Story

Khokhloma is an old Russian folk craft that was born in the 17th century in the district of Nizhny Novgorod.

An old legend tells: once lived in the Nizhny Novgorod forests, on the banks of a quiet river, a man. Who he is and where he came from, we do not know. That man carved wooden bowls and spoons and painted them so that it seemed they were made of pure gold. The king found out about this and got angry: “Why don’t I have such a master in my palace?! To me it! Immediately!" He tapped his staff, stamped his foot and sent soldiers to bring the craftsman to the palace. The soldiers went to fulfill the royal order, but no matter how much they searched, they could not find the miracle of the master. He left no one knows where, but first he taught the local peasants how to make gold dishes. In each hut, cups and spoons sparkled with gold.

Technology "golden Khokhloma"

First they beat the buckets, that is, they make rough wood blanks. Then he removes the excess wood with a cutter and gradually gives the workpiece the desired shape. This is how the basis is obtained - “linen” (unpainted products) - carved ladles and spoons, supplies and cups.

The dishes are sharpened from raw wood, therefore, they are first dried. Then the products are primed, coated with clay (vapa). After priming, the product is dried for 7-8 hours and must be manually covered with several layers of drying oil (linseed oil). During the day, the product is covered with drying oil 3-4 times. The next stage is “tinning”, that is, rubbing aluminum powder into the surface of the product. After tinning, the objects acquire a beautiful white-mirror shine, and are ready for painting.

Oil paints are used in painting. The main colors that determine the character and recognizability of Khokhloma painting are red and black (cinnabar and soot), but others are allowed to revive the pattern - brown, light green, yellow, white. Painted products are covered with a special varnish 4-5 times and finally hardened for 3-4 hours in an oven at a temperature of +150 ... +160 ° C until a golden oil-lacquer film is formed. This is how the famous “golden Khokhloma” is obtained.

Types of painting

The Khokhloma craft reached its peak in the 18th century. At this time, two types of letters are formed: riding and background.

horse painting was carried out with plastic strokes on the tinned surface of the dishes, creating a magnificent openwork pattern. At "riding" In writing, the master applies a drawing with black or red paint to the background of the product. Three types of ornament can be distinguished here: "herbal" painting, painting "under the sheet" or "under the berry", painting "gingerbread".

For "background" the painting was characterized by the use of a black or red background, while the drawing itself remained golden. V "background" In writing, two types of ornament are distinguished: - painting "under the background" and painting "curly".

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KHOKHLOMA - ANCIENT RUSSIAN FOLK CRAFTS

Khokhloma is an old Russian folk craft that was born in the 17th century on the left bank of the Volga, in the villages of Khokhloma (hence the name of the painting), Big and Small Bezdels, Mokushino, Shabashi, Glibino, Khryashchi. Currently, the village of Kovernino in the Nizhny Novgorod region is considered the birthplace of Khokhloma.

Golden Khokhloma!

One of the most famous paintings in Russia. Perhaps not, there is a person who has not held a painted wooden spoon in his hands or has not seen the beautiful and surprisingly rich Khokhloma products. But where did this fabulously beautiful painting come from? What craftsman came up with the idea of ​​applying silver to a tree, and then varnishing it, achieving a golden glow? This is the focus of the material collected in this section.
The painting of wooden utensils appeared in Russia a long time ago - in the 16th century. They released her in large quantities, hundreds, thousands of pieces, since the tree wore out quickly, and utensils are necessary in everyday life. It was sold "at Macarius", in Moscow and in Veliky Ustyug.
Art historians attribute the origin of the Khokhloma craft to the second half of the 17th century.
For the first time, this village is mentioned in documents of the 16th century. Even under Ivan the Terrible, Khokhloma was known as a forest area called “Khokhlomskaya Ukhozheya” (Ukhozheya is a place cleared from the forest for arable land).
Wooden utensils have been widely used by Russian people since ancient times: ladles and brackets in the shape of a floating bird, round bratins, dinner bowls, spoons of various shapes and sizes were found in archaeological excavations as early as the 10th-13th centuries. There are samples that date back several millennia.
In ancient times, in the dense Trans-Volga forests near the trading village of Khokhloma, the first settlers hiding from persecution were "leakers", that is, fugitives who took refuge here from persecution for the "old faith", from tsarist arbitrariness, landlord oppression. Among them were both artists and masters of handwritten miniatures. It was not easy to feed on peasant labor on scarce land, and fugitive people adapted themselves to painting wooden utensils, which were sharpened here by local craftsmen from time immemorial. Previously unknown painting fabulously transformed modest kitchen utensils. But especially beautiful and inimitable were the various sets, bowls and brothers that came out from under the brush of one famous master. It seemed that his painting absorbed the sun's rays - golden, which are at noon, and red - cinnabar at dawn.
It was said among the people that the artist painted his dishes not with a simple one, but with a magic brush woven from the sun's rays. Bright, festive dishes fell in love not only with the inhabitants of the district, the fame of it spread throughout Russia. Seeing Khokhloma dishes, the king immediately guessed who was painting them, and sent guards to the Volga forests. The warned painter managed to escape, but he taught the locals the tricks of the unusual craft and left them paints and a magic brush. Such is the old legend about the origin of the bright and original art of Khokhloma painting, which is often called golden, fiery, or fiery. And this is no coincidence; the art of Khokhloma could not have been born without fire, without hardening products in a Russian oven.
This legend explains how a close relationship arose between the Trans-Volga and Northern Old Believers, which had a great influence on the art of Khokhloma.
Proximity to a large river and a fair created favorable conditions for engaging in various crafts and trade. Fairs were held on the banks of the river, to which goods were brought from the north and south of Russia. The territory of the region looked like a large workshop. The inhabitants of the Zavolzhsky villages, scattered in the Nizhny Novgorod and Kostroma provinces, were engaged in various crafts. Peasants who produced the same things settled nearby in nearby villages, and every week they sold their products in a large trading village. Items were brought in from all over the area. They came from Kostroma and Vetluga, brought a variety of painted and carved items. But wood chips were in special demand - wooden spoons, cups, bowls. Dyers at such fairs bought wooden blanks and sold their products. Turners and spoon-carriers exchanged their goods for wood for further work. Merchants bought finished products, loaded them on carts in summer and sleighs in winter, and took them to the fair “to Makariy”.

Christmas balls with Khokhloma painting.

Khokhloma is an old Russian folk craft that was born in the 17th century in the district of Nizhny Novgorod. Khokhloma is a decorative painting of wooden utensils and furniture, made in red, green and black on a gold background.
The painting looks bright, although the background is black. The colors used are... red, yellow, orange, some green and blue, and of course a black background. Gold is often used. The traditional elements of Khokhloma are red juicy rowan and strawberry berries, flowers and branches. Often there are birds, fish and animals

Khokhloma is an old Russian folk craft that was born in the 17th century in the district of Nizhny Novgorod. An old legend tells: once upon a time a man lived in the forests of Nizhny Novgorod, on the banks of a quiet river. Who he is and where he came from, we do not know. That man carved wooden cups and spoons and painted them so that it seemed they were made of pure gold. The king found out about this and got angry: “Why don’t I have such a master in my palace?! To me it! Immediately!" He tapped his staff, stamped his foot and sent soldiers to bring the craftsman to the palace. The soldiers went to fulfill the royal order, but no matter how much they searched, they could not find the miracle of the master. He left no one knows where, but first he taught the local peasants how to make gold dishes. In each hut, cups and spoons sparkled with gold.

The Khokhloma village, Koverninsky district, Nizhny Novgorod region, is considered the birthplace of Khokhloma.

Products for Khokhloma painting, most often dishes and furniture, are made of wood. But before painting on them, the surface is covered with a primer and shiny oil using a special technology. Then this shiny surface is tinned - aluminum powder is rubbed into it with a soft cloth, from which it becomes silvery and very smooth, and after varnishing - golden. They paint dishes "under Khokhloma" with oil paints. The traditional elements of Khokhloma are red juicy rowan and strawberry berries, flowers and branches. Birds, fish and animals are also often found.

Red, black, gold and green are the colors of Khokhloma. To revive the pattern, a little white is allowed.

The painting is “horse” - a drawing is applied to a silver blank in red and black; and “under the background” - first, the contour of the ornament is outlined, and then the background is filled with black paint, while the pattern itself is not painted, but remains silver. When we cover it with varnish, the silvery coating will turn into golden and will look like it is made of gold :)

Let's practice in horse Khokhloma painting? To do this, you need to print a sheet with your favorite pattern or dishes. And there - pick up a brush and paint and go!

Grass - a pattern of large and small blades of grass. Pattern elements: sedges, blades of grass, droplets, antennae, curls and bushes.

Herbal ornament.

Leaf pattern - stems and leaves.

The berry pattern includes an ornament: lingonberry, gooseberry, currant, strawberry, mountain ash, raspberry.

The “gingerbread” ornament is usually drawn inside a cup or dish; it is a geometric figure (square or rhombus) decorated with grass, berries, and flowers.

In painting "under the background" the element "curly" is more often used. The “kudrin” painting is a rich, lush pattern with round, intricate curls resembling curls. They draw not the patterns themselves, but a dark background. And the resulting pattern is supplemented with small colored elements (additions). This process is much more laborious than horse painting.

Painted products are coated 4-5 times with a special varnish (with intermediate drying after each layer) and finally hardened for 3-4 hours in an oven at a temperature of +150 +160 ° C until a golden oil-lacquer film is formed. This is how the famous “golden Khokhloma” is obtained.

Khokhloma painting (Khokhloma) is an old Russian folk craft that was born in the 17th century in the district of Nizhny Novgorod.

Khokhloma is a decorative painting of wooden utensils and furniture, made in red, green and black tones on a golden background. khokhloma painting art

When painting a tree, not gold, but silver-tin powder is applied to the tree. After that, the product is covered with a special composition and processed three or four times in the oven, which achieves a honey-golden color, giving the effect of massiveness to light wooden utensils.

The painting looks bright, despite the dark background.

To create a picture, paints such as red, yellow, orange, a little green and blue are used.

The traditional elements of Khokhloma are red rowan and strawberry berries, flowers and branches. Often there are birds, fish and animals.

The history of the emergence and development of painting

It is believed that Khokhloma painting originated in the 17th century on the left bank of the Volga, in the villages of Big and Small Bezdel, Mokushino, Shabashi, Glibino, Khryashchi. The village of Khokhloma was a major sales center, where finished products were brought, and the name of the painting came from there. Currently, the village of Kovernino in the Nizhny Novgorod region is considered the birthplace of Khokhloma.

To date, there are many versions of the origin of Khokhloma painting, below are the two most common:

According to the most common version, the unique way of painting wooden dishes “under gold” in the forest Trans-Volga region and the very birth of the Khokhloma craft was attributed to the Old Believers. Even in ancient times, among the inhabitants of local villages, securely sheltered in the wilderness of forests, there were many "leakers", that is, people fleeing persecution for the "old faith".

Among the Old Believers who moved to the Nizhny Novgorod land there were many icon painters, masters of book miniatures. They brought with them ancient icons and handwritten books with colorful headpieces, fine painting skills, free brush calligraphy and examples of the richest floral ornament.

In turn, local craftsmen excellently mastered turning skills, passed down from generation to generation the skills of making dishware molds, the art of three-dimensional carving.

At the turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries, the forest Trans-Volga region became a real artistic treasury. The art of Khokhloma inherited from the Trans-Volga masters the "classical forms" of turning utensils, the plasticity of the carved forms of ladles, spoons, and from the icon painters - the pictorial culture, the skill of the "thin brush". And, no less important, the secret of making "golden" dishes without the use of gold.

But there are documents showing otherwise.

A method of imitation of gilding on wood, related to Khokhloma, was used by Nizhny Novgorod artisans in coloring wooden utensils as early as 1640-1650, before the appearance of the Old Believers.

In the large Nizhny Novgorod handicraft villages of Lyskovo and Murashkino, in the Trans-Volga "selishka Semenovskoye" (the future city of Semyonov - one of the centers of Khokhloma painting), wooden utensils were made - brothers, ladles, dishes for the festive table - painted "for pewter", then eat with tin powder. The method of painting wooden utensils “for pewter”, probably preceding Khokhloma, developed from the experience of icon painters and local Volga traditions of utensil craft.

For a long time in the Trans-Volga region they have been engaged in the manufacture of wooden utensils.

Wood was the most convenient and affordable material for creating household items. Nimble shuttles - "boots" were hollowed out of tree trunks, figured ladles were cut out, decorating their handles with carved silhouettes of horses, and various forms of dishes were carved.

The proximity of the great Volga route contributed to the fact that wooden utensils were made here early for sale. However, the first utensil crafts of the Trans-Volga region did not differ in any way from the many similar industries that developed on the territory of our country.

Probably, the masters of the Trans-Volga region began to paint dishes long before they mastered the technique of "golden" coloring.

Back in the 19th century, along with "gilded" wooden utensils, cheap cups and salt shakers were also made here, the surface of which was decorated only with the simplest geometric patterns - rosettes, rhombuses, spiral curls and wavy lines applied with a stamp or brush.

The techniques closest to Khokhloma painting are found among icon painters. Masters of ancient Russia knew how to save expensive metal. To paint the background of the icon in a golden color, they sometimes used not gold, but silver powder. After painting, the icon was covered with varnish made from linseed oil and heated in an oven. Under the influence of high temperature, the lacquer film acquired a golden hue, and the silver powder shining through it became like gold. This technique became especially widespread in the 17th - 18th centuries, when the decoration of Russian churches became especially rich and magnificent. They create tall gilded iconostases with large icons. Icon cases and church furniture are painted in golden color. The techniques of writing with silver instead of gold at that time became known to a wide range of Russian icon painters. (Fig. 1)

Great changes in the art of Khokhloma painting are associated with the first half of the 19th century. At this time, instead of silver, craftsmen learned to use cheap tin, turning it into a powder convenient for applying to the surface of a tree. A new period has begun in the history of fishing. Now the craftsmen could almost completely paint the walls of bratins, cups, salt shakers, and supplies in a golden color.

Drawings of Khokhloma grass, which made it possible to most effectively use the "golden" color, were at that time even more developed. Masters of Khokhloma comprehend the laws of painting on a golden background. In its ornamentation, the techniques of a planar silhouette interpretation of motifs are finally established, which are most appropriate for painting on a golden background. In the painting, whitewashing disappears, creating the impression of a voluminous form. Color gamut is limited. If earlier the craftsmen used white, blue, blue, pink, green and brown paints, now the main colors of the ornament are red, black and gold. (fig.2)

The golden color obtained by the masters was inferior to the color of gold in brightness and did not have the desired shade of warmth. The masters tried to make this drawback less noticeable by painting with red and black paint, which created a sonorous color chord with a golden background. The fiery-bright cinnabar gave great warmth to the golden background, and the black paint made it seem lighter and brighter.

The execution of the ornament on a golden background led to the adoption of a type of composition characteristic of grass painting with an openwork pattern covering a significant part of the surface of the thing. It was unprofitable to expose the fake gold background in large areas of a smooth surface. Noticing this, the masters began to perform drawings in which the background only shone through the pattern and in the intervals between the motifs. (fig.3)

For the formation of the Khokhloma ornament, its execution free of hand with a brush was of great importance.

The propensity for the breadth of writing, characteristic of the temperament of the Russian leaf ornament, is more clearly manifested. A bold brushstroke becomes one of the main elements of the herbal pattern. Combining elongated strokes of red and black paint in different ways, the craftsmen created motifs of herbs, flowers, bushes and trees with lush curly foliage.

The pattern was complemented by a motif of berries and flowers, applied with a poke, swab or soft porous sponge. The lightness and ease of the master's ornamental handwriting become the criterion for the artistic merit of the work. Hand-painted with a brush, the craftsmen developed the habit of freely varying the ornament. The features of herbal patterns were also influenced by the forms of chiseled wooden utensils. In the process of their work, for each type of product in Khokhloma, typical painting compositions were found that most corresponded to the nature of their shape and size.

The drawings on bowls and dishes are based on a subtle understanding of the techniques of composing an ornament in a circle. When painting cups and dishes, the craftsmen clearly distinguished their bottom, placing a rosette on it with lines radiating from the center like the sun's rays. On larger objects, a square or rhombus with softly rounded corners was drawn around the rosette, which was called a gingerbread, due to its resemblance to a real patterned gingerbread placed in a cup. A pattern associated with the movement of the brush in a circle was made around the center of the cup. The simplest drawing consisted of vertical or oblique red and black strokes. Complicating it, the masters placed two or three red and black elongated strokes next to each other, connecting their ends below. It turned out the motif of the so-called "paw", resembling a bird's track in the snow. (Fig. 4)

On large cups and dishes, craftsmen often performed one of the types of herbal ornament - "sedge". This is a pattern of stems and elongated grass leaves, as if bowed by a gust of wind.

"Sedges" were located on the sides of cups and dishes, framing a rosette with a "gingerbread". The dynamic rhythm of the stems and herbs on the concave spherical surface of the bowl was especially noticeable due to the static pattern of the "carrot". (Fig. 5)

On supplies and salt boxes, which had a cylindrical shape, the craftsmen created drawings for four "flowers" or "trees", depicting shoots rising from the ground. On a golden background, they placed two red and two black stems with patterned foliage on the branches, as if stretching towards the light and the sun. (Fig. 6)

Knowing traditional motifs and typical compositions, even ordinary painters could create highly artistic works. Their work, and this is perhaps the most valuable, never turned into the work of a copyist. Typical compositions served only as guidelines to facilitate the work.

Floral ornament in the "under the background" technique and "curly" drawings in the 19th century were performed by craftsmen much less frequently than grass patterns, so Khokhloma's artistic heritage in this area is much poorer.

Both of these types of painting were more laborious than grass painting, and for a long time only the most experienced masters owned them.

Only in the second half of the 19th century, in connection with the development of furniture production in Khokhloma, did the technique of painting “under the background” become more widespread. Ornaments with golden flowers and birds on a black background, which were performed especially often on children's tables and chairs, attract attention with the beauty of the pattern applied with the free movements of the brush. As in grass drawings, in painting "under the background" there appear their own well-developed methods of ornamental cursive writing. Compositions become stricter, more concise and at the same time more emotionally expressive. (Fig. 7)

Techniques for the execution of the "curly" ornament are less laborious than painting "under the background". From the middle of the 19th century, many Khokhloma masters already widely owned them. Drawings "Kudrina" wrote on cups and on large "artel" dishes. With their large monumental forms, they resembled the patterns of the Volga house carving. In the second half of the 19th century, the motifs of "curly hair" were often performed in the painting of spoons. In each workshop, they were written by the most skilled craftsmen on the so-called spoons with a "face", which were placed one at a time on top in a box with cheap simple spoons to show the abilities and skills of the "clerks". (Fig. 8)