Folk Russian popular print. Popular pictures: hen and cockerel In our time

Lubok is a special type of fine art with its characteristic figurative capacity. This is the so-called a folklore picture with a signature, a very special type of graphic art, characterized by simplicity of execution and laconicism.

The name comes from specially cut boards called lube (deck). On them back in the 15th century. wrote plans, drawings, drawings. Then the so-called “Fryazhsky sheets”, and later small paper pictures began to be called simply lubok (popular folk picture).

In Russia, folk pictures became widespread in the 17th-20th centuries. They were cheap (even low-income people could buy them) and often served as decoration.

Popular sheets performed the social and entertainment role of a newspaper or primer. They are the prototype modern calendars, posters, comics and posters.

Many already know about the deplorable situation in the field of education that reigned in the 17th-18th centuries. in Russia (see). Lubok, along with other goals, was called upon to perform an educational function, introducing illiterate sections of the population to reading.

Russian lubok differs from others in its consistency of composition, and, for example, Chinese or Indian lubok sheets - in their bright colors.

Lubok by Marina Rusanova.

Graphic arts

Splint- a type of graphics, an image with a caption, characterized by simplicity and accessibility of images. It was made using the techniques of woodcuts, copper engravings, lithographs and was supplemented with hand coloring.

Popular prints are characterized by simplicity of technique and laconism of visual means. Often the popular print contains a detailed narrative with explanatory inscriptions and additional (explanatory, complementary) images to the main one.

The most ancient popular prints are known in China. Until the 8th century, they were drawn by hand. Starting from the 8th century, the first popular prints made in wood engraving are known. Lubok appeared in Europe in the 15th century. Early European popular prints are characterized by the woodcut technique. Copper engraving and lithography are added later.

Due to its intelligibility and focus on the “broad masses,” the popular print was used as a means of propaganda (for example, “flying leaflets” during the Peasant War and the Reformation in Germany, popular prints during the French Revolution).

In Germany, factories for the production of pictures were located in Cologne, Munich, Neuruppin; in France - in the city of Troyes. In Europe, books and pictures with obscene content are widespread, for example, “Tableau de l'amur conjual” (Picture of Married Love). “Seductive and immoral pictures” were imported to Russia from France and Holland.

Russian lubok of the 18th century is distinguished by its consistent composition.

Eastern lubok (China, India) is distinguished by its bright colors.

At the end of the 19th century, lubok was revived in the form of comics.

In Russia of the 16th century - early 17th century, prints were sold that were called "Fryazh sheets", or “German amusing sheets”. In Russia, drawings were printed on specially sawn boards. The boards were called lube (where the deck comes from). Drawings, drawings, and plans have been written on luba since the 15th century. In the 17th century, painted bast boxes became widespread. Later, paper pictures were called lubok, lubok picture.

Initially, the subjects for popular prints were handwritten tales, life books, “fatherly writings,” and oral tales.

In the Russian state, the first popular prints (which existed as works of anonymous authors) were printed at the beginning of the 17th century in the printing house of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. The craftsmen hand-cut both the picture and the text on a smooth-planed, polished linden board, leaving the text and drawing lines convex. Next, using a special leather pillow - matzo - black paint was applied to the drawing from a mixture of burnt hay, soot and boiled linseed oil. A sheet of damp paper was placed on top of the board and the whole thing was pressed together into the press of the printing press. The resulting print was then hand-colored in one or more colors (this type of work, often assigned to women, was in some areas called “nose-daubing”—coloring based on contours).

The earliest popular print found in the East Slavic region is considered to be the icon of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary from 1614–1624.

In Moscow, the distribution of popular prints began from the royal court. In 1635, for the 7-year-old Tsarevich Alexei Mikhailovich, so-called “printed sheets” were purchased in the Vegetable Row on Red Square, after which the fashion for them came to the boyar mansions, and from there to the middle and lower strata of the townspeople, where the popular print gained recognition and popularity around the 1660s.

At the end of the 17th century, a Fryazhsky printing mill was installed in the Upper (Court) printing house for printing Fryazhian sheets. In 1680, craftsman Afanasy Zverev cut “all sorts of Fryazhian cuttings” on copper boards for the Tsar.

In 1674, Patriarch Joachim, in a special decree on people, “by cutting on boards, they print on paper sheets of holy icons images... which do not have the slightest resemblance to the original faces, but only cause reproach and dishonor”, he banned the production of popular print sheets “not for the veneration of images of saints, but for beauty”. At this he commanded “so that icons of saints are not printed on paper sheets and sold in rows”. However, by that time, not far from Red Square, on the corner of Sretenka and modern. On Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, the Pechatnaya Sloboda was already founded, where not only printers lived, but carvers of popular prints. The name of this craft even gave the name to one of the central streets of Moscow - Lubyanka, as well as the square adjacent to it. Later, the settlement areas of popular print craftsmen multiplied, and the Moscow region church, now located within the city, “Assumption in Pechatniki” retained the name of the production (as did “Trinity in Sheets” as part of the architectural ensemble of the Sretensky Monastery).

Among the artists who worked on the production of engraving bases for these popular prints were the famous masters of the Kiev-Lvov typographic school of the 17th century. – Pamva Berynda, Leonty Zemka, Vasily Koren, Hieromonk Elijah. Prints of their works were hand-colored in four colors: red, purple, yellow, green. Thematically, all the popular prints they created had a religious content, but biblical heroes were often depicted on them in Russian folk clothing (like Cain plowing the land on Vasily Koren’s popular print).

Gradually, among popular prints, in addition to religious subjects (scenes from the lives of saints and the Gospel), illustrations for Russian fairy tales, epics, translated chivalric romances(about Bova Korolevich, Eruslan Lazarevich), historical legends (about the founding of Moscow, about the Battle of Kulikovo).

Thanks to such printed “amusing sheets”, details of peasant labor and life of pre-Petrine times are now being reconstructed (“Old Agathon weaves bast shoes, and his wife Arina spins threads”), scenes of plowing, harvesting, logging, baking pancakes, rituals of the family cycle - births, weddings , funeral. Thanks to them, the history of everyday Russian life was filled with real images of household utensils and the furnishings of huts. Ethnographers still use these sources, restoring lost scripts for folk festivals, round dances, fair events, details and tools of rituals (for example, fortune telling). Some images of Russian popular prints of the 17th century. came into use for a long time, including the image of the “ladder of life”, on which each decade corresponds to a certain “step” (“The first step of this life is played in a carefree game...”).

At the same time, the obvious shortcomings of the early popular prints - the lack of spatial perspective, their naivety - were compensated for by the accuracy of the graphic silhouette, the balance of the composition, the laconicism and maximum simplicity of the image.

Peter I saw the popular print as a powerful means of propaganda. In 1711, he founded a special engraving chamber in St. Petersburg, where he gathered the best Russian draftsmen who had been trained by Western masters. In 1721, he issued a decree ordering supervision of the production of popular prints of royalty, with the requirement that popular prints should not be released from state control. From 1724, popular prints in St. Petersburg, by his decree, began to be printed from copper plates using the woodcut method. These were panoramas of the city, images of victorious battles, portraits of the king and his entourage. In Moscow, however, printing from wooden boards continued. Products were no longer sold only “on Spassky Bridge”, but also in all major “rows and on the streets”; popular prints were transported to many provincial cities.

A decree of March 20, 1721 prohibited the sale “on Spassky Bridge and in other places in Moscow, composed by people of different ranks... prints (sheets) printed arbitrarily, except for the printing house”. The Izugraphic Chamber was created in Moscow. The Chamber issued permission to print popular prints “unwillingly, except for the printing house.” Over time, this decree was no longer enforced. A large number of low-quality images of Saints have appeared. Therefore, by decree of October 18, 1744, it was ordered “to submit the drawings in advance to the diocesan bishops for approval”.

The decree of January 21, 1723 demanded “Imperial figures are skillfully painted by painters who have demonstrated good skill with all danger and diligent care.”. Therefore, in popular prints there are no images of reigning persons.

Initially, the subjects for popular prints were handwritten tales, life books, “fatherly writings,” oral tales, articles from translated newspapers (for example, “Chimes”), etc.

Thematically, St. Petersburg and Moscow popular prints began to differ noticeably. Those made in St. Petersburg resembled official prints, while those in Moscow were mocking and sometimes not very decent depictions of the adventures of silly heroes (Savoska, Paramoshka, Thomas and Erem), favorite folk festivals and amusements (Bear with a Goat, Daring Fellows - Glorious Fighters, Bear Hunter stabbing, Hare hunting). Such pictures entertained rather than edified or taught the viewer.

Variety of themes of Russian popular prints of the 18th century. continued to grow. An evangelical theme was added to them (for example, the Parable of the Prodigal Son), while the church authorities tried not to let the publication of such sheets out of their control. In 1744, the Holy Synod issued instructions on the need to carefully check all popular prints of religious content, which was the church’s reaction to the lack of control over the visual styles and subjects of popular prints. Thus, on one of them a repentant sinner was depicted at a coffin with a skeleton. The caption read “I cry and sob when I think about death!”, but the image was framed by a cheerful multi-colored wreath, leading the viewer to think not about the frailty of existence, but about its joy. On such popular prints, even demons were depicted as good-natured, like trained bears; they did not frighten, but rather made people laugh.

At the same time, in Moscow, deprived of the title of capital by Peter, anti-government popular prints began to spread. Among them are images of a cheeky cat with a huge mustache, similar in appearance to Tsar Peter, the Chukhon Baba Yaga - an allusion to the native of Chukhonia (Livonia or Estonia) Catherine I. Plot The Shemyakin court criticized judicial practice and red tape, which had not been overcome in the century after the introduction Cathedral Code (since 1649). Thus, the popular satirical popular print marked the beginning of Russian political caricature and visual satire.

From the first half of the 18th century. The existence of calendar (Bruce's calendar) began, with the second - biographical (Biography of the famous fabulist Aesop) popular prints.

In St. Petersburg they published in the form of popular prints geographic Maps, plans, drawings. In all cities and provinces, sheets of Moscow production, reproducing everyday and educational maxims on a love theme, were selling well ( Ah, black eye, kiss at least once, take the rich one, he will reproach. Take a good one, a lot of people will know it. If you take the smart one, he won’t let you say a word...). Elderly buyers preferred edifying pictures about the benefits of moral family life(I am obligated to take care of my wife and children during the rest period).

Humorous and satirical sheets with literary texts containing short stories or fairy tales. On them, the viewer could find something that had never happened in life: “a fireproof man,” “the peasant girl Marfa Kirillova, who stayed under the snow for 33 years and remained unharmed,” strange creatures with clawed paws, a snake tail and a human bearded face, allegedly “found in Spain on the banks of the Uler River on January 27, 1775.”

The “folk grotesque” is considered to be the incredible things and all sorts of miracles depicted on popular prints of that time. Thus, it was in popular prints that old women and elders, once inside the mill, turned into young women and brave men, wild animals hunted down hunters, children swaddled and cradled their parents. Popular print “shifters” are known - a bull that became a man and hung a butcher by the leg on a hook, and a horse that chases its rider. Among the “shifters” on the gender theme are lonely women looking for “nobody’s” men in the trees, who somehow ended up there; strong women who take men's pants, who fight with each other for gentlemen that no one gets.

Based on illustrations for translated adventure stories, song lyrics, aphoristic expressions, anecdotes, “oracle predictions” and interpretations of dream books in popular prints of the 18th century. one can judge the moral, moral and religious ideals of the people of that time. Russian popular prints condemned revelry, drunkenness, adultery, ill-gotten wealth, and praised the defenders of the Fatherland. In St. Petersburg, pictures with stories about remarkable events in the world were sold in large quantities. Thus, the whale caught in the White Sea, the miracle of the forest and the miracle of the sea repeated the reports of the newspaper “St. Petersburg Vedomosti”. During the years of successful battles Seven Years' War(1756–1763) pictures were created with images of domestic mounted and foot grenadiers, with portraits of famous commanders. Many popular prints with scenes of victorious battles appeared during the Russian-Turkish wars of 1768–1774 and 1787–1791. So the St. Petersburg lubok became a kind of illustrated newspaper for wide circles illiterate readers.

Epic heroes in popular prints were often depicted at the moment of their triumph over their opponent. Tsar Alexander the Great - during his victory over the Indian king Porus, Eruslan Lazarevich - who defeated the seven-headed dragon. Ilya of Muromets was depicted as having struck the Nightingale the Robber with an arrow, and Ilya resembled Tsar Peter I, and the Nightingale resembled the Swedish king Charles XII, who was crushed by him. Popular print series about a Russian soldier defeating all enemies were also very popular.

Wandering from workshop to workshop, the ideas and themes of popular prints acquired innovations while maintaining their originality. By the end of the 18th century, the main distinctive feature of popular print sheets had emerged - the inextricable unity of graphics and text. Sometimes the inscriptions began to be included in the composition of the drawing, making up part of it, more often they turned into the background, and sometimes they simply bordered the image. Typical for popular prints was the division of the plot into separate “frames” (similar to hagiographic “stamps” on ancient Russian icons), accompanied by corresponding text. Sometimes, as on icons, the text was located inside the stamps. Graphic monumentality of flat figures surrounded by lush decorative elements - grass, flowers and various small parts, forcing modern viewers recall the classic frescoes of Yaroslavl and Kostroma masters of the 17th century, lasted as the basis of the popular print style until the very end of the 18th century.

In 1822, the young Moscow scientist I. Snegirev began collecting and studying folk pictures, but when he offered his report on them to members of the Society of Russian Literature, they doubted whether they could be subject to scientific consideration “such a vulgar and vulgar subject as is left to the lot of the rabble”. A different title was proposed for the report on popular prints – On Common Folk Images. Evaluation of this type folk art turned out to be quite gloomy: “The bruise of a popular print is rude and even ugly, but the commoner has become accustomed to it, as with the usual cut of his gray caftan or with a fur coat made from homemade sheepskin.”. However, Snegirev had followers, among them was D.A. Rovinsky, who became the largest collector of popular prints and then donated his collection to the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow.

Thematically, criticism of rich, greedy, vain people began to occupy an increasingly significant place in popular literature. New meaning the sheets known since the 18th century, The Frantic and the Corrupt Frantic, The Briber-Usurer, The Rich Man's Dream, were acquired. Lubki graphically criticized officials, landowners, and representatives of the clergy (petition of the Kalyazin monks).

In 1822, police censorship was introduced for the printing of popular prints. Some popular prints were banned and the boards were destroyed. In 1826, by censorship regulations, all prints (and not just popular prints) were subject to review by censorship.

In 1839, during the period of strict censorship regulations (called “cast iron” by contemporaries), popular print publications were also subject to censorship. However, the government’s attempts to stop their production did not bring any results, among them was the order of the Moscow authorities in 1851 to transfer all the copper boards in the “old capital” to bells. When it became clear to the authorities that it was impossible to ban the development of this form of folk art, a struggle began to turn lubok into an instrument of exclusively state and church propaganda. At the same time, the schismatic (Old Believer) lubok was banned by Nicholas I in 1855, and the monasteries themselves on Vyg and Lex were closed by the same decree. Lubok editions of short lives of Russian saints, paper icons, views of monasteries, Gospels in pictures began to be printed on a single basis approved by the church authorities and were distributed free of charge among the people “to strengthen the faith.”

In the last third of the 19th century, when chromolithography (printing in several colors) appeared, which further reduced the cost of popular print production, strict censorship control was established over each picture. The new popular print began to focus on official art and the themes it posed. The true, old popular print as a type of fine folk art has almost ceased to exist.

Popular sheets as independent graphic works ceased to be produced in Russia in 1918, when all printing became state-owned and came under unified ideological control. However, the genre of lubok, that is, sheets with pictures that were understandable to the common people, influenced the work of many Soviet artists. His influence can be found in the ROSTA Windows posters of the 1920s, which went down in the history of world fine art. It was this influence that made popular the early Soviet posters, made in the spirit of popular prints - “Capital” by V.I. Denis (1919), which criticized the imperialist oligarchy, as well as “Have you signed up as a volunteer?” and “Wrangel is still alive” by D.S. Moore, calling for the defense of the Fatherland. Mayakovsky and M. Cheremnykh specifically looked for opportunities to enhance the artistic expressiveness of these “Soviet lubok” (Soviet propaganda art). Images of popular print sheets were used in the poetic works of Demyan Bedny, S. Yesenin, S. Gorodetsky.

During the Great Patriotic War, lubok as a type of folk graphics was again used by the Kukryniksy. Evil caricatures of fascist leaders (Hitler, Goebbels) were accompanied by texts of poignant front-line ditties that ridiculed “the sideways Hitler” and his henchmen.

Types of splints

Spiritual and religious- In the Byzantine style. Icon type images. Lives of saints, parables, moral teachings, songs, etc.
Philosophical- about the existence of life, relationships between people, about the nature of things, about the universe, etc.
Legal- images of trials and judicial actions, sentences, torture, executions, etc.
Historical- “Touching stories” from the chronicles. Image of historical events, battles, cities. Topographic maps.
Fabulous- fairy tales of magic, heroic tales, “Tales of Daring People”, everyday tales.
Holidays- holiday pictures, images of saints.
Joker- funny popular prints, satires, caricatures, babbles.
Secret, dirty- about love pleasures, perversion, sodomy, dissent and other depravity.

Technology for making splints

Engravers were called “Fryazhian carving masters” (in contrast to Russian “ordinary” woodcarvers). In Moscow at the end of the 16th century, the first engraver was supposedly Andronik Timofeev Nevezha.

Signing was called drawing and painting. Around the 16th (or 17th) century, marking was divided into marking and engraving. The flag bearer drew the design, and the engraver cut it out on a board or metal.

Copying boards was called translation. The boards were initially linden, then maple, pear and palm.

The lubok was made in the following way: the artist drew a pencil drawing on a linden board (lubok), then, using this drawing, used a knife to make indentations in those places that should remain white. A board smeared with paint under a press left black outlines of the picture on the paper. Printed in this way on cheap gray paper were called simple paintings. The simpletons were taken to special artels. In the 19th century, in villages near Moscow and Vladimir, there were special artels that were engaged in coloring popular prints. Women and children were busy painting popular prints. Later, a more advanced method of producing popular prints appeared, and engravers appeared. Using a thin cutter on copper plates, they engraved the design with hatching, with all the small details, which was impossible to do on a linden board. The method of coloring the paintings remained the same. The artel workers accepted orders from popular publishers to color hundreds of thousands of copies. One person painted up to one thousand popular prints per week - they paid one ruble for such work. The profession was called florist. The profession disappeared after the advent of lithographic machines.

It got its name from the bast (the upper hard wood of the linden tree), which was used in the 17th century. as an engraving base for boards when printing such pictures. In the 18th century bast replaced copper boards in the 19th and 20th centuries. These pictures were already produced using the printing method, but their name “popular prints” was retained for them. This type of simple and crude art for mass consumption became widespread in Russia in the 17th – early 20th centuries, even giving rise to popular popular literature. Such literature fulfilled its social function, introducing reading to the poorest and least educated segments of the population.

Formerly works of folk art, initially made exclusively by non-professionals, lubok influenced the emergence of works of professional graphics of the early 20th century, which were distinguished by a special visual language and borrowed folklore techniques and images.

Lubki have always been affordable even for the most insolvent buyers; they were distinguished by the intelligibility of texts and visuals, the brightness of colors and the complementarity of images and explanations.

The artistic features of popular prints are syncretism, boldness in the choice of techniques (up to the grotesque and deliberate deformation of the depicted), highlighting thematically the main thing with a larger image (this is similar to children's drawings). From popular prints, which were for ordinary townspeople and rural residents of the 17th – early 20th centuries. modern home posters, colorful desk calendars, posters, comics, and many works of modern mass culture (even the art of cinema) trace their history back to newspapers, television, icons, and primers.

As a genre that combines graphics and literary elements, lubok were not a purely Russian phenomenon.

The oldest pictures of this kind existed in China, Turkey, Japan, and India. In China they were originally performed by hand, and from the 8th century. engraved on wood, distinguished at the same time by their bright colors and catchiness.

European popular prints have been known since the 15th century. The main methods of producing pictures in European countries were woodcut or copper engraving (from the 17th century) and lithography (19th century). The appearance of lubok in European countries was associated with the production of paper icons, distributed at fairs and places of pilgrimage. Early European lubok had exclusively religious content. With the beginning of the New Age, it was quickly lost, retaining the connotation of visual and moralizing entertainment. From the 17th century popular prints were ubiquitous in Europe. In Holland they were called “Centsprenten”, in France – “Canards”, in Spain – “Pliegos”, in Germany – “Bilderbogen” (closest to the Russian version). They commented on the events of the Reformation of the 16th century, wars and revolutions in the Netherlands in the 17th century, in the 18th and early 19th centuries. - all the French revolutions and Napoleonic wars.

Russian popular prints from the 17th century.

In the Russian state, the first popular prints (which existed as works of anonymous authors) were published at the beginning of the 17th century. in the printing house of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. The craftsmen hand-cut both the picture and the text on a smooth-planed, polished linden board, leaving the text and drawing lines convex. Next, using a special leather pillow - matzo - black paint was applied to the drawing from a mixture of burnt hay, soot and boiled linseed oil. A sheet of damp paper was placed on top of the board and the whole thing was pressed together into the press of the printing press. The resulting print was then hand-colored in one or more colors (this type of work, often assigned to women, was in some areas called “nose-daubing”—coloring based on contours).

The earliest popular print found in the East Slavic region is considered to be the icon of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary from 1614–1624, the first Moscow popular print now preserved in collections from the late 17th century.

Among the main genres of popular prints, at first there was only the religious one. In the wake of the beginning of the split of the Russian Orthodox Church into Old Believers and Nikonians, both opposing sides began to print their own sheets and their own paper icons. Images of saints on paper sheets were sold in abundance at the Spassky Gate of the Kremlin and in the Vegetable Row of the Moscow market. In 1674, Patriarch Joachim, in a special decree about people who “by cutting on boards, print sheets of holy icons on paper... which do not have the slightest resemblance to the original faces, only cause reproach and dishonor,” prohibited the production of popular print sheets “not for veneration images of saints, but for beauty.” At the same time, he commanded “that icons of saints should not be printed on paper sheets or sold in rows.” However, by that time, not far from Red Square, on the corner of Sretenka and modern. On Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, the Pechatnaya Sloboda was already founded, where not only printers lived, but carvers of popular prints. The name of this craft even gave the name to one of the central streets of Moscow - Lubyanka, as well as the square adjacent to it. Later, the settlement areas of popular print craftsmen multiplied, and the Moscow region church, now located within the city, “Assumption in Pechatniki” retained the name of the production (as did “Trinity in Sheets” as part of the architectural ensemble of the Sretensky Monastery).

Gradually, among popular prints, in addition to religious subjects (scenes from the lives of saints and the Gospel), illustrations for Russian fairy tales, epics, translated knightly novels (about Bova Korolevich, Eruslan Lazarevich), and historical tales (about the founding of Moscow, the Battle of Kulikovo) appeared.

Russian popular prints of the 18th century.

Thematically, St. Petersburg and Moscow popular prints began to differ noticeably. Those made in St. Petersburg resembled official prints, while those in Moscow were mocking and sometimes not very decent depictions of the adventures of silly heroes (Savoska, Paramoshka, Foma and Erem), favorite folk festivals and amusements ( Bear with goat, Daring fellows are glorious fighters, Bear hunter stabs, Hares hunting). Such pictures entertained rather than edified or taught the viewer.

Variety of themes of Russian popular prints of the 18th century. continued to grow. To these were added an evangelical theme (e.g. Parable of the Prodigal Son) at the same time, church authorities tried not to let the publication of such sheets out of their control. In 1744, the Holy Synod issued instructions on the need to carefully check all popular prints of religious content, which was the church’s reaction to the lack of control over the visual styles and subjects of popular prints. Thus, on one of them a repentant sinner was depicted at a coffin with a skeleton. The caption read “I cry and sob when I think about death!”, but the image was framed by a cheerful multi-colored wreath, leading the viewer to think not about the frailty of existence, but about its joy. On such popular prints, even demons were depicted as good-natured, like trained bears; they did not frighten, but rather made people laugh.

At the same time, in Moscow, deprived of the title of capital by Peter, anti-government popular prints began to spread. Among them are images of a cheeky cat with a huge mustache, similar in appearance to Tsar Peter, the Chukhon Baba Yaga - an allusion to the native of Chukhonia (Livonia or Estonia) Catherine I. Plot Shemyakin court criticized judicial practice and red tape, which were never overcome in the century after the introduction of the Council Code (since 1649). Thus, the popular satirical popular print marked the beginning of Russian political caricature and visual satire.

From the first half of the 18th century. the existence of calendar calendars began (Bryusov calendar), from the second - biographical calendars ( Biography of the famous fabulist Aesop) lubkov.

In St. Petersburg, geographical maps, plans, and drawings were published in the form of popular prints. In all cities and provinces, sheets of Moscow production, reproducing everyday and educational maxims on a love theme, were selling well ( Ah, black eye, kiss me at least once, If you take a rich person, he will reproach you. Take a good one, a lot of people will know it. If you take the smart one, he won’t let you say a word...). Elderly buyers preferred edifying pictures about the benefits of a moral family life ( I am obligated to take care of my wife and children without rest).

Humorous and satirical sheets with literary texts containing short stories or fairy tales have gained real popularity. On them, the viewer could find something that had never happened in life: “a fireproof man,” “the peasant girl Marfa Kirillova, who stayed under the snow for 33 years and remained unharmed,” strange creatures with clawed paws, a snake tail and a human bearded face, allegedly “found in Spain on the banks of the Uler River on January 27, 1775.”

Based on illustrations for translated adventure stories, song lyrics, aphoristic expressions, anecdotes, “oracle predictions” and interpretations of dream books in popular prints of the 18th century. one can judge the moral, moral and religious ideals of the people of that time. Russian popular prints condemned revelry, drunkenness, adultery, ill-gotten wealth, and praised the defenders of the Fatherland. In St. Petersburg, pictures with stories about remarkable events in the world were sold in large quantities. So, Whale caught in the White Sea, Miracle of the forest and miracle of the sea repeated reports from the St. Petersburg Vedomosti newspaper. During the successful battles of the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), pictures were created with images of domestic mounted and foot grenadiers, with portraits of famous commanders. Many popular prints with scenes of victorious battles appeared during the Russian-Turkish wars of 1768–1774 and 1787–1791. Thus, the St. Petersburg lubok became a kind of illustrated newspaper for a wide circle of illiterate readers.

Wandering from workshop to workshop, the ideas and themes of popular prints acquired innovations while maintaining their originality. By the end of the 18th century, the main distinctive feature of popular print sheets had emerged - the inextricable unity of graphics and text. Sometimes the inscriptions began to be included in the composition of the drawing, making up part of it, more often they turned into the background, and sometimes they simply bordered the image. Typical for popular prints was the division of the plot into separate “frames” (similar to hagiographic “stamps” on ancient Russian icons), accompanied by corresponding text. Sometimes, as on icons, the text was located inside the stamps. The graphic monumentality of flat figures surrounded by lush decorative elements - grass, flowers and various small details, forcing modern viewers to recall the classic frescoes of Yaroslavl and Kostroma masters of the 17th century, lasted as the basis of the popular print style until the very end of the 18th century.

At the turn of the 18th–19th centuries. In the production of popular prints, a transition began from woodcuts to metal or lithography (printing from stone). Single-color, and then multi-color pictures began to be colored using a typographic method. A decorative unity of composition and coloring emerged while maintaining independence from the techniques of professional graphics. Stable color attributes have been developed in the most popular images (yellow Kazan Cat, blue mice in a splint with the burial of the Cat, multi-colored fish in Stories about Ersha Ershovich). New techniques of expressiveness appeared in the rendering of clouds, sea waves, tree foliage, grass, folds of clothing, wrinkles and facial features, which began to be drawn with great care.

At the same time, Old Believers in remote monasteries on the Vyg and Lexa rivers in Karelia mastered their technique for producing and reproducing popular prints. They transferred the original approved by the spiritual fathers onto thick paper, then pricked many holes along the contour of the drawing with a needle. New sheets were placed under the needles, and the master patted it with a bag of coal dust. Dust penetrated through the holes onto a blank sheet, and the artist could only trace the resulting strokes and dashes in order to then carefully color the picture. This method was called “gunpowder”.

Russian popular prints of the 19th century.

In the 19th century Lubok further strengthened its role as an “illustration of Russian reality.” During the Patriotic War of 1812, many patriotic popular prints with drawings and signatures were published. Under the influence of stable techniques for depicting folk amusing sheets, during the years of that war, original imitations of folk popular prints appeared, made by professional artists in the popular print style. Among them are etchings by I.I. Terebenev, A.G. Venetsianov, I.A. Ivanov, depicting the expulsion of Napoleon’s troops from Russia. Realistic images Russian warriors and peasant partisans coexisted with fantastic, grotesque images of the French grenadier invaders. The parallel existence of the author’s etchings “under the popular print” and the actual folk, anonymous popular prints began.

In the 1810s, publishers no longer needed more than two weeks to quickly respond to incidents and offer customers hand-colored lithographs “on the topic of the day.” Production remained inexpensive: the cost of 100 printed sheets was 55 kopecks. Some of the sheets were printed large - 34 × 30 or 35 × 58 cm; among them the most common were painted portraits fairy-tale heroes- Eruslan, Guidon, Bova Korolevich, Saltan. Among the people, the sheets were distributed by itinerant traders (offens, peddlers), who carried them around the villages in bast boxes; in cities, sheets could be found at markets, auctions, and fairs. Teaching and entertaining, they were in constant and undiminished demand. They decorated huts, increasingly placing them next to icons - in the red corner or simply hanging them on the walls.

In 1822, the young Moscow scientist I. Snegirev began collecting and studying folk pictures, but when he offered his report on them to the members of the Society of Russian Literature, they doubted whether “such a vulgar and commonplace subject as is left to the lot of the rabble” could be subject to scientific consideration. A different name was proposed for the report on popular prints - . The assessment of this type of folk art turned out to be very gloomy: “The bruise of a popular print is rude and even ugly, but the common people got used to it, as with the usual cut of their gray caftan or with a fur coat made from homemade sheepskin.” However, Snegirev had followers, among them was D.A. Rovinsky, who became the largest collector of popular prints and then donated his collection to the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow.

Thematically, criticism of rich, greedy, vain people began to occupy an increasingly significant place in popular literature. Well-known ones from the 18th century acquired new meaning. sheets A dandy and a corrupt dandy, Bribe-taker-loan shark, A Rich Man's Dream. Lubki graphically criticized officials, landowners, and representatives of the clergy ( Petition of the Kalyazin monks).

The number of lithographers producing popular prints in Russia grew steadily. The lithographic workshop of the publisher I. Golyshev, founded in 1858, alone produced up to 500 thousand prints per year. However, the development of mass production of these pictures affected their quality, coloring, and led to the loss of individuality in the visual manner and content. At the same time, in the mid-19th century, not only the parables of A.P. Sumarokov and illustrations for the fables of I.A. Krylov, but also the fairy tales of V.A. Levshin, the stories of N.M. Karamzin, began to be printed in the form of popular prints. short works A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, A.V. Koltsov, N.V. Gogol. Often altered and distorted, losing the name of the author, due to their huge circulation and enduring popularity, they brought huge profits to publishers. It was then that the art of lubok began to be treated as pseudo-art, kitsch.

Sometimes the author's works received in popular prints not only a unique graphic interpretation, but also a plot continuation. These are the popular prints Borodino to poems by Lermontov, In the evening, in stormy autumn based on Pushkin's poems, published under the title Romance, illustrations for the plots of Koltsov’s songs.

Since 1860, popular print sheets have become an indispensable attribute of the interior of the house of an educated peasant. They formed the concept of a “mass reader”, which arose, as one of the researchers wrote in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, from “nunnies, mothers and nurses.” Performing, in the words of publisher I.D. Sytin, the role of “newspapers, books, schools,” popular print sheets increasingly became the first primers from which peasant children learned to read and write. At the same time, the counterfeits “to resemble the nationality” in some printed popular prints aroused the indignation of literary critics (V.G. Belinsky, N.G. Chernyshevsky), who reproached the publishers for bad taste and unwillingness to develop and improve people’s worldviews. But since popular prints were sometimes the only reading available to peasants, N.A. Nekrasov dreamed of that time:

When a man is not Blucher,

And not My Lord's foolishness,

Belinsky and Gogol

It will carry from the market...

Blücher and Milord Georg, mentioned by the poet, were heroes of popular prints that existed from the end of the 18th century. Western European themes of such “sheets for the people” easily turned into Russian ones. Thus, the French legend about Gargantua (which in France formed the basis of the book by F. Rabelais) turned in Rus' into popular prints about Have a nice meal and have a merry dip. The leaf was also very popular Money Devil- criticism of the universal (it turned out: Western) admiration for the power of gold.

Russian popular print in the 20th century. and its transformation.

Many masters of brushes and words in Russia looked for their sources of inspiration in popular prints, their clarity and popularity. I.E. Repin encouraged his students to learn this. Elements of popular prints can be found in the works of V.M. Vasnetsov, B.M. Kustodiev, and a number of other artists of the early 20th century.

Meanwhile, folk pictures continued to sell out at auctions across the country. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, during the Boer War, the famous popular print hero Obedala was depicted as a Boer giant who had eaten too much of the British. In 1904, with the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, the same Obedala was already depicted as a Russian soldier-hero devouring Japanese soldiers.

TO popular popular print Illustrators of satirical magazines also applied during the First Russian Revolution of 1905–1907.

The artistic experience of the people, their sense of beauty and proportion had a significant influence on famous artists Mikhail Larionov and Natalya Goncharova. It was they who organized the first exhibition of popular prints in Russia in 1913.

In August 1914, avant-garde artists K. Malevich, A. Lentulov, V. V. Mayakovsky, D. D. Burliuk created the group “Today's Lubok”, which revived the ancient traditions of battle lubok of the 19th century. This group released, using the tradition of primitive popular prints, a series of 22 sheets on military subjects. In them, the patriotic enthusiasm of the beginning of the First World War combined the specifics of a naive and primitive artistic language with the individual style of each artist. Poetic texts for the sheets were written by Mayakovsky, who sought inspiration in the ancient traditions of rhyming:

Eh, you German, at the same time!
You won't be able to eat in Paris!
And, brother, wedge wedge:
You're going to Paris - and we're going to Berlin!

The mass-produced popular prints of Sytin's printing house at that time praised the exploits of the fictional daredevil - the Russian soldier Kozma Kryuchkov.

Popular sheets as independent graphic works ceased to be produced in Russia in 1918, when all printing became state-owned and came under unified ideological control. However, the genre of lubok, that is, sheets with pictures that were understandable to the common people, influenced the work of many Soviet artists. His influence can be found in the ROSTA Windows posters of the 1920s, which went down in the history of world fine art. It was this influence that made early Soviet posters, made in the popular print style, popular - Capital V.I. Denis (1919), who criticized the imperialist oligarchy, as well as Are you among the volunteers? And Wrangel is still alive D.S. Moore, who called for the defense of the Fatherland. Mayakovsky and M. Cheremnykh specifically looked for opportunities to enhance the artistic expressiveness of these “Soviet lubok” (Soviet propaganda art). Images of popular print sheets were used in the poetic works of Demyan Bedny, S. Yesenin, S. Gorodetsky.

The works of Russian avant-garde and constructivist artists have in common with the traditional Russian lubok the laconic means of expression, monumentality and thoughtfulness of the composition. His influence is especially obvious in the works of I. Bilibin, M. Larionov, N. Goncharova, P. Filonov, V. Lebedev, V. Kandinsky, K. Malevich, and later V. Favorsky, N. Radlov, A. Radakov.

During the years of Khrushchev’s “thaw” (late 1950s - early 1960s), exhibitions of popular prints were organized in Moscow, which brought together the best examples from the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin, Literary Museum, Russian National Library. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in St. Petersburg, Russian State Library in Moscow. From this time on, a systematic scientific study of popular prints began in Soviet art history.

During the years of the so-called “stagnation” (1965–1980), artist T.A. Mavrina used popular print techniques to illustrate children’s books. Later, during “perestroika,” attempts were made to launch children’s comics on the spreads of the magazines “Krokodil” and “Murzilka” in the spirit of traditional popular prints, but they did not gain popularity.

IN modern Russia beginning of the 21st century Attempts have been made repeatedly to revive the lost traditions of producing popular prints. Among the successful attempts and authors is V. Penzin, the founder of a new popular print workshop in Moscow. According to many artists and publishers in Russia, lubok is national, original, and has no equal in its number and richness of subjects, versatility and liveliness of responses to events. His elegant, colorful sheets with edifying, educational or humorous text entered popular life, existing in Russia much longer than in Europe, competing with and interacting with professional graphics and literature.

Old popular prints are now stored in the Department of Prints of the Russian State Library as part of the collections of D.A. Rovinsky (40 thick folders), V.I. Dal, A.V. Olsufiev, M.P. Pogodin, as well as in the Russian State Archive of Ancients acts and the Engraving Cabinet of the Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin.

Lev Pushkarev, Natalia Pushkareva

Literature:

Snegirev I. About common people's images. – Proceedings of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature at Moscow University, part 4. M., 1824
Rovinsky D.A. Russian folk pictures, vol. 1–5. St. Petersburg, 1881
Ivanov E.P. Russian folk popular print. M., 1937
Russian popular print of the 17th–19th centuries. M. – L., 1962
Lubok: Russian folk pictures of the 17th–18th centuries. M., 1968
Russian popular print. M., 1970
Drenov N.A. From lubok to cinema, the role of lubok in the formation of mass culture in the 20th century. – Traditional culture. 2001, № 2

Layout and design V. SAVCHENKO

Photography B.B. ZVEREVA

Publishing house "Russian Book" 1992

Isolated lubok is one of the varieties of folk fine art. Its emergence and widespread existence occurred in a relatively late period in the history of folk art - the mid-18th and 19th centuries, when many other types of fine folk art - wood painting, book miniatures, printed graphic popular prints - had already gone through a certain path of development.

In the historical and cultural aspect, the painted lubok is one of the hypostases of the folk pictorial primitive, standing close to such types of creativity as painted and engraved lubok, on the one hand, and with painting on spinning wheels, chests and the art of decorating handwritten books, on the other. . It accumulated the ideal principles of folk aesthetic consciousness, the high culture of ancient Russian miniatures, and popular prints based on the principles of naive and primitive creativity.

The drawn popular print is a relatively little studied line of development of folk art of the 18th-19th centuries. Until recently, there was almost no mention of painted popular prints in the literature. Therefore, getting to know him cannot but be of interest to connoisseurs and lovers of folk art.

The painted popular print was not a special collector's item; it is quite rare in library and museum collections. The State Historical Museum has a significant collection of this rare type of monument (152 items in the catalog). It was formed from sheets received in 1905 as part of the collections of such famous lovers of Russian antiquity as P. I. Shchukin and A. P. Bakhrushin. In the early 1920s, the Historical Museum bought individual pictures from collectors, private individuals and “at auction”...

In 1928, some of the sheets were brought by a historical and everyday life expedition from the Vologda region. The collection of the State Historical Museum can give a complete picture of the artistic features of the hand-drawn popular print and reflect the main stages of its development

What is the art of hand-drawn folk pictures, where did it originate and develop? The technique of making hand-drawn popular prints is unique. The wall sheets were made with liquid tempera applied over a light pencil drawing, traces of which are visible only where it has not subsequently been erased. The craftsmen used paints diluted in egg emulsion or gum (sticky substances of various plants). As you know, the painting possibilities of tempera are very wide and, with strong dilution, it allows you to work in the technique of transparent painting with translucent layers, like watercolors.

Unlike mass-produced printed lubok, hand-drawn lubok was made by hand by craftsmen from start to finish. Drawing the drawing, coloring it, writing titles and explanatory texts - everything was done by hand, giving each work an improvisational uniqueness. Drawn pictures amaze with their brightness, beauty of design, harmony of color combinations, and high ornamental culture.

Painters of wall sheets, as a rule, were closely associated with the circle of folk craftsmen who preserved and developed ancient Russian traditions - with icon painters, miniaturists, and book copyists. It was from this contingent that, for the most part, the artists of the popular print were formed. The places of production and existence of popular prints were often Old Believer monasteries, northern and Moscow villages, preserving the ancient Russian handwritten and icon-painting traditions.

The drawn popular print was not as widespread as printed engraved or lithographed pictures; it was much more local. The production of painted wall sheets was concentrated mostly in the north of Russia - in the Olonets, Vologda provinces, and in certain areas along the Northern Dvina and Pechora. At the same time, painted popular prints existed in the Moscow region, in particular in Guslitsy, and in Moscow itself. There were several centers where the art of painted popular print flourished in the 18th and especially in the 19th centuries. These are the Vygo-Leksinsky monastery and the adjacent monasteries (Karelia), the Upper Toima region on the Northern Dvina, the Kadnikovsky and Totemsky districts of the Vologda region, the Velikopozhenskoe hostel on the Pizhma River (Ust-Tsilma), Guslitsy in the Orekhovo-Zuevsky district of the Moscow region. There may have been other places where hand-drawn pictures were produced, but they are currently unknown.

The art of hand-drawn popular prints was started by the Old Believers. The ideologists of the Old Believers at the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century had an urgent need to develop and popularize certain ideas and themes that substantiated their adherence to the “old faith,” which could be satisfied not only by re-writing Old Believer writings, but also by visual means of transmitting information. It was in the Old Believer Vygo-Leksinsky hostel that the first steps were taken to produce and distribute wall pictures with religious and moral content. The activities of the Vygo-Leksinsky monastery represent a most interesting page in Russian history. Let us briefly recall it.

After church reform Patriarch Nikon, those who disagreed with I-mime, “zealots of ancient piety,” among whom were representatives of different segments of the population, mainly peasants, fled to the North, some began to settle along the Vygu River (formerly Olonets province). New residents cut down the forest, burned it, cleared arable land and sowed grain on it. In 1694, a community led by Daniil Vikulov was formed from the settlers who settled on Vyga. The first Pomeranian community of the hermitage-monastic type was at its beginning the most radical organization of the non-priestly persuasion, rejecting marriages, prayer for the Tsar, and promoting the ideas of social equality on a religious basis. For a long time, the Vygov hostel remained the highest authority for the entire Pomeranian Old Believers in matters of faith and religious and social order. The activities of the brothers Andrei and Semyon Denisov, who were abbots (film-arches) of the monastery (the first - in 1703-1730, the second - in 1730-1741), were of an exclusively broad organizational and educational nature.

In the monastery, which received a large number of immigrants, the Denisovs established schools for adults and children, where they subsequently began to bring students from other places that supported the schism. In addition to literacy schools, in the 1720-1730s, special schools for scribes of manuscript books and a school for singers were established; icon painters were trained here to make icons in the “old” spirit. The Vygovites collected a rich collection of ancient manuscripts and early printed books, which included liturgical and philosophical works, on grammar and rhetoric, chronographs and chroniclers. The Vygov hostel has developed its own literary school, focusing on the aesthetic principles of ancient Russian literature.

Works of the Pechersk Center

Denisov, I. Filippov, D. Vikulov. Middle XIX century Unknown artist Ink, tempera. 35x74.5

Acquired “at auction” in 1898. Ivan Filippov (1661 -1744) - historian of the Vygovsky monastery, its fourth cinematographer (1741 -1744). The book he wrote, “The History of the Beginning of the Vygovskaya Hermitage,” contains valuable materials about the founding of the community and the first decades of its existence. About S. Denisov and D. Vikulov.

The Denisov brothers and their associates left whole line works that set out the historical, dogmatic and moral foundations of the Old Believer teachings.

Crafts and handicrafts flourished in the monastery: copper casting of dishes, crosses and folds, tanning, wood dressing and furniture painting, weaving birch bark products, sewing and embroidery with silk and gold, making silver jewelry. Both the male and female population did this (in 1706, the female part of the monastery was transferred to the Lexa River). Approximately a hundred-year period - from the mid-1720s to the 1820-1830s - was the heyday of the economic and artistic life of the Vygovsky monastery. Then came a period of gradual decline. The persecution of the schism and attempts to eradicate it, repressions that intensified during the reign of Nicholas 1, ended with the ruin and closure of the monastery in 1857. All prayer houses were sealed, books and icons were taken away, and the remaining residents were evicted. Thus, the literacy center of the large northern region, the center of the development of agriculture, trade and unique folk art, ceased to exist.

Another Old Believer community that played a similar cultural and educational role in the North was the Velikopozhensky monastery, which arose around 1715 on Pechora, in the Ust-Tsilma region, and existed until 18542. Internal organization The Velikopozhensky hostel was based on the Pomeranian-Vygovsky charter. It conducted quite a significant economic activity, the basis of which was arable farming and fishing. The monastery was the center of ancient Russian book learning and literacy: peasant children were taught reading, writing, and copying books. Here they also engaged in painting wall sheets, which was, as a rule, the lot of the female part of the population3.

It is known that in the 18th-19th centuries the population of the entire North, especially the peasantry, was strongly influenced by Old Believer ideology. This was greatly facilitated by the active work of the Vygo-Leksinsky and Ust-Tsilemsky monasteries.

Many places that adhered to the “old faith” existed in the Baltic states, the Volga region, Siberia, and central Russia. One of the centers of concentration of the Old Believer population, which gave Russian culture interesting works of art, was Guslitsy. Guslitsy - old name area near Moscow, which received its name from the Gus-Litsa River, a tributary of the Nerskaya, which flows into the Moscow River. Here, at the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th centuries, fugitive Old Believers of the priestly consent settled (that is, those who recognized the priesthood). In the Guslitsky villages in the 18th-19th centuries, icon painting, copper foundry, and woodworking crafts were developed. The art of copying and decorating books became widespread; they even developed their own special style of ornamentation of manuscripts, which differed significantly (as did the contents of the books) from the northern Pomeranian. In Guslitsy, a kind of center of folk art was formed; the production of hand-drawn wall pictures occupied a large place in it.

The origin and spread of the art of hand-drawn sheets of religious and moral content among the Old Believer population of the North and center of Russia can be interpreted as a kind of response to a certain “social order”, if we apply modern terminology. Educational goals and the need for visual apologetics contributed to the search for an appropriate form. In folk art, there already existed proven examples of works that could satisfy these needs - popular prints. The syncretic nature of popular popular pictures, combining image and text, the specificity of their figurative structure, which has absorbed the genre interpretation of traditional ancient Russian art plots, could not have been more consistent with the goals that the Old Believer masters initially faced. Sometimes artists directly borrowed certain subjects from printed popular prints, adapting them for their own purposes. All borrowings relate to instructive and moral subjects, of which there were many in engraved folk pictures XVIII-XIX centuries.

What was the overall content of the painted popular print, what were its distinctive features? The subjects of hand-drawn pictures are very diverse. There are sheets dedicated to the historical past of Russia, for example the Battle of Kulikovo, portraits of leaders of the schism and images of Old Believer monasteries, illustrations to apocrypha on biblical and gospel stories, illustrations for stories and parables from literary collections, pictures intended for reading and chanting, wall calendars.

Pictures related to the history of the Old Believers, views of monasteries, portraits of schism teachers, comparative images of the “old and new” churches make up a fairly significant group. Interesting are the images of the Vygo-Leksinsky monastery, which were often included by artists in a complex composition of large pictures. On the sheets " Family tree A. and S. Denisov" (cat. 3), "Worship of the Icon of the Mother of God" (cat. 100) provide detailed images of the male and female monasteries, located respectively on the banks of the Vyg and Lexa. All wooden buildings were carefully depicted - residential cells, refectories, hospitals, bell towers, etc. The thoroughness of the drawings allows us to examine all the features of the architectural layout, the traditional design of northern houses with gable gable roofs, high covered porches of huts, onion-shaped chapel domes, hipped tops of bell towers. .. Above each building there are numbers, explained at the bottom of the pictures - “forge”, “literate”, “cookhouse”, which makes it possible to get a complete picture of the layout of the monasteries and the location of all its economic services.

On the “Family tree of A. and S. Denisov” the view of the monastery occupies only the lower part of the sheet. The rest of the space is given to the image of a conventional family tree, on the branches of which, in ornamental round frames, are portraits of the ancestors of the Denisov-Vtorushin family, going back to Prince Myshetsky, and the first abbots of the hostel. Plots with a “teaching tree”, where the Denisov brothers and their like-minded people are presented, were very popular among artists of popular prints.

Portraits of the founders and abbots of the Vygovsky monastery are known not only in variants of the family tree, but there are individual, paired, and group portraits. The most common type of images of Old Believer mentors, whether individual or group portraits, is the one where each “elder” is represented with a scroll in his hand, on which the words of the corresponding saying are written. But they cannot be considered portraits in the generally accepted sense of the word. They are executed very conditionally, according to a single canon. All Pomeranian teachers were depicted flatly, strictly frontally, in the same poses, with a similar position of the hands. Hair and long beards are also rendered in the same manner.

But despite following the established canonical form, the artists were able to convey the individual traits of the characters. They are not only recognizable, but also correspond to those descriptions of their appearance that have come down to us in literary sources. For example, in all the drawings Andrei Denisov has a straight, elongated nose, lush hair that curls in even rings around his forehead, and a wide, thick beard (cat. 96, 97).

Paired portraits, as a rule, are made according to a single scheme - they are enclosed in oval frames, connected to each other by a characteristic baroque-type ornamental decoration. One of these portraits shows Pikifor Semyonov, cinematographer of the Vygovsky monastery from 1759 to 1774, and Semyon Titov, who is known to have been a teacher in the women's section of the monastery (cat. 1). A special type of group images were figures placed in a row on long strips of paper glued together from separate sheets (cat. 53, 54). These sheets were probably intended for hanging in large rooms.

A significant number of works are devoted to the rituals of the “old” and “new” churches and the correctness of the sign of the cross. The pictures are built on the principle of contrasting the “Old Russian Church tradition” and “Nikon’s tradition.” Artists usually divided the sheet into two parts and showed differences in the image of the Calvary cross, the patriarchal staff, the method of folding the finger, the seals on the prosphora, that is, in what the Old Believers differed from the followers of Nikon’s reform (cat. 61, 102). Sometimes the drawings were made not on one, but on two paired sheets (cat. 5, 6). Some masters genreized such images - they showed priests and the public in the interior of the temple, and gave different appearances to people serving in the “old” and “new” churches (cat. 103). Some are dressed in old Russian dress, others in short, new-fangled tailcoats and tight trousers.

Events related to the history of the Old Believer movement also include stories dedicated to the Solovetsky uprising of 1668-1676 - the action of the monks of the Solovetsky Monastery against the reform of Patriarch Nikon, against conducting services according to new corrected books, which resulted in an anti-feudal popular uprising during the struggle. The Solovetsky “sitting”, during which the monastery resisted the tsarist troops besieging it, lasted eight years and ended in its defeat. The capture of the Solovetsky Monastery by Voivode Meshcherinov and the reprisal against disobedient monks after the surrender of the fortress were reflected in a number of wall paintings, two of which are kept in Historical Museum(cat. 88, 94). The dating of the sheets indicates that the plot attracted the attention of artists both at the beginning and at the end of the 19th century, just as interest in the book -S. Denisov’s “The Story of the Fathers and Sufferers of Solovetsky” (1730s), which served as the basis and source for writing these pictures.

Works of the Moscow Center

Depiction of the massacre of Voivode Meshcherinov

with participants in the Solovetsky uprising of 1668-1676.

Depiction of the reprisal of Voivode Meshcherinov against participants in the Solovetsky Uprising of 1668-1676.

Beginning of the 19th century Artist M. V. Grigoriev (?) Ink, tempera. 69x102

There is no name. Explanatory inscriptions (in order of sequence of episodes): “Besiege the voivode of the monastery and set up a detachment of many cannons, and attack the monastery with a fiery battle, day and night, without a mustache”; “Tsarist governor Ivan Meshcherinov”; "royal howls"; “slandered... from crosses, icons and kandils and killed them”; “martyrs for ancient piety”; “the abbot and the cellarer, drawn by howls to Meshcherinov for torment”; “I drove the cruel scum out of the monastery into the bay of the sea and froze them in the ice, and their lying bodies were incorruptible for 1 year, because the flesh clung to the bone and the joints did not move”; “to Tsar Alexy Mikhailovich,” I am in pain, and I, if he accepted punishment for sin before the saints, and wrote a letter, hand it over to Tsarina Natalia Kirilovna, so that he would not send the monastery to Meshcherinov; “the messenger of Meshcherinov”; way in the city of Vologda a messenger from the governor Meshcherinov with a letter about the destruction of the monastery. "Acquired at the auction in 1909. Literature: Itkina I, p. 38;

The pictures depict the events of the suppression of the speech of the monks of the Solovetsky Monastery against the reform of Patriarch Nikon. Both sheets illustrate S. Denisov’s book “The History of the Fathers and Sufferers of Solovetsky,” written in the 1730s. Currently, six variants of wall sheets on this plot have been identified, three of which are directly dependent on each other and go back to a common original, and three arose independently of this group, although their creators created, adhering to the general tradition of embodying this plot.

The picture (cat. 88) reveals a textual and artistic dependence on the handwritten story “A Facial Description of the Great Siege and Devastation of the Solovetsky Monastery,” written at the end of the 18th century. and came out of the Moscow workshop, where at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. master M.V. Grigoriev worked. The presumptive attribution of the picture to the artist Grigoriev was made on the basis of its stylistic similarity with the master’s signature works. (For more details on this, see: Itkina I, Itkina P.)

On a sheet made at the beginning of the 19th century, the drawing is built on the principle of a sequential story. Each episode is accompanied by a short or lengthy explanatory caption. The artist shows the shelling of the monastery from three cannons, which “attacked the monastery with fiery fire day and night”, the storming of the fortress by archers, the exit of the surviving monks from the gates of the monastery to meet Meshcherinov with an icon and crosses in the hope of his mercy, cruel reprisals against the participants uprising - the gallows, the torment of the abbot and cellarer, monks frozen in ice, the illness of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and the sending of a messenger with a letter to Meshcherinov about ending the siege, the meeting of the tsar's and Meshcherinov's messengers at the "city of Vologda". In the center of the sheet there is a large figure with a raised saber in right hand: “Royal governor Ivan Meshcherinov.” This is the main bearer of evil, he is highlighted both by his scale and by the severe rigidity of his pose. The author’s conscious introduction of evaluative moments into the picture is noticeable in the interpretation of not only governor Meshcherinov, but also other characters. The artist sympathizes with the tortured defenders of the Solovetsky fortress, showing their inflexibility: even on the gallows, two of them clench their fingers in the two-fingered sign. On the other hand, it clearly caricatures the appearance of the Streltsy soldiers who participated in the suppression of the uprising, as evidenced by the jester's caps on their heads instead of military attire.

But the emotional intensity of the plot does not overshadow the task of creating an artistically organized picture. In the compositional and decorative structure of the sheet as a whole, one can feel the tradition of rhythmic popular print. The artist fills the space between individual episodes with images of randomly scattered flowers, bushes, and trees, executed in the typical decorative manner of folk pictures.

A comprehensive study of this drawing allows us to make an assumption, based on an analogy with signed works, about the name of the author and the place of creation. In all likelihood, the miniature artist Mikola Vasilyevich Grigoriev, who was associated with one of the Old Believer workshops for copying books in Moscow, worked on the popular print.

Subjects related to specific historical events of Russia's past are very rare in popular prints. These include a unique wall painting by artist I. G. Blinov, depicting the battle on the Kulikovo Field in 1380 (cat. 93). This is the largest leaf among all that have come down to us - its length is 276 centimeters. In the lower part, the artist wrote the entire text of “The Tale of the Massacre of Mamayev” - a well-known handwritten story, and at the top he placed illustrations for it.

The picture begins with scenes of a gathering of Russian princes, coming to Moscow at the call of Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, to repel the countless hordes of Mamai advancing on Russian soil. The Moscow Kremlin is depicted at the top; people are crowding at the gates, accompanying them on a hike. Russian army. Orderly ranks of regiments are moving, led by their princes. Individual compact groups of horsemen should give an idea of a crowded army.

From Moscow the troops march to Kolomna, where a review was held - the “arrangement” of the regiments. The city is surrounded by a high red wall with towers; it is visible as if from a bird's eye view. The artist gave the outline of the assembled troops the shape of an irregular quadrangle, repeating in mirror image the outlines of the walls of Kolomna, thereby achieving a remarkable artistic effect. In the center of the fragment are soldiers holding banners, trumpeters and Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich.

The compositional center of the sheet is the duel between the hero Peresvet and the giant Chelubey, which, according to the text of the Legend, served as the prologue to the Battle of Kulikovo. The martial arts scene is highlighted on a large scale, freely placed, and its perception is not interfered with by other episodes. The artist shows the moment of the fight when the riders galloping towards each other collided, reined in their horses and prepared spears for the decisive blow. Right there, just below, both heroes are depicted killed.

Almost the entire right side of the sheet is occupied by a picture of a fierce battle. We see Russian and Horde horsemen huddled together, their fierce fights on horseback, warriors with drawn sabers, Horde soldiers shooting from bows. The bodies of the dead are spread out under the horses' feet.

The story ends with the image of Mamai's tent, where the khan listens to reports of the defeat of his troops. Next, the artist draws Mamai with four “temniks” galloping away from the battlefield.

On the right side of the panorama, Dmitry Ivanovich, accompanied by his entourage, walks around the battlefield, lamenting the great losses of the Russians. The text says that Dmitry, “seeing many dead beloved knights, began to cry loudly.”

In this work, with a long page and many characters, the author’s conscientiousness and hard work, which are the highest certification of a master, are striking. Each character has a carefully drawn face, clothing, helmets, hats, and weapons. The appearance of the main characters is individualized. The drawing exceptionally successfully combines the folk popular print tradition with its conventions, the flat-decorative nature of the image, the generality of lines and contours, and the techniques of ancient Russian book miniatures, which are reflected in the graceful elongated proportions of the figures and in the way of coloring objects.

As a model, I. G. Blinov used for his work, created in the 1890s, a printed engraved popular print, issued at the end of the 18th century, but significantly rethought it, and in some places changed the order of the episodes to make the presentation more harmonious. The color scheme of the sheet is completely independent.

Sheet made in Gorodets

Second half of the 1890s. Artist I. G. Blinov. Ink, tempera, gold. 75.5x276

Title: “The militia and campaign of the Grand Duke Dimitri Ioannovich, the autocrat of All Russia, against the evil and godless Tatar Tsar Mamai, defeat him with God’s help to the end.” Inv. No. 42904 I Ш 61105 Received from the collection of A.P. Bakhrushin in 1905.

Literature: Battle of Kulikovo, ill. on the inset between p. 128-129; Monuments of the Kulikovo cycle, ill. 44 The Battle of Kulikovo in 1380 is one of the few events in Russian history captured in monuments of folk fine art. In the picture, which differs most large size Among the hand-drawn popular prints, there are textual and pictorial parts. The text is based on “The Tale of the Massacre of Mamayev,” borrowed from Synopsis (Synopsis is a collection of stories on Russian history, first published at the end of the 17th century and later reprinted several times). The picture was attributed to the artist Blinov on the basis of stylistic and artistic similarity with the second sheet on the plot of the Battle of Kulikovo, stored in the Gorodets Museum of Local Lore (info. No. 603), which bears the signature of I. G. Blinov. The plot of “Mamaevo’s Massacre” is known in an engraved popular print: Rovinsky I, vol. 2, no. 303; vol. 4, p. 380-381; vol. 5, p. 71-73. Currently, 8 copies of engraved popular prints have been identified: I "M I I, pp. 39474, gr. 39475; GLM, kp 44817, kp 44816; State Historical Museum, 74520, 31555 I Sh hr 7379, 99497; Yaroslavl Museum-Reserve, 43019. Blinov's drawn SHEETs basically repeat the engraved original, and it is precisely that popular print, as the study of the texts shows, that arose earlier than others, between 1746 and 1785. Both times the artist used the same engraved sample.

“The Tale of the Massacre of Mamayev” is known in manuscript manuscripts. The artist I. G. Blinov himself repeatedly turned to the miniatures of “The Legend”, creating several facial manuscripts on its plot (GBL, f. 242, No. 203; State Historical Museum, Vost. 234, Bars. 1808). He created the drawn sheets independently of the book miniatures.

Cases of recycling printed popular prints with historical themes are isolated. You can name only one more picture called “Oh ho ho, the Russian man is heavy with both his fist and his weight” (cat. 60). This is a caricature of political situation 1850-1870s, when Türkiye, even together with its allies, could not achieve an advantage over Russia. The picture shows a scale, on one board of which stands a Russian man, and on the other board and on the crossbar hang numerous figures of Turks, French, and Englishmen, who with all their strength cannot force the scales to go down.

The picture is a redrawing of a lithographed popular print, which was reprinted several times in 1856-1877. It almost without changes repeats the funny and absurd poses of the characters climbing the crossbar and ropes of the scales, but here there is a noticeable rethinking of the physiognomic characteristics of the characters. The Russian peasant, for example, has lost in his drawing the beauty that lithograph publishers gave him. Many characters look funnier and sharper than in printed popular prints. Turning to the genre of political caricature is a rare, but very illustrative example, indicating a certain interest of its creator in social issues and the existence of a demand for this kind of work.

Moving from plots relating to specific historical events to topics related to the illustration of various parables from teaching and hagiographic collections (Paterikon, Prologue), collections such as the “Great Mirror”, biblical and evangelical books, it should be said that in the popular consciousness many myths were perceived as a true story, especially those related to the creation of man, the life of the first people on earth. This explains their particular popularity. Many biblical and evangelical legends in folk art are known in apocryphal interpretations, enriched with details and poetic interpretations.

Drawings illustrating the story of Adam and Eve, as a rule, were placed on large sheets and were built, like other multi-story compositions, according to the principle of a story (cat. 8, 9). One of the pictures depicts paradise as enclosed stone wall a beautiful garden in which unusual trees grow and various animals walk. The master shows how the creator breathed a soul into Adam, made a wife from his rib and commanded them not to taste the fruits of the tree growing in the middle of the Garden of Eden. The narrative includes scenes where Adam and Eve, succumbing to the persuasion of the tempting serpent, pluck an apple from the forbidden tree, how, expelled, they leave the gates of heaven, over which a six-winged seraph hovers, and sit in front of the wall on a stone, mourning the lost paradise.

The creation of man, the life of Adam and Eve in paradise, their expulsion from paradise

The creation of man, the life of Adam and Eve in paradise, their expulsion from paradise. First half of the 19th century. Unknown artist Ink, tempera. 49x71.5

Text below the three-part frame. Left column in 6 lines: “Sed Adam is straight from heaven... thou art.” The middle part is 7 lines: “The Lord created man, I took the finger from the earth and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul, and he called his name Adam, and God said that it was not good for man to be alone... you will be in all cattle and beasts, because you have done this evil.” Right column in 5 lines: “Adam, after being expelled from paradise... is bitter.”

Received from the collection of P. I. Shchukin in 1905.

The pictures depict the initial episodes of the biblical book of Genesis: the creation of Adam and Eve, the Fall, expulsion from paradise and mourning for the lost paradise (the mourning scene has an apocryphal interpretation). In all the pictures, the composition is based on a single principle. On large sheets of paper, a sequential story consisting of individual episodes is sought. The action takes place behind and in front of the high stone wall that surrounds the Garden of Eden. Artists vary the arrangement of individual scenes, draw characters differently, there are noticeable differences in the arrangement of the text part, but the choice of episodes and the general solution remains unchanged. There was a strong tradition of implementing this plot. The life history of the first people was repeatedly depicted in handwritten miniatures: in front Bibles (GIM, Muz. 84, Uvar. 34, Bars. 32), in collections of stories (GIM, Muz. 295, Vostr. 248, Vahr. 232, Muz. 3505 ), in synodics (GIM, Bahr. 15; GBL, Und. 154).

Engraved printed Bibles are known: Rovinsky I, vol. 3, no. 809-813. In printed popular prints and miniatures, a completely different principle of illustrating the book of Genesis is observed. Each miniature and each engraving illustrates only one episode of the story. There is no juxtaposition of consecutive scenes.

On the popular print, which tells about Cain’s murder of Abel, in addition to the scene of fratricide, there are episodes showing the suffering of Cain sent to him as punishment for the crime: he is tormented by devils, God punishes him with “shaking,” etc. (cat. 78).

Illustration for “The Tale of the Punishment of Cain for the Murder of his Brother.”

If this sheet combines events at different times, following each other, then the other picture, on the contrary, is limited to showing one small plot. This illustrates the famous legend of the sacrifice of Abraham, according to which God, having decided to test Abraham, demanded that he sacrifice his son (cat. 12). The picture shows the moment when an angel descending on a cloud stops the hand of Abraham, who raised the knife.

Late 18th - early 19th century

Abraham's sacrifice. Late 18th - early 19th century. Unknown artist Ink, tempera. 55.6x40.3

Paper with filigree J Kool Sotr./Seven provinces (without circle) Klepikov 1, No. 1154. 1790-1800s.

There are significantly fewer gospel legends in hand-drawn pictures than biblical legends. This is apparently explained by the fact that most of the gospel myths were embodied in icon painting, and the masters of the painted popular print deliberately rejected anything that could resemble an icon. The pictures reflect mainly plots that are in the nature of parables.

The parable of the prodigal son was especially loved by artists. On the sides of one of the pictures there are episodes of the legend - the departure of the prodigal son from home, his entertainment, misadventures, return to his father's roof, and in the center of the oval - the text of the spiritual verse on hook notes (cat. 13). Thus, this picture could not only be viewed, but the text could be read and sung. Hooks are the oldest musical symbols, indicating the pitch and longitude of a sound - a common component of text sheets. The spiritual verse about the prodigal son was widespread in folk literature, most closely associated with folk visual arts.

Early 19th century

Parable of the Prodigal Son. Early 19th century Unknown artist. Ink, tempera. 76.3x54.6. Blue-gray paper early XIX V.

Favorite subjects of hand-drawn popular prints are images of the sweet-voiced half-birds, half-maidens Sirin and Alkonost. These stories were also circulated in printed popular prints. They were produced starting from the middle of the 18th century and throughout the 19th century. Artists of hand-drawn sheets not only repeated engraved pictures using a ready-made compositional scheme, but also developed scenes with birds of paradise on their own.

Quite original works include images of the Sirin bird, accompanied by a legend based on information borrowed from the Chronograph. According to the text on the sheets, the singing of the bird maiden is so sweet that a person, having heard it, forgets about everything and follows her, unable to stop until he dies of fatigue. Artists usually depicted a man fascinated listening to a bird sitting on a huge bush strewn with flowers and fruits, and just below - he was lying dead on the ground. To drive the bird away, people scare it with noise: they beat drums, blow trumpets, shoot cannons; on several sheets we see bell towers with ringing bells. Frightened by the “unusual noise and sound,” Sirin “was forced to fly to her dwellings” (cat. 16, 17, 18).

In the hand-drawn pictures there is a special, “bookish” understanding by the artists of the image of the bird maiden, which is not found in other monuments of folk fine art.

Another bird of paradise, Alkonost, is very similar in appearance to Sirin, but has one significant difference - it is always depicted with hands. Alkonost often holds a scroll in his hand with a saying about reward in paradise for a righteous life on earth. According to legend, Alkonost, in its effect on humans, is close to the sweet-voiced Sirin. “Whoever is in her proximity will forget everything in this world, then his mind leaves him and his soul leaves his body...” says the explanatory text to the picture (cat. 20).

Some researchers, as well as in ordinary consciousness, have a fairly stable idea that in folk art Sirin is a bird of joy, and Alkonost is a bird of sadness. This opposition is incorrect; it is not based on the real symbolism of these images. An analysis of literary sources where bird maidens appear, as well as numerous monuments of folk art (wood painting, tiles, embroidery) indicates that nowhere is Alkonost interpreted as a bird of sadness. This opposition probably has its source in the painting by V. M. Vasnetsov

“Sirin and Alkonost. Song of Joy and Sorrow” (1896), on which the artist depicted two birds: one black, the other light, one joyful, the other sad. We have not encountered earlier examples of the contrast between the symbolism of Sirin and Alkonost, and therefore, we can assume that it came not from folk art, but from professional art, which, in its appeal to Russian antiquity, used examples of folk art, not always understanding their content quite correctly.

Pictures with edifying stories and parables from various literary collections occupy a large place in the art of hand-drawn popular prints. They treat the themes of moral behavior, virtuous and vicious human actions, the meaning of human life, expose sins, and talk about the torments of sinners who are cruelly punished after death. Thus, “the meal of the pious and the wicked” (cat. 62), “about the careless and careless youths” (cat. 136) demonstrate the righteous and unrighteous behavior of people, where one is rewarded and the other is condemned.

A whole series of stories tells about punishments in the next world for big and small sins: “The punishment of Ludwig the Langrave for the sin of acquisition” consists of casting him into eternal fire (cat. 64); the sinner who has not repented of “fornication” is tormented by dogs and snakes (cat. 67); Satan orders “an unmerciful man, a lover of this world,” to soar in a fiery bath, lay him on a fiery bed, give him molten sulfur to drink, etc. (cat. 63).

Some pictures interpreted the idea of redemption and overcoming sinful behavior during life, and praised moral behavior. In this regard, the plot “Spiritual Pharmacy” is interesting, to which artists have repeatedly turned. The meaning of the parable, borrowed from the work “Spiritual Medicine” - healing from sins with the help of good deeds - is revealed in the words of a doctor who gives the following advice to a person coming to him: “Come and take the root of obedience and the leaves of patience, the flower of purity, the fruit of good deeds and drain in the cauldron of silence... eat the spoon of repentance and, having done this, you will be completely healthy” (cat. 27).

A significant section of wall drawings is made up of a group of text sheets. Poems of spiritual and moral content, chants on hook notes, edifying teachings, as a rule, were performed on sheets

large format, had a colorful frame, bright titles, the text was colored with large initials, and sometimes it was accompanied by small illustrations.

The most common were stories with edifying sayings, useful advice, so-called “good friends” of a person. In the typical pictures for this group, “On the Good Friends of the Twelve” (cat. 31), “The Tree of Reason” (cat. 35), all maxims are either enclosed in ornamented circles and placed on an image of a tree, or written on the wide curved leaves of a tree-bush.

Spiritual poems and chants were often placed in ovals framed by a garland of flowers rising from a flowerpot or basket placed on the ground (cat. 36, 37). With a single style and common technique for many sheets of oval framing of texts, it is impossible to find two identical garlands or wreaths. Artists vary, fantasize, look for new and original combinations, achieving a truly amazing variety of components that make up the oval.

The subjects of hand-drawn wall pictures show a certain closeness to themes found in other types of folk art. Naturally, most of the analogies are with engraved popular prints. A quantitative comparison shows that in the painted popular prints that have survived to this day, the subjects in common with the printed ones make up only one fifth. Moreover, in the overwhelming majority of cases, what is observed is not a direct copying of certain compositions, but a significant alteration of the engraved originals.

When using the plot of the circulation sheet, the masters always introduced their own understanding of decorativeness into the drawings. The color scheme of handwritten popular prints differed significantly from what was observed in printed materials.

We know of only two cases of an inverse relationship between engraved and drawn sheets: portraits of Andrei Denisov and Daniil Vikulov were printed in Moscow in the second half of the 18th century from drawn originals.

The wall sheets also have analogies in manuscript miniatures. The number of parallel plots here is less than in printed sheets; only in two cases is the direct dependence of the handwritten popular print on the miniature evident. In all the others, there is an independent approach to solving the same topics. Sometimes it is possible to establish a general tradition of embodying individual images, well known to miniaturists of the 18th-19th centuries and masters of painted popular prints, for example in illustrations to the Apocalypse or in portraits of Old Believer teachers, which explains their similarity.

Several common motifs with hand-drawn pictures, for example the legend of the Sirin bird, are known in the painting of furniture of the 18th-19th centuries, which came out of the workshops of the Vygo-Leksinsky monastery. In this case, there was a direct transfer of the composition of the drawings onto the cabinet doors.

All identified cases of common and borrowed plots in no way can overshadow the overwhelming number of independent artistic developments in a cartoon print. Even in the interpretation of moral parables, the most developed genre, the masters for the most part followed their own path, creating many new expressive and rich in figurative content works. It can be considered that the theme of the hand-drawn popular print is quite original and testifies to the breadth of interests of its masters and a creative approach to the embodiment of many themes.

To characterize a painted popular print, the issue of dating is very important. A special study of the time of creation of individual sheets allows us to clarify and more fully present the picture of their origin, the degree of prevalence in a given period, and determine the time of operation of individual art centers.

Some pictures have inscriptions directly indicating the date of production, for example: “This sheet was painted in 1826” (cat. 4) or “This picture was painted in 1840 on February 22” (cat. 142). As is known, the presence of watermarks on paper can be of great help in dating. The filigree of paper establishes the boundary of the creation of a work, before which it could not have appeared.

Dates on the sheets and watermarks indicate that the oldest surviving pictures date back to the 1750s and 1760s. True, there are very few of them. In the 1790s there were already more drawings. Dating the earliest surviving paintings to the mid-18th century does not mean that wall sheets did not exist before that time. For example, there is a unique drawing from the 17th century depicting a Streltsy army setting out on boats to suppress the uprising of Stepan Razin. But this is an exceptional case and the sheet did not have a “popular” character. We can only talk about the established production of hand-drawn sheets in relation to the second half of the 18th century.

The time of greatest flowering of the art of hand-drawn popular prints was the very end of the 18th century - the first third of the 19th century; in the middle and second half of the 19th century, the number of handwritten pictures decreased significantly and increased again only at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. The conclusions that follow from the analysis of the dated sheets are in good agreement with the general picture of the development of the art of hand-drawn popular print, which is revealed by the study of individual centers of its production.

The information contained in the inscriptions on the front or back of some sheets provides great assistance in studying the drawn popular print.

The content of the inscriptions on the back of the pictures consists of dedications, indications of the price of the sheets, and notes for artists. Here are examples of dedications or dedicatory texts: “To the most honorable Ivan Petrovich from Irina V. with the lowest bow”, “To the gracious Empress Thekla Ivanovna” (cat. 17), “To present these saints to Lev Sergeyech and Alexandra Petrovna, together with both gifts” (cat. 38) . On the back of the three pictures their price is written in cursive: “kopeck piece”, “osmi kryvenok” (cat. 62, 63, 65). This cost, although not very high in itself, exceeds the price at which printed popular prints were sold.

You can also find out the names of the artists who worked on the pictures, the social status of the masters: “...this cortina of Mirkulia Nikin” (cat. 136), “Ivan Sobolytsikov wrote” (cat. 82), “This bird was written (in the picture with the image of Alkonost .- E.I.) in 1845 by Alexei Ivanov, an icon painter, and his servant Ustin Vasiliev, an icon painter of Avsyunisky.

But cases of indicating the artist’s name on pictures are very rare. Most sheets do not have any signatures. Little can be learned about the authors of the painted popular print; there are only a few examples where some data about the masters has been preserved. Thus, local residents told something about the Vologda artist Sofya Kalikina, whose drawings were brought to the Historical Museum in 1928 by a historical expedition, and the rest was revealed bit by bit from various written sources. Sofya Kalikina lived in the village of Gavrilovskaya, Totemsky district, Spasskaya volost. From early

age, together with her older brother Grigory, she was engaged in illustrating manuscripts that were copied by their father Ivan Afanasyevich Kalikin8. Sofia Kalikina completed the drawn pictures brought to the State Historical Museum in 1905, when she was about ten years old (cat. 66-70). Judging by the fact that her drawings hung in huts until 1928 and people remembered who their author was and at what age she created them, the works were a success among those for whom they were performed.

The fact that peasant Old Believer families, engaged in copying manuscripts (and often icon painting) and drawing wall pictures, involved children in this, is known not only from the story of Sofia Kalikina, but also from other cases4.

The most striking currently known example of a combination of the activities of a miniature artist and a master of popular print sheets seems to be the work of I. G. Blinov (his picture “Battle of Kulikovo” was discussed above). It is remarkable that I. G. Blinov was almost our contemporary; he died in 1944.

The activities of Ivan Gavrilovich Blinov - an artist, miniaturist and calligrapher - allow us to understand the typology of the image of an artist from a time more distant from us, although Blinov was already a person of a different formation. Therefore, it is worth dwelling on it in more detail.

Facts of the biography of I. G. Blinov can be extracted from documents currently stored in the manuscript department of the GBL "1, in the Central State Historical Archive of the USSR" and in the manuscript department of the State Historical Museum12. I. G. Blinov was born in 1872 in the village of Kudashikha, Balakhninsky district, Nizhny Novgorod province, into a family of Old Believers who accepted the priesthood. For a long time he lived under the care of his grandfather, who at one time studied in the cells of monks “in a strict religious spirit.” When the boy was ten years old, his grandfather began teaching him to read in front of icons and introduced him to the poglasitsa of ancient Russian singing. At the age of twelve, Blinov began drawing as a self-taught artist. Secretly from his father, who did not approve of his son’s hobby, often at night, he mastered writing letters, Various types handwriting and ornaments of ancient handwritten books. Blinov was seventeen years old when G. M. Pryanishnikov became interested in his works, famous collector Russian antiquity, who kept book writers in his house in the village of Gorodets who copied ancient handwritten books for him. Blinov collaborated a lot with Pryanishnikov and with another major collector, the Balakhna merchant P. A. Ovchinnikov, fulfilling their orders.

At the age of nineteen, Blinov got married, three children were born one after another, but, despite the increased household responsibilities, he did not give up his favorite hobby, continuing to improve his skills as a calligrapher and miniaturist. Moving among collectors and working for them, Ivan Gavrilovich himself began collecting old books. In 1909, Blinov was invited to Moscow to the Old Believer printing house of L. A. Malekhonov, where he worked as a proofreader of Slavic type and as an artist for seven years. By that time, his family already had six children, and his wife mostly lived with them in the village. From several surviving letters from Ivan Gavrilovich to his wife and parents during his service in the printing house, it is clear that he visited many Moscow libraries - Historical, Rumyantsev, Synodal, and visited the Tretyakov Gallery; Moscow bibliophiles and lovers of antiquity recognized him and gave him private orders for the artistic design of addresses, tray sheets and other papers. In his free time, I. G. Blinov independently wrote texts and drew illustrations for some literary monuments, for example, to Pushkin’s “Song of the Prophetic Oleg” (1914, stored in the State Historical Museum) and to “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (1912, 2 copies stored in the GBL).

From 1918-1919, the artist began close collaboration with the State Historical Museum. He had previously brought and sold his works to the museum, now he was specially ordered miniatures for works of ancient Russian literature: the stories about Savva Grudtsyn”3, about Frol Skobeev14, about Misfortune-Grief15. V.N. Shchepkin, who at that time headed the museum’s manuscript department, appreciated Blinov’s art and willingly purchased his works.

In November 1919, the People's Commissariat of Education, at the suggestion of the scientific board of the Historical Museum, sent I. G. Blinov to his homeland, Gorodets, where he took a very active part in collecting antiquities and in creating a local local history museum. For the first five years of the museum's existence - from 1920 to 1925 - he was its director. Then material circumstances forced Blinov to move with his family to the village. The only original monument he completed after returning to his homeland is the essay “The History of Gorodets” (1937) with illustrations in the tradition of ancient miniatures.

I. G. Blinov mastered almost all types of ancient Russian handwriting and many artistic styles of ornamentation and decoration of manuscripts. He specially executed some works in all the varieties of writing known to him, as if demonstrating the wide range of the art of ancient writing.

While paying tribute to the calligraphic skill of I. G. Blinov, one must keep in mind that he always remained a stylist. The master did not strive for a complete and absolutely accurate reproduction of the formal features of the original, but artistically comprehended the main features of a particular style and embodied them in the spirit of the art of his era. In books designed by Blinov, one can always feel the hand of the artist at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. His activity is an example of deep development and creative development ancient Russian book art. The artist was engaged not only in copying and rewriting ancient books, but also made his own illustrations for literary monuments. It is important to remember that Blinov was not a professional artist; his work lies entirely in the mainstream of folk art.

The legacy of I. G. Blinov is about sixty front manuscripts and four hand-drawn wall sheets. The most interesting one is “The Battle of Kulikovo” - it fully gives an idea of the scale of the artist’s talent. But his work stands apart; it cannot be attributed to any of the currently known schools of folk art.

As already indicated, most of the drawn pictures can be identified with certain centers based on their artistic features. Let's look at the main ones.

Let us remember that the ancestor of the art of hand-drawn popular prints was the Vygov Center. Since in literature handwritten books coming out of the Vygo-Leksinsky monastery are usually called Pomeranian, the ornamental style of their design is also called Pomeranian, and in relation to the hand-drawn wall pictures of the Vygo-Leksinsky center it is legitimate to apply this term. This is justified not only by the common origin of the pictures and manuscripts, but also by the stylistic similarity that is observed in the artistic style of both. The coincidences concern the handwriting itself - the Pomeranian half-letter, large cinnabar initials decorated with lush ornamental stems, and titles made in characteristic script.

Miniatures and hand-drawn sheets have many similarities in color scheme. Favorite combinations of bright crimson with green and gold were borrowed by artists of wall pictures from hand-painted masters. The drawings contain the same images as in the Pomor books, of flowerpots with flowers, trees with large round fruits resembling apples, each of which is certainly painted in two different colors, birds fluttering above the trees, holding twigs with small berries in their beaks, the vault of heaven with clouds in the form of three-petal rosettes, the sun and the moon with anthropomorphic faces. A large number of direct coincidences and analogies make it easy to distinguish the pictures of this center from the total mass of the drawn popular print. In the collection of the Historical Museum, it was possible to identify 42 works of the Vygov school. (Recall that the collection of the State Historical Museum contains 152 sheets, and the total number of currently identified pictures is 412.)

The masters of handwritten books and wall pictures have much in common in techniques and ornamentation. But it is important to pay attention to the new things that Pomeranian artists brought to painting pictures. A large wall drawing is perceived by the viewer according to different laws than book miniatures. Taking this into account, the artists noticeably enriched the palette of drawings by introducing open blue, yellow, and black. The masters sought balanced and complete construction of sheets, taking into account their decorative purpose in the interior. The fragmentation and fragmentation of book illustrations was unacceptable here.

In the wall sheets there is absolutely no iconographic interpretation of the “faces” characteristic of miniatures. The faces of the characters in the pictures are depicted in a purely popular style. This applies to both portraits of real persons, for example the Vyg abbots with their typical appearance, and the appearance of fantastic creatures. Thus, in the stories with Sirin and Alkonost, who enchant people with their beauty and unearthly singing, both birds were invariably depicted in the spirit of folklore ideas about the ideal of female beauty. Bird maidens have full shoulders, rounded faces with plump cheeks, straight noses, sable eyebrows, etc.

In the pictures one can observe a characteristic hyperbolization of individual graphic motifs, which is characteristic of popular popular prints. Birds, bushes, fruits, garlands of flowers are transformed from purely ornamental motifs, as they were in manuscripts, into symbols of blooming nature. They increase in size, sometimes reaching an implausibly conventional size, and acquire independent, and not just decorative, significance.

Often the folklore approach dominates in understanding the plot itself, as, for example, in the painting “A Pure Soul and a Sinful Soul” (cat. 23), where good and evil are contrasted, where beauty triumphs over ugliness. The composition is dominated by a royal maiden - a pure soul, surrounded by a festive glow, and in the corner of a dark cave, a sinful soul - a small pitiful figure - sheds tears.

As we see, the art of Pomeranian wall paintings, which grew from the depths of the handwritten miniature tradition, went its own way, mastering the popular element and the poetic worldview of the primitive folk.

The Pomeranian school of hand-drawn pictures, despite the stylistic unity of the works, was not homogeneous. The Vygov masters worked in different manners, which makes it possible to distinguish several directions that differ from each other. One of them, presented the largest number pictures, characterized by brightness, festivity, and naive popular openness. In these drawings, always executed on a white, unpainted background with bright major colors, a world of fantastic, fabulous beauty blooms magnificently. Thus, in the picture depicting the moment of Eve’s temptation in paradise, Adam and Eve are placed near an unknown tree with a lush crown and huge fruits, around them there are bushes completely strewn with flowers, over which birds flutter, above them there is a blue flat sky with even clouds (cat. . 10). Harmonized beauty dominates even in such a seemingly sad and moralizing plot as “The Death of the Righteous and the Sinner” (cat. 28), where angels and devils argue about the soul of the deceased and in one case the angels win, and in the other they mourn, defeated.

The second type of Pomeranian leaves, despite its small number, deserves separate consideration. Pictures in this category are distinguished by a surprisingly refined pearly pink color scheme. The splints were necessarily of a large format and were made on a tinted background: the entire sheet was covered with grayish-pink paint, on top of which a design was applied. White was used here, which in combination with pink and gray gives a very subtle sound.

The most characteristic sheets made in this artistic manner are “The Tree of Reason” (cat. 35) and “The Bird of Paradise Sirin” (cat. 16). Both include a set of ornamental decorations common to the entire Pomeranian school: decorative bushes with birds sitting on them, stylized fantastic flowers, two-color apples, a vault of heaven with clouds and stars, but they differ in the subtle elegance of color and skill in execution.

A distinctive feature of the pictures of the third category is the use of the motif of a climbing acanthus leaf. Smooth large curls of acanthus ornament dominate the composition. They decorate, for example, “The Family Tree of A. and S. Denisov” (cat. 3) and “The Parable of the Prodigal Son” (cat. 13). Acanthus leaves are combined with the same traditional multi-petal flowers, circle apples, cups of flowers, as if filled with a pile of berries, and cute Sirin birds sitting on the branches.

All Pomeranian artists, giving preference to local coloring of objects and ornamental details, constantly resorted to highlighting and blurring the main tone to create a chiaroscuro effect, to convey the play of folds of clothing, and to give volume to objects.

Considering the Pomeranian school of wall paintings as a whole, one can notice that within the directions discussed, there are popular prints of both a very high level of execution and simpler ones, which indicates the wide spread of the art of painted popular prints, in which craftsmen of various types were engaged in the production of sheets degree of preparedness.

Regarding the dating of Pomeranian works, the following is known: the bulk of the pictures were made in the 1790-1830s; in the 1840-1850s their production decreased sharply. This is explained by the wave of repressive actions that hit the Vygovsky and Leksinsky monasteries. Despite the closure of the monastery, the production of wall sheets did not stop. In secret village schools in Pomerania, until the beginning of the 20th century, the education of children of Old Believers, the copying of handwritten books and the copying of wall pictures continued.

The second center for the production of hand-drawn sheets in northern Russia was located in the lower reaches of Pechora and was associated with the activities of the masters of the Velikopozhensky Monastery. The presence of its own school for the production of hand-drawn pictures was established by the famous researcher of Russian handwritten books V. I. Malyshev. In the book “Ust-Tsilma manuscript collections of the 16th-20th centuries.” he published a drawing from the Velikopozhensky hostel, which depicts the monastery and its two abbots.

V.I. Malyshev noted the features of the handwriting of local Ust-Tsilma book copyists, pointing out that the Pechora semi-ustav, unlike its prototype - the Pomeranian semi-ustav - is much freer, less written out, and not so structured; simplification is noticeable in the initials and intros. Based on the peculiarities of the handwriting and the stylistic features of the drawings themselves, it was possible to add 18 more to that hand-drawn popular print sheet, which Malyshev definitely associated with the local school. Thus, at present, the Pechora school has 19 surviving sheets. Apparently, most of the works of local masters have not reached us. The Historical Museum contains only 2 drawings of this center, but from them one can characterize the originality of the Pechora pictures.

If we trace the interaction of the Pechora school of painted popular prints with graphic paintings on objects of applied art, tools of labor and hunting of the Pizhemsky and Pechora centers, closest to the places of production of pictures, we will find that the latter and wood painting, which in some places has reached almost our days in the form of painting spoons with its special calligraphy and miniature nature, there were common origins.

The leading theme of the Pechora works known to us are portraits of Vygov cinematographers, teachers and mentors of the Pomeranian consent. With full adherence to a single iconographic scheme, the images differ from those drawn in the Vygovsky monastery itself. They are more monumental, sculptural in the modeling of volumes and emphatically sparing in the overall color scheme. Some of the portraits are devoid of any frame and were intended to be hung in one row: S. Denisov, I. Filippov, D. Vikulov, M. Petrov and P. Prokopyev (cat. 53, 54). The images are almost monochrome, entirely in grayish-brown tones. The manner of execution of Pechora drawings is strict and simple.

An active role in the composition is played by the contour silhouette line, which, in the almost complete absence of decorative elements, bears the main expressive load. There is no brightness, no elegance, no ornamental richness of the Vyg tradition here, although some features that are similar to Pechora and Pomeranian pictures can still be found: the way of depicting the crown of trees, grass in the form of comma bushes on a horseshoe-shaped base.

An analysis of popular prints from the Pechora school shows that local artists developed their own creative style, somewhat ascetic, devoid of elegance and sophistication, but very expressive. All surviving pictures date back to the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. More early monuments we don’t know, although from what is known about the activities of the Velikopozhensky and Ust-Tsilemsky hostels, it is clear that they were created earlier.

The third center of painted popular prints can be called Severodvinsk and can be localized in the area of the former Shenkursky district - modern Verkhnetoyemsky and Vinogradovsky districts. Severodvinsk wall pictures were also identified by analogy with handwritten front books and painted household peasant objects.

The Severodvinsk manuscript tradition began to be highlighted by archaeographers from the late 1950s, and its active study continues at the present time.

The number of surviving monuments of this center is small. The Historical Museum has five sheets.

A comparison of wall paintings with miniatures of Severodvinsk manuscripts sometimes reveals not only common artistic motifs - images of a flowering branch-tree with tulip-shaped flowers or a peculiar manner of coloring, but also direct borrowing of subjects from facial manuscripts. This is the “Royal Way” (cat. 59), the main meaning of which is to condemn people who indulge in worldly joys - dancing and games, carnal love, drunkenness, etc. Sinners are seduced and led by demons. A number of scenes in the picture, in particular scenes where demons treat a group of gathered men with wine from a barrel or seduce young girls with outfits, trying on kokoshniks and tying scarves, are borrowed from a collection containing illustrations to the Gospel parable about those invited to a feast. According to the text, those invited refused to come, for which they were punished and dragged “to the broad and spacious path,” where crafty demons awaited them. A comparison of the pictures and handwritten miniatures shows that, by borrowing the plot, the artist significantly changed the compositional structure of those scenes that served as originals for him. He performed a completely independent work, arranging the characters in his own way, giving them a different appearance and, most importantly, making them more common people and popular prints.

The Severodvinsk artistic tradition of folk art is not limited only to handwritten and popular prints. It also includes numerous works of peasant painting on wood. Severodvinsk painting is currently one of the most studied areas of folk decorative art of the North. Numerous expeditions of the Russian Museum, the State Historical Museum, the Zagorsk Museum, and the Research Institute of the Art Industry to the areas of the middle and upper reaches of the Northern Dvina made it possible to collect rich material about the artists who painted spinning wheels and household utensils, and to identify several centers for the production of painted products21. A comparison of the most characteristic works of individual schools of painting spinning wheels with hand-drawn wall pictures showed that the closest in style to popular print sheets are the products from the area of the village of Borok.

The color system of Boretsk paintings is based on the contrast of a light background and bright tones of the ornament - red, green, yellow, and often gold. The predominant color of the painting is red. Characteristic patterns - stylized plant motifs, thin curly branches with open rosettes of flowers, lush tulip-shaped corollas; Genre scenes are included in the lower “bench” of the spinning wheels.

The richness of the ornament, the poetry of fantasy, the care and beauty of the decoration of Boretsk products, as well as the local masters’ fluency in icon painting and bookmaking testify to the high artistic traditions of Severodvinsk folk art.

Popular hand-drawn pictures are similar to Boretsk paintings in a special patterned floral design, a consistent and harmonious color scheme, with the predominant use of red and the skillful use of a light, uncolored paper background. Wall sheet artists loved the motif of a flowering branch with large tulip-shaped flowers. Thus, in two pictures, Sirin birds (cat. 57, 58) are sitting not on lush bushes hung with fruits, as was the case with Pomeranian leaves, but on fancifully twisting stems, from which stylized ornamental leaves, either pointed or rounded, diverge in both directions and large tulip-shaped flowers. The very drawing of the huge tulips in the pictures is given in exactly the same contours and with the same cutting of the petals and core, as the craftsmen did on the Toem and Puchug spinning wheels.

In addition to the stylistic commonality, you can find individual motifs that coincide in the pictures and in the wood painting. For example, such a characteristic detail as the image of the obligatory windows with carefully painted bindings in the upper part of the Boretsk spinning wheels is repeated on the sheet with the image of the Garden of Eden (cat. 56), where the enclosing wall has the same “checkered” windows. The artist who created this work demonstrates high mastery of ancient Russian drawing techniques and remarkable imagination. The extraordinary trees and bushes of the Garden of Eden with fabulous flowers amaze the viewer’s imagination and show the richness and diversity of the ideal world.

The emotional character of the ornament and the entire structure of the Severodvinsk pictures is completely different from that of other popular prints. The color scheme of Severodvinsk sheets is distinguished by the sophistication of a few, carefully selected combinations, which nevertheless create a feeling of multicolor and beauty of the world.

The Severodvinsk manuscript and popular print school grew not only on the traditions of ancient Russian art, but was strongly influenced by such large centers of artistic craft as Veliky Ustyug, Solvychegodsk, Kholmogory. The bright and colorful art of enamellers, decorative techniques for painting chests and headrests with characteristic light backgrounds, motifs of tulip-shaped flowers, bending stems, and patterning inspired local artists in search of special expressiveness of plant patterns. The combination of these influences explains the originality of the works of the Severodvinsk art center, the uniqueness of their figurative and color structure.

The dating of Severodvinsk pictures indicates a fairly long period of their production and existence. The earliest surviving sheets were executed in the 1820s, the latest date back to the beginning of the 20th century.

The next center of the handwritten popular print is known from the exact place where the wall sheets were made. This is a group of Vologda works associated with the former Kadnikovsky and Totemsky districts of the Vologda region. Of the 35 currently known pictures, 15 are kept in the Historical Museum.

Despite the sufficient territorial proximity, the Vologda sheets differ significantly from the Severodvinsk sheets. They differ in stylistic manner, in color scheme, in the absence of patterned ornamentation in Vologda pictures and in the masters’ predilection for genre compositions with a detailed narrative plot.

It is interesting to compare Vologda popular prints with other types of folk art. Wood painting was quite widespread in the Vologda region. Of particular interest to us is the art of house painting of the 19th century, marked by the absence of minute detailing and laconism of the color system - features characteristic of the old Vologda tradition. Lions, birds, griffins, which were found in the drawings on bast boxes, were transferred to the painting of individual details of the interior of the peasant hut. Wall sheets are similar to wood painting in common with the noticeable inclination of artists towards genre-based images, as well as the laconicism of contour graphic outlines and their expressiveness.

When comparing Vologda popular prints with facial manuscripts, it is possible to identify a number of common stylistic features in the artists’ work. According to them, by the way, a certain group of facial collections of the 19th century can be attributed to the Vologda manuscript school, which until recently was not singled out by researchers as an independent center. Typical drawing techniques in both miniatures and pictures include methods of tinting the background with a transparent layer of paint, painting the soil and hills in an even light brown tone with curves written along all lines with a wide stripe of a darker color, depicting floors in interiors in the form of rectangular slabs or long boards with the obligatory outline of the contour in a darker color, highlighting the hair and beards of men in multi-subject compositions with light gray tones. Finally, popular prints and miniatures are united by the use of identical and, apparently, artists’ favorite color combinations, where yellow and brown tones and bright red-orange predominate.

But for all the artistic similarity of both types of Vologda graphic monuments, we will not find in them subjects that would be directly borrowed or transferred from manuscripts to pictures and vice versa.

All Vologda sheets are characterized by a detailed narrative. These are illustrations for parables, legends from the “Great Mirror”, and articles from the Prologue and Patericon. A satirical drawing, rare in subject matter, “Oh ho ho, the Russian peasant is heavy...”, which has already been discussed, is also one of the Vologda monuments.

Vologda artists clearly sought to give the drawings not so much an instructive and edifying meaning, but rather to make them entertaining, to put them in the form of a fascinating story. As a rule, all compositions are multi-figured and action-packed. It is interesting that in some pictures illustrating legends and parables about the temptation of the righteous, about punishment after death for sins, the monsters pursuing a person are depicted not as frightening, but as kind. Wolves, dragons with fiery mouths, lions, snakes, although they surround the cave of St. Anthony or, for example, drive the “evil man” into a burning lake, do not look like creatures of hellish forces, but are of some kind of toy nature. Most likely, this involuntary transformation stems from the deep connection of the masters with the centuries-old traditions of folk art, which has always been distinguished by kindness and a joyful perception of the world.

Another manifestation of the narrative, entertaining nature of Vologda works is the abundance of text included in the composition. In addition, the text part here is completely different than in the pictures of the Pomeranian school. The main thing in Vologda sheets is not the decorative beauty of the font and initials, but the information load. Thus, in the picture “It is in vain that the devil is guilty of us” (cat. 69), the plot of the parable from the “Great Mirror” is set out in a lengthy inscription under the image. Textual explanations are also included in the composition: the dialogue of the characters, as is customary in popular prints, is conveyed by purely graphic means - each person’s statements are written on long stripes drawn to the mouth. The two parts of the picture correspond to two key moments of the story, the meaning of which is that the demon exposes the peasant, who steals turnips from the old man’s garden, of lying and of trying to shift his guilt onto him, the innocent demon.

Most of the works of the local center, as evidenced by the watermarks of the paper and all the information collected by the researchers, date back to the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. No earlier copies have survived or, most likely, did not exist at all. It is quite possible that the Vologda center of hand-drawn wall sheets took shape only at the end of the 19th century in connection with the development of the local manuscript school here. The noticeable revival of the art of painting on wood, which was expressed in the creation of compositions depicting fantastic animals in the interiors of peasant huts, also contributed to the flourishing of the art of painted popular prints here.

The Uslitsa center, like others, is closely connected with the local book tradition. Until recently, researchers did not have a definite opinion about the features of the style of Guslitsky manuscripts. Currently, some articles have appeared in which the authors identify it character traits. Let us note those that are also characteristic of the manner of decorating wall sheets. The handwriting of the best Guslitsky manuscripts is characterized by proportionality, beauty and some elongation of letters. It differs from the Pomeranian semi-ustav by a slightly noticeable inclination of the letters and their greater thickness.

Guslitsky center

Illustrations for the teaching of John Chrysostom on the sign of the cross

Mid 19th century

Illustrations for the teaching of John Chrysostom on the sign of the cross. Mid 19th century. Unknown artist

Ink, tempera, gold. 58x48.7

The initials were made in an elegant and colorful manner, but also different from the Pomeranian one. They do not have long ornamental branches - shoots that sometimes spread along the entire field of paper, but only one lush stem - a loach flower, located next to and level with the initial itself. The inner part of the letters, always voluminous and wide, was decorated with gold or colored curls of the ornament. Often the legs of large initials are decorated with alternating multi-colored ornamental stripes.

The most characteristic distinguishing feature Guslitsky ornament - colored shading, widely used by artists to model volumes or when coloring elements of decorations. The shading was done in the same color as the main tone of the coloring. It was applied either over the white background of the paper, as if framing the main coloring, or over the main tone with a darker color. Bright blue and cyan colors were often used in the headpieces and initials of the monuments of the Guslitsky school. Such shining blue colors in combination with abundant gilding are not found in any of the manuscript schools of the 18th - 19th centuries.

The Historical Museum houses 13 pictures of the Guslitsky manner. Comparison of these drawings with Pomeranian pictures (by analogy with the universally accepted comparison of the ornamentation of Pomeranian and Guslitsky manuscripts) allows us to gain a deeper sense of their originality. Often both text and visual parts are combined in equal proportions - poems, chants, illustrations for literary works. Comparing them shows that the Guslitsky masters knew Pomeranian pictures well. But the artistic solution of Guslitsky’s pictures is completely independent. This concerns the layout of the text, the combination of font sizes with the size of capital letters-initials, and the originality of the decorative frames of the sheets in general. Here, on the contrary, there is a desire not to repeat Vygov’s popular prints in any way. There is not a single case of the use of an oval frame of flowers or fruits, there are no flowerpots or baskets, so typical for framing texts on Pomeranian sheets. The names of the sheets are written not in ligature, but in large half-letters in bright cinnabar. The initials stand out in a particularly large scale, sometimes occupying almost a third of the sheet. One feels that the decoration of the initials was the main concern of the artists - they are so varied and beautifully colored, decorated with intricately curling flowers and leaves, and shining with a golden pattern. They primarily attract the viewer's attention and are the main decorative elements most compositions.

What results the individual skill of the picture decorators led to can be judged by two drawings on the theme of the teaching of John Chrysostom on the correct sign of the cross (cat. 75, 76). It would seem that the plot is the same, the marks are similar, but the sheets are completely different due to different understandings of color and ornamentation.

In Guslitsky pictures, plot episodes are located in separate stamps, placed in the corners or in horizontal stripes at the top and bottom of the sheet. The framing of the central composition with stamps makes one recall icon-painting traditions, the connection with which in Guslitsky’s works is quite noticeable in the modeling of the characters’ clothing, in the depiction architectural structures, in a drawing of trees with a conventional mushroom-shaped crown located in several tiers.

The Guslitsky masters of wall paintings, like everyone else, worked with liquid tempera, but their colors were denser and more saturated.

The same pattern is observed in the plots as in the artistic features of the work of the masters of this school: borrowing general techniques and trends in the works of other centers, they sought to create their own versions, different from others. Among the painted wall sheets there are subjects found in other places where pictures were produced: “Spiritual Pharmacy” (cat. 81) or “Look with diligence, corruptible man...” (cat. 83), but their artistic solution is unique. There are also entirely original pictures: a sheet illustrating the apocryphal tale of the punishment of Cain for killing his brother (cat. 78), illustrations for the “Tombstone Stichera”, which shows the episodes of Joseph and Nicodemus coming to Pilate and the removal of the body of Christ from the cross (cat. 84) .

The time period for creating Guslitsky wall pictures is not very wide. Most of them can be attributed to the second half - the end of the 19th century. The watermark on one sheet gives the date 1828, which is probably the earliest example.

The real local center with which the origin and spread of the painted popular print is associated is Moscow. In relation to the pictures made in Moscow, the concept of school cannot be applied. The group of these sheets is so diverse in artistic and stylistic terms that it is impossible to talk about a single school. Among the Moscow pictures there are unique examples that we have not encountered elsewhere, where the sheets are combined into small series, as was done, for example, by the artist who illustrated the legends of the biblical book of Esther. He placed the main episodes of the biblical story in two pictures, following one after another both in meaning and in the text located at the bottom of them (cat. 90, 91). The viewer unfolds a story about the choice of Esther as a wife to the Persian king Artaxerxes, about her fidelity and modesty, about the betrayal of the courtier Haman and the fearlessness of Mordecai, about the punishment of Haman, etc. Multi-tiered planar placement of episodes, a characteristic combination of the interior and exterior of buildings, lush baroque The compositions are framed by a bizarre interweaving of ancient Russian traditions and the art of modern times.

Considering the stylistics and artistic methods of the local centers of hand-drawn pictures known to us, one can notice that each of them, although it had its own distinctive features, developed in a single general mainstream of folk fine art. They did not exist in isolation, but were constantly aware of the achievements that existed in neighboring and even distant schools, accepting or rejecting some of them, borrowing themes or searching for original subjects, their own ways of expression.

The painted lubok is a special page in the history of folk fine art. He was born in the middle of the 18th century and used the form of printed popular print, which by that time had a widely developed theme and was produced in large quantities. The secondary nature of the drawn popular print in relation to the engraved pictures is beyond doubt. The artists used some instructive and spiritual-moral subjects from engraved pictures. But imitation and borrowing concern mainly the content side.

In terms of artistic methods and stylistics, hand-drawn popular prints showed originality from the very beginning and began to develop independently. Relying on the high culture of ancient Russian painting, and especially the handwritten book tradition, carefully preserved among the Old Believer population, artists transformed the finished form of printed pictures into a different quality. It was the synthesis of ancient Russian traditions and primitive popular prints that resulted in the emergence of works of a new artistic form. The Old Russian component in the painted popular print seems to be perhaps the strongest. There is no sense of stylization or mechanical borrowing in it. Old Believer artists, hostile to innovation, relied on familiar, cherished images from time immemorial, and built their works on the principle of visual illustrative expression of abstract ideas and concepts. Warmed by folk inspiration, the ancient Russian tradition, even in later times, did not become isolated in a conventional world. In her works, she embodied the bright world of humanity for the audience and spoke to them in the sublime language of art.

From icon art, hand-drawn popular prints absorbed spirituality and visual culture. From book miniatures came an organic combination of text and visual parts, methods of writing and decorating initials, careful elaboration of the drawing and coloring of figures and objects.

At the same time, painted sheets were based on the same pictorial system as popular prints. It was built on the understanding of the plane as two-dimensional space, highlighting the main characters by means of enlargement, frontal placement of figures, decorative filling of the background, in a patterned and ornamental manner of constructing the whole. The drawn popular print fits completely into a holistic aesthetic system based on the principles of artistic primitiveness. Artists of painted popular prints, as well as masters of other types of folk art, are distinguished by their rejection of naturalistic verisimilitude, the desire to express not the external form of objects, but their internal essential beginning, the naivety and idyllic way of imaginative thinking.

The art of hand-drawn popular prints occupies a special place in the system of folk art due to its intermediate position between urban and peasant art. Developing among peasant artists or in Old Believer communities, where the overwhelming majority of the population was also peasant in origin, the painted popular print is closest to the urban craft art of the Posad. Being an easel art, to some extent an art of illustration, and not the decoration of things needed in everyday life, as the vast majority of peasant art was, the painted popular print turns out to be more dependent on urban, professional art. Hence his desire for “picturesqueness”, the noticeable influence of baroque and rocaille techniques in compositional structures.

The peasant environment added another layer to the artistic nature of the hand-drawn popular print - folklore tradition, folklore poetic images, always living in the popular collective consciousness. The special love for the motif of the tree of life, the tree of wisdom with useful advice and instructions, for the flowering and fruit-bearing tree - a symbol of the beauty of nature, comes from the artists of hand-drawn popular prints from an ancient folklore concept, constantly embodied in objects of applied art. The motifs of large flowers, buds with the power of growth and flowering contained in them reflect the people's poetic worldview. Enjoyment of the beauty of the world, a joyful worldview, optimism, folklore generalization - these are the features that the painted popular print absorbed from peasant art. This is felt in the entire figurative and color structure of the hand-drawn wall pictures.

The history of hand-drawn popular print goes back a little over 100 years. The disappearance of the art of hand-drawn pictures at the beginning of the 20th century is explained by the general reasons that influenced the change in all popular prints.

Distributed in huge mass circulations, chromolithography and oleography, concentrated in the hands of such publishers as I. D. Sytin, T. M. Solovyov, I. A. Morozov, and others, completely changed the appearance of the city popular print, turning it into beautiful pictures “for the people.” " At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, the Moscow Old Believer printing house of G. K. Gorbunov launched active publishing activities, where popular prints of religious content were printed in large quantities. The drawn popular print was probably simply supplanted by this dominance of cheap pictures. Not directly connected with everyday life, with the production of dishes, spinning wheels, toys, the peasant craft in the field of painted popular prints, almost completely unknown to connoisseurs and patrons of the arts and therefore not finding support, as was the case with some other types of folk art, disappeared without a trace.

The reasons for the extinction of the art of popular prints in the practice of the early 20th century are both private and general. The steady development of forms of human society, changes in psychology and lifestyle associated with the process of urbanization, increased contradictions in socio-social development and many other factors led at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries to the transformation of the entire system of folk culture and the inevitable loss of some traditional types of folk art.

Acquaintance with painted popular prints is intended to fill the gap that exists in the study of folk art of the 18th-19th centuries. The question of ways to further develop folk artistic crafts, which is so pressing today, requires new in-depth research, a search for truly folk traditions, and their introduction into artistic practice. The study of little-known monuments of folk art can help in solving these problems.

Lubok is, in fact, an engraving printed from a wooden base, and later from a metal one. The origin of lubok comes from China, from where it later reached Europe. Of course, in each country this type of art had its own name and characteristics.

Where the name “lubok” came from is not known for certain. There are many versions: they remember the linden (bast) boards on which the first pictures were cut out, and the bast boxes of traders who sold bast prints at fairs, and Muscovites are completely sure that the bast prints came from the Lubyanka. Nevertheless, lubok is the most popular art of the Russian people from the 17th to the 20th centuries.

At first black and white and “elite”, which served to decorate the royal and boyar chambers, later Russian lubok became widespread and colored. The black and white print was painted by women, and they used hare's feet instead of brushes. These “coloring books” were often clumsy and sloppy, but among them there are also real small masterpieces with harmoniously selected colors.

The subjects of the popular print were richly varied: folk epics, fairy tales, moral teachings, “notes” on history, law and medicine, religious themes - and everything was well seasoned with humorous captions telling about the customs of their time. For the people, these were both news sheets and educational sources. Lubki often traveled vast distances, passing from hand to hand.

Popular prints were printed on cheap paper by self-taught people, and they were wildly popular among the peasants. Although the highest nobility did not recognize the popular print as an art and no one was specifically concerned with preserving these drawings for posterity, moreover, the authorities and the church elite tried every now and then to ban it. This popular print is now considered a real treasure trove that has preserved the history of Rus' and folk humor, which nurtured true caricature talents and became the source of book illustration. And, of course, the popular print is the direct ancestor of modern comics.