snowman

A three-ball Snowman with tree branch arms

A snowman is an anthropomorphic snow sculpture. They are customarily built by children as part of a family project in celebration of winter. In some cases, participants in winter festivals will build large numbers of snowmen. Because a snowman is situation-specific, it is a good example of popular installation art.

Typical snowmen feature three snowballs, and some additional accouterments for facial and other features. Common accessories include branches for arms and a rudimentary smiley face, other possibilities are a carrot nose. Human clothing, such as hat or scarf may even be included. Low-cost and availability are an issue, since snowmen are usually in a cold and/or wet environment, and abandoned to the elements once completed. Melting and sublimation is a common end of life scenario for most snowmen.

Construction

Snow becomes suitable for packing when it approaches its melting point and becomes moist and compact. This allows for the construction of a large snowball by simply rolling it, until it grows to the desired size. If the snow ball reaches the bottom of the grass it may tear up some grass, gravel, dirt etc. Making a snowman of powdered snow is difficult since it will not stick to itself, and if the temperature of packing snow drops, it will form an unusable denser form of powdered snow called crust. Thus the best time to build a snowman is usually in the next warm afternoon directly following a snowfall with a sufficient amount of snow. In Europe and North America, snowmen are built with three spheres depicting the head, torso, and lower body.

The usual practice is to then dress the snowman, usually with rocks, coal, sticks, and vegetables. Carrots or cherries are often used for the nose, as are sticks for arms and stones for eyes (traditionally lumps of coal). Some like to dress their snowmen in clothing (scarves, jackets, hats). Others prefer not to risk leaving supplies out doors where they could easily be stolen or become stuck under melting ice. There are variations to these standard forms. These other types range from snow columns to elaborate snow sculptures (similar to ice sculptures).

Snowmen are usually built with two spheres in East Asia. In Japan, they are called yuki daruma (雪だるま, yuki daruma^?) after the round shape of the Daruma doll.

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  A Boise, Idaho "snowfamily" with various whimsical accessories.

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  A "carrot-nose" snowman

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  Dozens of 2-ball snowmen at Sapporo, Japan Snow Festival

History

In this illustration from 1867, a snowman is surrounded by children

Documentation of the first snowman is unclear. However, Bob Eckstein, author of The History of the Snowman documented snowmen from medieval times, by researching artistic depictions in European museums, art galleries, and libraries. The earliest documentation he found was a marginal illustration from a work titled Book of Hours from 1380, found in Koninklijke Bibliotheek, in The Hague.^[1]

In Media

Snowmen are a popular theme for Christmas and winter decorations and also in children's media. A famous snowman character is Frosty, the titular snowman in the popular children's song "Frosty the Snowman", who had a corncob pipe, a button nose, and two eyes made out of coal. In addition to numerous related numerous related music and other media for Frosty, snow-men also feature as:

• Arktos in the German animated series Tabaluga.
• Bouli, a French animated series about a snowman's adventures in a magical place.
• in the game Mother there is a town called Snowman.
• Der Schneemann, a 1943 animated short film created in Germany.
• Jack Frost (1998 film), a movie with Michael Keaton in which he wakes up as a snowman after a car accident.
• Jack Frost (1996 film), a horror movie in which a serial killer is transformed into a snowman.
• Rave Master, a Japanese manga in which Plue, the hero's companion, resembles a small snowman.
• The Snowman, British picture book (1978) by Raymond Briggs and animation (1982) directed by Dianne Jackson about a boy who builds a snowman that comes alive and takes him to the North Pole.
• Calvin and Hobbes, an American cartoon by Bill Watterson, contains many instances of Calvin building snowmen, many of which are deformed or otherwise abnormal, often used to poke fun at the art world.^[2]
• The song “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Clothes” from the eponymous They Might Be Giants album posits the existence of a snowman with protective rubber skin.
• Steven Millhauser, in one of his collections of short stories, called In the Penny Arcade wrote a short story called Snowmen in which children make snowmen which are more and more elaborate.
• Snow Bros, an arcade game released in 1990 featuring two snowball-throwing snowmen as the protagonists.
• Hans Christian Andersen wrote a winter fairy story, The Snowman.

World's largest snowman

The record for the world's largest snowman was set in 2008 in Bethel, Maine. The snow-woman stood 122 feet 1 inch (37.21 m) in height, and was named in honor of Olympia Snowe, the senior Republican U.S. Senator representing Maine.^[3]

The previous record was also a snowman built in Bethel, Maine, in February 1999. The snowman was named "Angus, King of the Mountain" in honor of the then current governor of Maine, Angus King. It was 113 feet 7 inches (34.62 m) tall and weighed over 9,000,000 pounds (4,080,000 kg).^[4]

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  "Olympia Snow"

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  Front view

Unicode

A snowman symbol is included in the Unicode character set with code point U+2603. (☃)

Snowman themed things

Snowmen can also be a theme for toys, costumes, and decorations.

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  A stuffed toy snowman

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  Snowman inspired bronze sculpture

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  Children follow person in Snowman costume

Variations

"Snowman craters" on the asteroid 4 Vesta by the Dawn space probe, 2011.

In addition to snowmen, other things can produced with similar materials. Typical variations on the snowman concept include using raw-materials other than snow, or using similar materials but a new meme. See snow sculpture.

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  Snowrabbit

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  Desert "snowmen", Tohono Chul Park, Tucson, Arizona, USA

See also

• Snowzilla

References

Further reading

• Bob Eckstein, The History of the Snowman: From the Ice Age to the Flea Market (2007)
• Scottie Davis, "Snow Day, A Photographic Journal of the Best Snowmen" (2004)
• Sandy Kinnee, Lost Origins of the Snowman: Bloodless Sacrifice" 2012 http://www.blurb.com/books/3109857

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: snowman

• World Day of Snowman on January 18
• Today's Snowman
• Snowmen-collection Cornelius Graetz
• Live Snowman Webcam