Russian Folk Art

✍ Scribed by Alison Hilton

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 408
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

RUSSIAN Folk Art describes the traditions, styles, and functions of a broad range of objects made by Russian peasant artists for local use by specialized artisans for trade. Beginning with the settings in which artists traditionally worked— the peasant household, the village, and the local market— Alison Hilton discusses the principal media they employed (wood, textiles, birch bak, bone, metal, and ceramics) and the items they produced: kitchen utensils such as bowls, goblets, dippers, and molds; tools used in making clothing; lace, embroidered linens, costumes, and everyday clothing; toys; elaborate window frames and house decorations; colorful broadsides called lubki.

This remarkable survey emphasizes the cumulative originality inherent in Russian folk art. the balance between time-honored forms and techniques, and the creativity of individual artists. It show how pervasive images designs evolved from ancient Slavic sources, absorbed elements of church, court, and urban arts, reflected historical events and daily life, and helped to form a Russian esthetic identity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Finally, it examines the complex interaction between folk art and high culture: the role of serf artists, the preservation and reinterpretation of folk arty by scholars and professional artists, and the new roles of folk art in the Soviet era.

✦ Table of Contents

PART I: THE ARTS IN PEASANT LIFE
1. Tradition and Discovery
2. Village and Izba
3. Domestic Tasks and Tools
4. Specialization and Originality: Some Peasant Artists

PART II: MATERIALS AND FORMS
5. Wood and Carved Ornament
6. Painting on Wood
7. Textile Arts and Costume
8. Beyond the Village: Specialized Crafts and Urban Folk Art
9. Toys in All Media

PART III: DESIGNS AND THEIR MEANINGS
10. Amulet, Ornament, and Ritual
11. Transformation of the Slavic Legacy
12. Heraldic Beasts and Guardian Figures: The Evolution of Motifs
13. Scenes from Life and Forms from the Past

PART IV: PRESERVATION AND REVIVAL OF RUSSIAN FOLK ART
14. Serf Artists, Peasant Painters, and the Rise of Genre
15. National Art and Folk Art
16. Artistic Renewal
17. Folk Art and New Languages of Art
18. Reshaping Folk Art in the Soviet Era

Glossary
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

✦ Subjects

Искусство и искусствоведение;Декоративно-прикладное искусство;