Vologda paintings. Folk crafts of the Vologda region

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Vologda murals are a direction of decorative art of the peoples of the north of the country. Wood painting has been known in Russia for a long time, it developed everywhere, in all regions of a vast territory. The difference was in the technology of preparing the product for work, in the set of traditional ornaments, in the predominance of any colors. Only in the Vologda Oblast, more than ten types of murals are known, reflecting the uniqueness of the northern region and the specific places in which they appeared.

Vologda art painting

If you look at the map of the Vologda Oblast, there will be no settlements where this folk craft would not develop. Residents of the banks of the Northern Dvina, Sukhon, tributaries of the South and Luza, as well as the central and western regions of the Vologda province, decorated their homes, household utensils, furniture, tools, utensils with drawings peculiar only to their area. No one knows how many types of painting have been lost,but those that have been preserved are the values of the national culture.

The harsh land, rich in forest, demanded endurance from people and contributed to self-expression in the form of the development of crafts associated with the warmth of wood. First, artistic carving appeared, and the Vologda painting of wooden products appeared much later. She took the themes suggested by the earlier fishery and expanded them significantly, keeping the techniques and technologies of the area in her arsenal.

Painting technique

In folk art, there are two styles of drawing on a product: graphic and free-brush (brushed).

In the north, there are examples of graphic painting dating back to the 17th century. She decorated household items: spinning wheels, boxes, chests, ladles, painted plates. The technique is as follows: a clear outline of the drawing is applied to the product, which is then painted with two or three colors. Masters use tempera paints in their work. There are several local centers of folk crafts in the Vologda Oblast that work in this technique.

Free-brush, pictorial or stroke drawing appeared in the Russian North later, at the beginning of the 19th century. But he himself was far from new, his roots go back into the deep past. The execution technique differs radically from the graphic one. The artist does not apply a preliminary contour, he begins to paint on a “clean” product, immediately applying strokes of paint. At the same time, the hand moves freely, the boundaries of the image are somewhat blurred, and there is no symmetry. It turns outmore believable, "lifelike" drawing.

This technique often uses the technique of applying two paints to the brush at once: color and white. With one stroke, the master applies the main paint and immediately sets off, enhances its sound with whitewash. Free-brush painting in the Vologda region was most often found in the painting of large furniture or houses: on cornices, pediments, shutters.

Harovsky painting

In the Kharovsky district, free-brush technology with graphic animation and lightening is used for painting wooden products. Traditionally, the painting of this area depicted plant scenes and, oddly enough, lions. Local residents considered this beast a talisman for their homes. The lions in the drawings are very funny. They either look like dogs, or they look like cats, or they stand on their hind legs. People and birds were drawn less often. Background colors were dominated by brown, green, maroon. Paints for painting were used in brown, blue, green colors.

Painted items were found by members of a search expedition in the Kharovsky district. There are fewer of them left, and the task of artists trying to revive this craft is to save the found samples, study them and copy them.

Glubokovskaya painting

In the north-east of the Vologda region, in the remote village of Glubokovka, a painting was born, consisting of classical elements that are combined into an intricate pattern. In fact, there were several villages, but this one gave the name of the mural. Glubokoe painting is so rich in various elements that all of them are complex.transfer. More often than others, buds, curls, drops, brackets and many others are used. The early works were predominantly olive brown, the later ones were orange and red-brown.

Spinning wheels, cabinets, doors were painted with this painting. Modern masters with great skill reproduce the elements of painting on household utensils. A bread box in the Glukovo style will decorate any kitchen and cheer up the hostess. A calm bouquet of large curls is a traditional element of Glukovo painting.

Gayutinsky painting

A district of the Vologda Oblast, located in the southwest, borders on the Yaroslavl Oblast. This is where the graphic, bright, eye-catching painting was born. A small pattern of dots and petals, shoots and seeds creates a kind of tree or flower. The peculiarity of the Gayutinsky painting is in the symmetrical filling of the plane, as if a fragment is being stamped throughout the product. A lot of bright colors are involved in the creation of the painting: red, orange, green, gold. And all this beauty is superimposed on a red background. Experts believe that the constantly depicted fantastic plant is the World Tree, which connects the Earth and Sky and scatters the seeds of all plants. If so, then the ornament is reminiscent of our pagan roots.

Previously, this pattern was most often used to decorate spinning wheels - those that were made as a gift to a girl or woman. Modern Vologda artists decorate wooden plates, Easter eggs, s alt shakers and other souvenirs in this way.

Sheksna painting

Bright, elegant painting, suitable only for a holiday or decoration, belongs to the category of little-studied. It was created on the territory bordering the Yaroslavl and Novgorod provinces. On a bright red background, a gilded pattern prevails, which is why the inhabitants of the Sheksna district call it “gilded”.

The painting uses fantastic plants intertwined into a beautiful ornament. The plants have unprecedented flowers and berries, sometimes there are birds of paradise.

Sheksna painting resembles a golden Khokhloma, born in the Nizhny Novgorod region. How could a similar technique end up far in the north of the country? It turns out that the origins of the creation of both of these paintings were the ornaments of Russian icons and handwritten books. But the technology for performing artistic painting in these areas is different.

High importance painting

This painting refers to the free brush. The image of the picture, in this case a floral ribbon, looks a little blurry, very natural and voluminous. Plants have always predominated in the ornament: berries, flowers, leaves.

Vologda Khokhloma

This style was not known to our ancestors. Novelty is its hallmark. He was born at the end of the 20th century in a modern workshop. The art association "Nadezhda" rallied local like-minded artists. They studied and revived some types of Vologda murals and became interested in the art of the masters of the city of Semenov (“Golden Khokhloma”). Reproducing their manufacturing technologyproducts, they made some changes and got a very interesting result.

In the city of Semyonov, a layer of “ludka” is applied to the surface of the product - a solution containing tin. This gives the item a silver color. Next, a layer of drying oil is applied, and the product is sent to the oven. From the high temperature, the interaction of tin and drying oil takes place, and the color of the surface turns into gold. The main painting is being carried out on it.

And the northerners, having canceled the coating with drying oil, got a silver, frosty, Vologda shade at the exit from the furnace. This is how new products are born in the workshops of folk crafts in the Vologda region.

The experience accumulated by the masters has been passed from hand to hand for centuries. Thus, we can see today the preserved painting technique, as a result of the work of many generations. The continuity of traditions allows contemporary artists to work in the style created centuries ago by the masters of the Vologda region.

Thanks to their craftsmanship, the most ordinary object, painted with a colorful pattern, turns into a festive, elegant thing that reflects the identity of a particular area of the northern region. But all together they bear the name - "Vologda paintings".