense of art and culture must have started forming wintry figures much earlier. “Of course, the snowman is ephemeral, so unfortunately we don’t know for sure.”
The largest specimen
In 2020, a true colossus even made it into the Guinness Book of Records. A snowman more than 38 meters high has brought the Austrian Styria the record. Because it would otherwise have become too unstable, “Riesi”, as the icy giant was appropriately called, did not have the typical spherical belly, but was built ever narrower towards the top.
Snowmen with celebrity status
Whether in Christmas carols or children’s films, the white fellow is a popular protagonist in many wintry stories. A well-known classic: the Christmas song “Frosty the Snowman” by Walter Rollins and Steve Nelson, which was first recorded around 1950 – and which was followed by numerous new editions.
A modern, but no less popular representative of the snowman cult is Olaf, one of the main characters in the multi-award-winning Disney film “Frozen” from 2013. Arktos, the archenemy of the green dragon Tabaluga from the children’s story of the same name, appears less friendly, but rather eerily frosty -Series. dpa
