When Christmas was prohibit

While Christmas is celebrated globally, throughout history, various nations and regions have banned Christmas celebrations for religious, political, or ideological reasons.

These bans ranged from 17th-century religious reformations to 20th-century state-sponsored atheism.

Even today, in 2025, there are nations that maintain strict bans or significant restrictions on Christmas celebrations.

A 1931 edition of the Soviet magazine Bezbozhnik, published by the League of Militant Atheists, depicting an Orthodox Christian priest being forbidden to take home a tree for the celebration of Christmastide, which was banned under the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of state atheism.

Helen Allingham RWS | Victorian era painter

Helen Allingham RWS (née Helen Mary Elizabeth Paterson; 26 September 1848 - 28 September 1926) was an British* watercolour painter and illustrator of the Victorian era.

Biography

Helen Mary Elizabeth Paterson was born at Swadlincote in Derbyshire, the daughter of Alexander Henry Paterson, a medical doctor, and Mary Herford Paterson.

Helen Paterson was the eldest of seven children. The family moved to Altrincham in Cheshire when she was one year old.

In 1862 her father and her 3-year-old sister Isabel died of diphtheria during an epidemic.

The family then moved to Birmingham, where some of Alexander Paterson's family lived.

Arthur John Elsley | Genre painter

Arthur John Elsley (20 November 1860 - 19 February 1952) was an English painter of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, famous for his idyllic genre scenes of playful children and their pets.

He achieved great popularity during his life and much of his work appeared in calendars, magazines and books.

Elsley was born in London, one of six children of John Elsley, coachman and amateur artist, and Emily Freer.

Elsley's father had exhibited at the British Institution Exhibition in 1845 but later in life contracted tuberculosis which forced him into early retirement.

Edward Robert Hughes | Pre-Raphaelite painter

Edward Robert Hughes RWS (1851-1914) was an British painter who worked prominently in watercolours.

He was influenced by his uncle, and eminent Pre-Raphaelite, Arthur Hughes.

Having settled on his career choice, Edward Hughes attended Heatherley's in London to prepare himself for the chance of auditioning for the Royal Academy School.

Hughes became a student at the Royal Academy School in 1868.

Lord Frederic Leighton | Cymon and Iphigenia, 1884

Cymon and Iphigenia is an oil on canvas painting by Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton PRA.

The painting does not bear a date but was first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 1884.

The Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, purchased it at a Christie's auction in London in 1976.

John Frederick Lewis | Orientalist painter

John Frederick Lewis RA (London, 1804-1876) was an British painter. He specialized in Oriental and Mediterranean scenes in exquisitely detailed watercolour or oils.

Lewis lived for several years in a traditional mansion in Cairo, and (after his return to England) painted highly detailed works showing both realistic Genre scenes of Middle Eastern life and more idealized scenes in upper class Egyptian interiors with no traces of Western cultural influence yet apparent.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema | The Roses of Heliogabalus, 1888

"The Roses of Heliogabalus" is an 1888 painting by the Dutch-born British artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912).

It is currently owned by the Spanish-Mexican billionaire businessman and art collector Juan Antonio Pérez Simón.

The painting measures 132.7 × 214.4 centimetres (52.2 × 84.4 in).

It shows a group of Roman diners at a banquet, being swamped by drifts of pink rose petals falling from a false ceiling above.

The Roman emperor Elagabalus reclines on a platform behind them, wearing a golden robe and a tiara, watching the spectacle with other garlanded guests.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema | Spring / Primavera, 1894

A procession of women and children descending marble stairs carry and wear brightly colored flowers. Cheering spectators fill the windows and roof of a classical building.

Dutch-born British Classicist painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) here represented the Victorian custom of sending children into the country to collect flowers on the morning of May 1, or May Day, but placed the scene in ancient Rome.

Peregrine Heathcote, 1973 | Academic Realism painter

Born in London, Peregrine Heathcote spent his childhood living in both Britain and Dubai where his imagination was free to flourish as he witnessed an international jet set culture.

Hence it is no surprise that the artist's imagery reflects a provocative Silver Screen theatrical quality.

In 1995, Peregrine Heathcote graduated from the Florence Academy of Art and since that time he has been profiled by the BBC in a documentary about his portraits resulting in international exposure.

Raymond Leech, 1949 | Impressionist painter

Raymond Leech was born at Great Yarmouth in East Angila and spent his childhood by the seaside.

He was influenced to take up an artistic career by his father, who taught him to draw.

In particular, he was inspired by the work of the Newlyn School, the french impressionists, Edgar Degas 1834-1917, Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1841-1919 and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 1864-1901.

Charles Conder | Symbolist / Impressionist painter

Charles Edward Conder (24 October 1868 - 9 February 1909) was an English-born painter, lithographer and designer.

He emigrated to Australia and was a key figure in the Heidelberg School, arguably the beginning of a distinctively Australian tradition in Western art.

Conder was born in Tottenham, Middlesex, the second son, of six children, of James Conder, civil engineer and Mary Ann Ayres.

Edward Moran | Marine painter

Edward Moran (1829-1901) was an British-born American artist who specialized in marine art.

He is arguably most famous for his series of 13 historical paintings of United States marine history.

Francesco Hayez / Shakespeare | The Kiss, 1859 / Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an

ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

Francesco Hayez | The Kiss, 1859 | Pinacoteca di Brera

Ken Howard (1932- 2022) | Impressionist painter

Ken Howard OBE RA was an British artist and painter. He was President of the New English Art Club from 1998-2003.

Life and art

Ken Howard was born in London. He studied at the Hornsey College of Art (1949-53) and the Royal College of Art (1955-58). In 1958 he won a British Council Scholarship to Florence.

Dorothea Sharp | Impressionist painter

Dorothea Sharp ROI RBA (1874-1955) was a British artist best known for her landscapes and naturalistic studies of children at play.

Life and career

Sharp was born in Dartford, Kent, and began her training aged 21, when, after inheriting £100 from an uncle, she attended the Richmond art school run by C. E. Johnson RI. She went on to study at the Regent Street Polytechnic, where her work was admired by George Clausen and David Murray.

Leonora Carrington | Surrealist painter

Leonora Carrington, (1917-2011), British-born Mexican Surrealist artist and writer, known for her haunting, autobiographical, somewhat inscrutable paintings that incorporate images of sorcery, metamorphosis, alchemy and the occult.

Carrington was raised in a wealthy Roman Catholic family on a large estate called Crookhey Hall.

La romantica Belle Époque di Peregrine Heathcote, 1973

Peregrine Heathcote è un pittore Britannico contemporaneo, noto per i suoi dipinti figurativi e narrativi che evocano un mondo di glamour ed intrigo, spesso ambientato nella Jazz Age o che richiama l'estetica dell'Art Déco.

Le opere di Heathcote fondono il design iconico del periodo prebellico con concezioni moderne di bellezza e romanticismo cinematografico.

I suoi dipinti ad olio, caratterizzati da colori intensi ed una luce dorata, ritraggono spesso figure eleganti, in particolare donne indipendenti e statuarie, accanto a treni d'epoca, automobili classiche od in contesti di viaggio di lusso.

William Blake | Pittore Simbolista / Romantico

Tigre! Tigre! divampante fulgore

Nelle foreste della notte,

Quale fu l'immortale mano o l'occhio

Ch'ebbe la forza di formare

La tua agghiacciante simmetria?

Amor non cerca di compiacer se stesso

Né per se stesso ha cura

Ma per un altro ogni favor rassegna

E il Cielo erige in un oscuro inferno.

Hamish Blakely, 1968 | Love letters to my wife

Like many great artists, British painter Hamish Blakely has a muse.

And it is none other than his wife Gail!

The artist explains: "We men folk have a lot to learn, and I have learned a great deal from her since we met.

My art celebrates that mystifying blend of feminine beauty and strength.

While loyal to that enduring genre of the celebrated figure and venerated goddess in art, I also explore the majesty of a woman's presence".

Neil Simone, 1947 | Visionary Surrealist painter

Neil Simone is a visionary surrealist artist whose paintings have a concept and style as distinctive as they are unique.

Neil has exhibited both original oil paintings and prints in many leading galleries around the world and recently had an exhibition celebrating 40 years as a professional artist.