Christmas - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 1981 - 4 Shilling

The template for the motive of the Christmas stamp 1981 was a nativity scene from Burgenland. It is made of corn straw and a spontaneous visual creative, sculptural design of students of the Theresianum in Eisenstadt. In the overall structure, the main emphasis was placed on the design of the group of figures. The crèche house was supposed to serve only as a background and to coordinate the whole. As a stable, an old barn or straw hut of a field guard, as found in Seewinkel, was recreated. Corn straw in its stiffness and flatness has its own life and does not allow any technical gimmicks. The material language is in the foreground. The crib was created as a collaboration of 16-year-old students. So are the different figures of different shape. The size of the figures corresponds approximately to a corncob. In the simplification of the natural material maize straw missing the facial features of the figures completely. This abstraction leaves more room for imagination than lifelike representations. The brand image shows the middle scene from the large corn crib, which includes 22 figures, people and animals. It is located in the school nativity scene collection of the Theresianum in Eisenstadt.