Beautiful black lacquer trays painted with bright flowers. Folk crafts - an unfading branch Zhostovo trays
Beautiful black lacquer trays painted with bright flowers can be seen in almost every home in Russia. Previously, a samovar was placed on such a tray, later a teapot, but now it serves as a decorative decoration and is used for its intended purpose. Beautiful black lacquer trays painted with bright flowers can be seen in almost every home in Russia. Previously, a samovar was placed on such a tray, later a teapot, but now it serves as a decorative decoration and is used for its intended purpose.
What does a Zhostovo tray look like? A classic Zhostovo tray looks like this: it is black, there is a thin line along the edge, a barely noticeable gold patterned edging. And in the middle it seems to bloom with red, blue, white, yellow flowers, mixed with green leaves and herbs - an amazing bouquet.
The birthplace of Zhostovo trays The trays that are produced in the village of Zhostovo, not far from Moscow, are especially prized. This fishery was started 200 years ago by the Vishnyakov brothers. They founded a workshop where they began to paint metal trays using folk ornaments. Particularly prized are the trays that are produced in the village of Zhostovo, not far from Moscow. This fishery was started 200 years ago by the Vishnyakov brothers. They founded a workshop where they began to paint metal trays using folk ornaments.
The basic principle of Zhostovo writing was painted under the noses of the masters on a black, green and fawn background. Dense bouquets of flowers of varying sizes and leaves fill the center of the tray, while the edge is decorated with gold lace of small flowers and fine spiral lines.
Zhostovo trays Zhostovo trays are known almost all over the world. And no wonder. The bouquet decorating it fits perfectly into the shape of the object. It is simple and expressive. The ratio of large and small colors was found very accurately. And the rhythm of color spots and main lines literally fascinates the viewer. Zhostovo trays are known almost all over the world. And no wonder. The bouquet decorating it fits perfectly into the shape of the object. It is simple and expressive. The ratio of large and small colors was found very accurately. And the rhythm of color spots and main lines literally fascinates the viewer.
Zhostovo trays But the main thing is the flowers themselves, very similar to real ones and at the same time fabulous. Take a closer look, they seem to glow from within. This is probably how the Scarlet Flower shone in the depths of the Murom forests. But most importantly, the flowers themselves are very similar to real ones and at the same time fabulous. Take a closer look, they seem to glow from within. This is probably how the Scarlet Flower shone in the depths of the Murom forests.
Master class with step-by-step photos "Elements of Zhostovo painting"
Author of the work: Shakleina Irina Yuryevna, teacher of the MADOU TsRR d/s No. 110 Kaliningrad region, Kaliningrad city.This material will be useful for preschool teachers in introducing children of senior preschool age to Zhostovo painting, and for parents.
Target: introducing children to the features of Zhostovo craft painting.
Tasks:
- cultivate love and respect for folk craftsmen, pride in one’s people;
- highlight the means of artistic expression: elements of pattern, color, composition;
- consolidate the techniques of painting with a brush: with the end of the brush, with the entire brush, perform a double stroke when depicting buds, flowers and leaves;
Materials and tools:
- landscape sheets tinted with black (blue, green) gouache or ink, or black (blue, green) paper from the “Colored Paper” set, or cardboard (the shape of the paper depends on the shape of the trays - round, oval, rectangular );
- gouache;
- painting brushes (squirrel or kolinsky, No. 2, No. 4, 5);
- palette;
- a jar for water;
- a cloth for the brush;
- cotton buds.
Zhostovo painting is a Russian folk craft of artistic painting of forged metal (tin) trays, which has existed since 1825 in the village of Zhostovo, Mytishchi district, Moscow region. The tiny village of Zhostovo is famous throughout the world for its trays of magnificent flower bouquets. Together with Khokhloma and Gzhel, trays with floral patterns have become a real calling card of our country, embodying Russian folk crafts, and are recognizable far beyond the borders of Russia. According to their purpose, trays are divided into two groups: for household purposes (for samovars, for serving food) and as decoration .
Painting is usually done on a black background (sometimes on red, blue, green, silver), painting is carried out without transferring the design to the surface.
The main motif of the painting is a floral bouquet, in which large garden and small wildflowers, leaves, buds and stems alternate. The center of the bouquet are images of large flowers: poppy, rose, dahlia or aster. Wildflowers are introduced into the drawing as elements that complement and enrich the composition.
The bouquet can be placed in the center of the tray, in which case it is called a collected bouquet.
If flowers and leaves are located along the edges of the tray, they speak of a wreath.
Elements of Zhostovo painting are depicted in several stages:
- shading (the beginning and basis of the composition of the future pattern, i.e. silhouettes of flowers and leaves in accordance with your plan);
- tenezhka (the word “tenezhka” is consonant with the word “shadow”. Flowers have volume, the shady places of plants are indicated);
- laying (one of the most important stages of painting. The shape of the bouquet takes on flesh - many details are clarified, a contrasting or more harmonious structure of the entire composition is highlighted and realized);
- glare (overlapping highlights reveals light and volume. The bouquet seems illuminated. Glare creates mood and color).
- drawing (this is the final part of the work. Using a special thin brush, the artist applies small but very significant strokes - veins and lacy edges on the leaves, “seeds” in the center of the flower cups);
- binding (with the help of thin stems, blades of grass and tendrils, the bouquet is formed into a single whole and connected to the background).
- cleaning the edges of the tray (decoration of the side of the tray, consisting of geometric or floral patterns. Cleaning can be modest, or can compete with luxurious antique picture frames. Without cleaning, the product looks unfinished).
This is a very long and complex process.
Preschoolers are introduced to Zhostovo painting in the senior and preparatory groups. It is difficult for preschoolers to depict the entire process of step-by-step creation of a flower arrangement. I want to bring to your attention a lightweight option available for preschoolers, which I use in my work with older preschoolers.
To make the strokes beautiful and neat, round squirrel and core brushes are used in brush painting. If you don’t have these, then use a brush with a fine bristle tip for painting.
Progress of the master class:
Let's start with the image of large flowers.
He looks down on you -
You won't find a prouder flower.
He is the ruler of the autumn garden,
This is a bright colored... (dahlia).
This is what real dahlias look like, delighting our eyes with their beauty in the autumn garden.
Dahlias are luxurious plants with a long flowering period.
According to one legend, dahlias used to grow only in the royal garden and were protected like the apple of their eye. One day, a young gardener stole a flower and planted it under his beloved’s window. The gardener was thrown into prison, but the flower ceased to be a beautiful secret and became available to ordinary people.
According to another legend, the dahlia grew when the earth thawed after the Ice Age, on the site of the last extinct fire. Her appearance became a kind of symbol of the victory of life and the beginning of a new era.
Today there are thousands of varieties of dahlias and several types of their classification.
Before drawing dahlias with children, you can make a sketch of the future flower with a simple pencil in the form of a circle. We depict dahlias using the “double stroke” brush stroke technique. A double stroke helps convey both color and shade. We choose a color scheme for our future flower. For example, red-yellow. We dip the brush into yellow paint, remove excess paint on the edge of the jar, put red paint on the tip of the brush and apply strokes along the edge of our sketch in a certain sequence: top-bottom, right-left.
If the paint runs out, then we rinse the brush and add paint again: first - yellow paint, and red paint on the tip of the brush. We continue to draw the petals of our dahlia.
In the same sequence we fill the second row of petals.
Now, using light strokes, fill in the middle of the flower. This is such a handsome guy we have.
And this is a dahlia in a different color scheme.
Head on a leg
There are polka dots in my head.
The sun is burning the top of my head,
He wants to make a rattle (poppy).
A blooming poppy is a symbol of unprecedented beauty, unfading youth and feminine charm.
I propose the following sequence of poppy images.
A poppy bud can be depicted like this.
There is a curl in the garden -
White shirt,
Heart of gold.
What it is? (chamomile).
Chamomile is one of the most recognizable and dear flowers to our hearts. Wreaths are woven from it, it is collected into bouquets, girls use it to tell fortunes: “Loves or not,” and even look for answers to cherished questions: “Yes, no, it will definitely come true, it’s better not to do anything.” There are legends about many flowers, including the chamomile.
A long time ago, in a small lost village, there grew up a beautiful girl with blond hair, sky blue eyes and radiant sunny skin. The girl also had a lover - a young man Roman from the village next door. The couple spent all their time together, walking through forests and meadows, picking flowers and berries. One night, Roman had a strange dream - one sage gave him an amazing flower - with a yellow core and white petals around. In the morning, when Roman woke up, he saw the flower from his dream on his bed. In life the flower was even more beautiful than in the dream. Roman gave it to his beloved, who named the flower with a gentle name - Chamomile.
As the myth about the flower says, the lovers admired the beautiful daisy, and one day the girl asked Roman to return to the land of dreams to collect a huge bouquet of daisies and give it to people. Roman set off on a long journey, for several years he wandered through distant countries and, finally, at the very edge of the world he found the kingdom of sleep. The Tsar offered to give Roman a whole field of daisies in exchange for the fact that the young man would remain in his domain forever and would not return home. Roman agreed to do anything for the sake of his beloved and remained in the realm of dreams. The beautiful girl waited a long time for his return, and one morning near the house she discovered a field of beautiful daisies. She guessed that Roman was alive and loved her, but they could not be together. Since then, chamomile has been considered a symbol of lovers.
To depict the daisy, we again use the “double stroke” brush painting technique. We put white paint on the brush, and blue or light blue paint on the tip of the brush. The tip of the brush always points towards the center. We draw the petals in the following sequence: vertically top-bottom, horizontally right-left, strictly in the middle in the resulting gaps.
Now we will draw small flowers that help complement and enrich the composition.
Leaf - trefoil, like a fan,
Thin flexible stem
The red hat is a flower.
The juice in those flowers is sweet.
The bumblebee flies after him on... (clover).
The name trifolium means "having three leaves." Shamrock, Clover, Porridge. There are many legends around the shamrock clover, of course, the most famous legend is about the fourth leaf. Finding such a four-leaf clover is considered incredible luck.
The most famous clover myth tells that St. Patrick used three leaves on one stem to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity - the leaves represented God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It is also believed that with the help of a clover leaf, Patrick expelled all the snakes from the settlements where he was located. Indeed, it is believed that where clover grows, snakes never crawl. This is probably why the clover, or shamrock, is a symbol of Ireland.
To draw a clover flower, we need to mix paints - fuchsia and white. You will get a delicate shade. We draw a circle with a soft pink color, then with the tip of the brush we pick up fuchsia-colored paint and draw small strokes in a certain sequence (the first row of strokes is at the bottom of the flower, a little higher is the second row of strokes, and the last row is at the top of the flower). Using green paint using the “dipping” technique, we draw the petals of our clover (you can paint either three petals or four)
This flower is blue
Reminds you and me
About the sky - pure, pure,
And the radiant sun! (forget-me-nots).
There are various legends about the origin of forget-me-nots, often very similar to each other. They talk about the tears shed by brides when parting with their loved ones. These tears turn into blue flowers, like their eyes, and the girls give them to their lover as a souvenir... One legend about the forget-me-not says that the goddess Flora, when giving names to different plants, ignored the modest blue flower. As she was leaving, she heard this flower quietly say: “Don’t forget about me!” Flora saw the flower and named it forget-me-not, giving it the ability to bring back memories to people.
When depicting forget-me-nots, you can use cotton swabs.
Now we move on to the image of leaves and grass. Here you need to practice a little in scrolling the brush clockwise with your fingers. Scrolling can be done very small; by scrolling the brush, the leaves appear to be in motion, with slightly curved tips. To depict all the leaves, we also use the “double stroke” technique to convey color and shade. First, add green paint and yellow paint on the tip of the brush.
We depict these large long leaves with a zigzag stroke - the tip, the entire brush, the tip, scrolling the brush with your fingers.
To make it easier to draw the leaves of dahlias and roses, you can first draw an approximate outline of the leaf with a pencil. We always make the first stroke in the middle. This stroke is called “zigzag” - the tip, the whole brush, the tip. Then we sequentially fill the body of the leaflet. Write it down and insert the missing letters into the endings of the adjectives. indicate the spelling. 1. How fun it is to slide across the mirror with sharp iron on your feet
stagnant, level rivers! And the winter holidays, brilliant anxiety?... 2. The flying ridge of clouds is thinning; The sad star, the evening star, Your ray has silvered the withered plains, And the slumbering bay, and the dark peaks of the rocks 2.__________________________________________ Find and underline all the familiar spellings in the words. write down the words with the number 2, sort out the composition. For each, select and write down words with the same root, highlight the root. Write it down, insert the missing letters at the end of the adjectives. indicate the spelling. 1. How fun it is, shod with iron on your sharp legs, to slide along the mirror of standing, level rivers! And the brilliant worries of winter holidays?... 2. The flying ridge of clouds is thinning; A sad star, an evening star, Your ray has silvered the withered plains, And the slumbering bay, and dark rocks peaks 2._________________________________________ Find and underline all the familiar spellings in the words. Write down the words with the number 2, analyze the composition. Select and write down words with the same root for each, highlight the root
Write out from the text all the phrases in which the dependent words are nouns in the form T.p singular. or plural It was hot. Wewalked through pine forests. The bears screamed. It smelled of pine bark and strawberries. A hawk hung motionless over the tops of the pines. The forest was hot from the heat . We rested in the dense thickets of aspen and birch trees. There they breathed the smell of mud and roots. In the evening we went to the lake. The stars were shining in the sky. The ducks flew to roost for the night with a heavy whistle.
Write out two adjectives, five nouns and three verbs with unstressed vowels at the roots from the text, write test words next to them.
Write down the highlighted sentence. Underline the stem and write down the word combinations.
Write down the underlined word in its initial form and make a sound-letter analysis of it.
find adjectives in the text. Place parentheses next to them. Indicate number, gender and case in brackets. Insert the missing endings. Next to the highlighted words inIn brackets, write the words from the bases of which they are formed. Underline the alternations in the roots. Insert the necessary letters. Insert the missing spellings in all other words. It’s not for nothing that the winter... m messenger... is called sn... weight. The secret of the winter.. A FRIEND quietly... sang... out: “Soon the SNOW... will be out!” He really is out.
1. Write out two words with unstressed vowels from the text, write test words.2. Parse the last sentence according to the members of the sentence.
3. Write out two words from the text that cannot be hyphenated.
This bird is familiar to everyone. Crows have strong legs and a large beak. Their feathers are usually gray or black. Crows live everywhere: in forests, mountains, deserts. Many crows live in the mountains. Crows eat harmful insects and rodents.
<оранжевый>. Decide which of them you will indicate gender and case and which ones you will indicate only case. Break down the third sentence by members of the sentence.
Orange world
When Vovka woke up, the cabin shook less.
Vovka got out of bed and went to the window.
Behind the round ship's glass lay an unprecedented world.
Orange clouds floated across the orange sky; the orange sky blinked; the sky blinked in the rays of the morning sun; an orange shore rose from the sea.
Among the orange bushes, several houses could be seen passing them along the road in clouds of orange dust, a truck was running.
It was an orange world.
Unable to utter a word, Vovka moved to another window.
The magical world has disappeared.
The sky turned blue, the sea turned blue, the shore turned green and yellow.
Vovka rubbed his eyes, but nothing changed.
Then he returned to the first window and the world turned orange again.
Then Vovka looked closely at the glass and realized that the old thick glass was dull yellow.
Write out 10 words from the text with the spelling of unstressed vowels in the root, verifiable stress. Underline the spelling. Write the test words next to it.
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
Parse the highlighted word as a part of speech
Highlighted word (Behind the round one)
1._______________________
2._______________________
3._______________________
4._______________________
5._______________________
It would seem that there is no place left for artistic painting in the pragmatic 21st century, and it can now only be admired in museums. However, it is still Russia You can find thriving workshops that have preserved the ancient traditions of various artistic paintings and continue to amaze modern people with their skills.
Zhostovo
Origins Zhostovo painting date back to the early 19th century. At that time, in several neighboring villages of the former Troitskaya volost (now the Mytishchi district of the Moscow region), craft workshops arose that were engaged in the production of painted decorative items from papier-mâché, varnished. Artists painted boxes, cigarette cases, sugar bowls and metal trays. Gradually, the number of trays produced increased, thereby displacing other products.
The main motifs of the painting are flower bouquets. At the beginning of the 20th century, with the advent of Soviet power, the villages were united into the “Metal Tray” artel, and the masters had a hard time when new subjects for drawing were imposed on them, dictated by the then trends of realism. However, the artists managed to preserve their originality, and Zhostovo trays moved from the category of household items into decorative panels, which are valued not only in Russia, but also abroad.
Khokhloma
Khokhloma originated in the 17th century in the vicinity of Nizhny Novgorod. The name of the craft comes from the village of Khokhloma, where finished products were brought from nearby villages. The founders of this wood painting are called the Old Believers, who fled the new church way of life. It was they who owned the secrets of “golden” painting on dishes.
By the way, the basis of the painting is not golden, but silver tin powder. A special composition is applied on top of it, then it is subjected to heat treatment, and only then they begin to paint. The main motifs of Khokhloma are bunches of rowan berries, berries, leaves and flowers.
Gzhel
Gzhel called the calling card of Russia in the field of applied crafts. It is believed that Gzhel dates back to the 14th century. Some argue that the name comes from the Gzhelka River (Gzholka), on which stood the village where the craftsmen lived. Others believe that “Gzhel” is a paraphrase of the word “zhgel”, i.e. firing of ceramics. 60 km from Moscow there is the “Gzhel Bush”, which consists of 27 villages where they engage in firing and painting of ceramic products. They were painted with cobalt blue in two ways: overglaze and underglaze. First, the design was applied to wet clay, and then again to glaze. The Gzhel pottery industry flourished, because the rich used silverware, and the common people used coarse earthenware of various sizes. Over time, Gzhel became accessible to all segments of the population, but it did not lose its beauty and relevance.
Fedoskino
The village of Fedoskino (Moscow region) is famous for varnish painting. In the 18th century, near the village there was a Lukutinskaya factory producing lacquer visors for hats. Then she changed direction, and 80 civilian workers began painting products made of papier-mâché and wood with varnish. The amazing glow and shine of boxes and other miniatures was achieved by “through-writing.” This was the name of the technique when, before the actual drawing itself, a thin layer of gold leaf and mother-of-pearl was applied to the surface. The most popular subjects for drawing are related to the life of ordinary people.
Mezen painting
Like many other folk crafts, Mezen painting received its name from the area in which it developed - in this case, from the name of the Mezen River, located in the Arkhangelsk region. The technique in which the craftsmen work dates back to the ancient Slavic tribes. The main ornaments are rhombuses, crosses, solar disks, repeated in a certain sequence.
In Mezen wood painting, only two colors dominate - black (soot) and reddish (ochre). They mainly apply ornaments to household items: boxes, spinning wheels, ladles. After painting the utensils, drying oil is applied to it, which protects the design from erasing and gives it additional shine.
Many contemporary artists continue to practice ancient crafts, while adding something of their own. So the artist from Izhevsk
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Slide captions:
An unfading branch. Folk crafts of Russian culture.
Folk crafts are a living branch of Russian culture. Russia is not rich in any kind of crafts! They were made up of local crafts: in some cases - pottery, in others - carpentry, in others - carving or turning. By traditional methods of artistic processing of material, by developed techniques for sculpting and decorating dishes, by painting and decorating household utensils, one can immediately distinguish hand-made products that were born in one or another center of Russian crafts. Indeed, in each of the centers of folk art, craftsmen adhere to their own style, form, and manner of decorative solutions.
Neither heat nor cold Elegant golden tableware made of wood has been known since the 17th century as Khokhloma, or simply Khokhloma. This name comes from an ancient trading village near Nizhny Novgorod. Here spoons, bowls, jars, caskets, boxes, caskets, salt shakers, pepper shakers are made from linden... Can you really list everything beautiful and useful in everyday life that is born in the hands of Khokhloma craftsmen! They say that local craftsmen adopted the technique of making their dishes from ancient icon painters. They were the first to learn how to obtain a varnish surface with a golden hue by heating it in an oven. But before this, the workpiece is ground, dried and covered with a layer of liquid clay; then lubricate the surface with linseed oil, dry it again and apply four layers of drying oil over it over and over again. Then they dry it again, but not completely, so that the special metal powder (in ancient times - made of silver and tin, and later - aluminum) lays down and hardens better. The next stage is painting the product with a characteristic pattern of red and black in the form of intricate patterns and herbal designs. After which comes the turn of coating the dishes with varnish and hardening them in the oven. They say about Khokhloma that she is not afraid of either heat or cold. And this is true: even under the influence of boiling water and cold, the varnish does not come off, the colors are preserved, and after several years the wooden spoon or cup looks like new.
Gzhel Beautiful dishes began to be produced in the village of Gzhel near Moscow a long time ago. The clay here was very good for pottery. At first they made ordinary tableware, bricks and tiles from it, later “black” (simple) and “glazed” pottery, and from the second half of the 18th century in Gzhel they began to produce majolica - pottery made of baked clay, covered with glaze. Moreover, they started multi-color painting on the white glaze. And off we go! For almost two centuries there was no end to customers and buyers. But the original style, by which products from Gzhel are recognized today, was found only in the 20s of the 20th century. It was then that the artist Natalya Bessarabova used cobalt blue painting on semi-faience. And Gzhel began to play and revealed itself in all its glory. Since then, Gzhel porcelain has traditionally been decorated with elegant flowers, leaves, bouquets, and flower garlands painted in rich bright blue colors.
Gorodets Like Khokhloma, the Nizhny Novgorod village of Gorodets has been famous for its skillful wood carvings since time immemorial. Gorodets craftsmen, in addition to dishes and small household utensils, carved elegant porches, fancy shutters, platbands, balusters and other external decorations that enlivened the peasant house, made spinning wheels, cradles, rocking chairs, and furniture. They were also capable of building ships for the Russian sailing fleet. Under Peter I, Gorodets had one of the first shipyards in Russia, and the ships that came out of there were so beautiful, elegant, and richly decorated that you couldn’t take your eyes off them.
Zhostovo bouquet Beautiful black lacquer trays painted with bright flowers can be seen in almost every home in Russia. Previously, a samovar was placed on such a tray, later a teapot, but now it more often serves as a decorative decoration than for its intended purpose. Particularly prized are the trays that are produced in the village of Zhostovo, not far from Moscow. This fishery was started 200 years ago by the Vishnyakov brothers. They founded a workshop where they began to paint metal trays using folk ornaments. A classic Zhostovo tray looks like this: it is black, with a thin, barely noticeable gold patterned edging along the edge. And in the middle, an amazing Zhostovo bouquet seemed to bloom with red, blue, white, yellow flowers, interspersed with green leaves and herbs.
Lacquer miniature At the end of the 18th century, the merchant P.I. Korobov founded the production of varnish products. Since then, four main centers have emerged, where skilled and talented craftsmen successfully work with artistic varnishes. These are Fedoskino (35 km from Moscow), Palekh and Kholui in the Ivanovo region and Mstera in the Vladimir region. Having inherited the techniques of Russian icon painters-craftsmen, miniaturists paint boxes and caskets made of papier-mâché, brooches and pins, wooden cases and souvenir pencil cases with varnish... Each lacquer miniature is a work of art, a small and carefully executed painting with finely painted views of the Moscow Kremlin, scenes from village life, stories from fairy tales or Russian literary classics. On Palekh black-lacquer items, scarlet miracle troikas with golden manes jump and fantastic firebirds shine with dazzling plumage. The miniature of Mstera perfectly conveys the beauty of the native nature, a transparent, gentle, heart-touching landscape with a river bend, floodplain meadows and spreading elms along the shore. But no matter what the miniaturist artists depict, everything bears the stamp of cheerfulness and primordially Russian kindness.
Matryoshka In a Russian nursery rhyme it is sung: Girlfriends were walking along the path, There were a few of them: Two Matryoshkas, three Matryoshkas and another Matryoshka. Few people know that the seemingly typical Russian toy - the nesting doll - actually comes from Japan and appeared in Russia only at the end of the 19th century. The “father” of our nesting doll was the artist Sergei Malyutin, who took as a basis a figurine of a saint brought from the Land of the Rising Sun with a “surprise”: there was another one inside it. But the Russian version of the detachable toy, in addition to the fact that there were up to fifty small wooden beauties hidden in each other in elegant sundresses and colorful scarves, absorbed the tradition of painting wooden eggs for Easter. The technology for making nesting dolls is different everywhere. It differs in both techniques and painting depending on the place of fishing. But usually this toy is made from hardwood - mainly birch and linden.
Fun exhibits Children's favorite pastime is playing. It has long been a custom in Rus' to make all sorts of crafts for children to have fun with. These are skillfully carved wooden figures of people and animals, rag and straw dolls, clay whistles and, of course, the world-famous nesting dolls. In the ancient city of Sergiev Posad, not far from Moscow, there is a toy museum, where several thousand funny exhibits are collected. People with funny faces made of colored ceramics, horses and gurneys, brightly painted rattles, birch bark balls, patterned Easter eggs - you name it! And the material could be twigs and slivers, paper and papier-mâché, metal and glass, coarse fabric and thin lace, fur and multi-colored shreds... For example, “forester” dolls, widespread from Vyatka to Vologda, were made of wood, moss, cones and grass. It is no coincidence that the Toy Museum is located in Sergiev Posad. This city has been known as the “toy capital” of Russia since the 17th century. Funny wooden toys that were carved in the village of Bogorodskoye, not far from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, were called “rhyme games”. On market day, a peasant will go to the monastery auction and will certainly buy the children some interesting little thing made of wood: a horse, a rooster, a hare, or even a lion. Particularly great joy was brought by moving toys: bears in a forge, alternately hitting an anvil with a hammer, or dancing bears, who, when they were pulled by a string, moved their paws. Tops carved from wood were brought from the Sunday or holiday market. Perky rattles made of wood or bone were intended for infants: simple products in the shape of a ball or barrel, inside of which peas were poured. Bright toys made of painted clay in the form of figures of people and animals lift your spirits. Based on the place of manufacture - the settlement of Dymkovo, near Vyatka (now Kirov) - they are called that: Dymkovo.
Haze In the beginning there were whistles. All winter the women of Dymkovo sculpted them for the fair. From a small clay ball with holes, the whistle turned into a duck, a cockerel, or a skate. And so - on the trays and counters of a crowded fair they sell cheerful goods. Adults and children willingly take it apart. The whole area resounds with whistling. The folk festival is noisy. But the loudest sound is the loud whistling sound. That is why this spring holiday was nicknamed “Whistling”. Winter passes, and again in Dymkovo they get down to business. And so every year. For many, many years. One hundred. One hundred fifty. Or maybe even more. They have already come up with the idea of sculpting other toys from clay, not just whistles. Grandmothers passed on their skills to their granddaughters, and granddaughters to their granddaughters. This is how it has survived to this day. Now in the city of Kirov, in its center, there are art workshops for Dymkovo toys. Let's go there. Piles of clay. Bags of chalk. Boxes of paints, boxes of eggs. Milk. That's almost all that is needed to create a miracle that everyone admires when they see clay horses, fabulous firebird-like turkeys, little rams in pants, nannies and children, gentlemen and young ladies, water carriers, strange deer, a goat and seven kids . Or even trainers with dogs, a merry carousel. When you watch a craftswoman at work, everything seems simple. So she plucked a piece from the clay, rolled it out into a sausage, then she took more clay, spread it into a cake, then she rolled the cake into a funnel - it turned out to be a skirt. I attached a head and arms on top, bent the sausage with a rocker, and sculpted buckets. She put a tall kokoshnik on her head, attached a tiny nose and... set the figurine to dry. The water-carrier is standing and drying. And the craftswoman is sculpting a new water carrier. You look - it’s completely different: the kokoshnik is different, there’s an apron with frills on the skirt, and the rocker is not on two shoulders, but on one.
And before, toys were hardened in Russian ovens. They heated it with hot birch wood and put it in the oven. They come out of the oven hardened, strong, and sonorous. Then chalk is diluted in milk and the toys are whitened. And then it’s time to paint them. If you look at the pattern, it is unusually simple: circles, straight and wavy stripes, cells, spots, dots... but the colors are bright, bright: crimson, red, green, yellow, orange, blue. Each color seems to compete with the other. And that’s why it’s colorful and fun from such a round dance of colors! But it turns out that not everything is over yet. There is quite a tricky job ahead - “planting gold”. The leaves of gold are so thin that they are lighter than fluff, and when they “plant gold”, they close the windows from drafts so that the petals do not fly away. The craftswoman lightly touches the golden square with a brush dipped in a raw egg, brings it to the toy and places it in the right place: water bearers and ladies for kokoshniks and hats, roosters for combs, deer for antlers, magic trees for trunks and apples... And then the toys lit up and have finally become invisible. And you really can’t look at them enough. My soul becomes joyful and festive! And it’s all made of clay. And if you look at the clay, nothing grows on it except nettles...
Filimonovo The Tula village of Filimonovo has long been famous for its clay toys. There are few forests around Filimonov. But there are many ravines, and they are full of all kinds of clay: white, red, pink, black. From this clay they made various dishes and toys, but not simple ones, but only whistles for holidays: animals, birds, horses, young ladies, soldiers. The young ladies have bouquets of flowers or jugs in their hands, and whistles are hidden in them. And the soldiers keep geese under their arms, which you can also whistle at. And all the animals have very, very elongated necks, so the cows in Filimonov look like giraffes. And the bears look at the funny snakes - Gorynychs. And all the figures were painted and to this day are painted mainly with stripes: red - yellow - green, red - yellow - green. If you look, your eyes will dazzle and dazzle, as if from the sun. Now in Filimonov they don’t make pottery, they only make toys-whistles. The hands of Filimonov craftswomen are strong, warm and gentle. There are already a lot of clay wet water carriers drying on the bench. Waiting to be fired in the oven. Now the workshops have special firing furnaces.
Each toy, even when it was a lump of clay, probably already felt how they warmed it in their palms, how they then carefully kneaded it and warmed it, how they rolled it out, stretched it out, sculpted the figure’s body, head, legs... Then the figures were carried to the earthen ovens, which are located near the village in a ravine. They are placed row by row on birch logs. There is a lot of firewood, and it burns long and hard. The toys are heated in the oven, first red-hot, then white-hot. And when the firewood burns out and the toys cool down, it turns out that they have all become white and pink and hard as stone. And this is where the painting just begins. Not with a brush, but with a quill pen. Paint does not stick to clean clay from a brush, but paint from a goose feather does. Now in Filimonov they even make huge toys - the size of large - large dolls. They can not only be played with, but also used to decorate apartments. Because folk toys turned out to be the best decorations: you put them on any shelf and there’s a holiday all around.