RUSSIAN ART

[:)]

Hi!
A friend of mine collects matryoshka/babushka dolls, eggs, and other
tid-bits of related Russian art. She wants to know if there are people out
there who consider this to be a serious collecitble art form....ok! She
collects because she loves them.
So do you know anything about this? Any replies (via email please) are
appreciated!
Thankyou in advance!

:)

[gte...@my-dejanews.com]

In article <Pine.OSF.3.96.980606222357.21799C-
100...@cassius.its.unimelb.edu.au>,

Here is some info I found that will lend validity to the fact that this IS in
deed, a "serious collectable art form":

Authors & Copyright: Larissa Soloviova & Marina Marder

The Russian Matryoshka (painted wooden dolls nestled into one another) is
known far outside Russia and has a history of almost a century. During this
comparatively short space of time it emerged as an all-embracing symbol of
Russia, a symbol of Russian folk art.

There are at present several centers for the production and painting of
matryoshkas. They include Sergiev Posad near Moscow, the city of Semyonov and
the villages of Polkhovsky Maidan and Krutets in the Nizhni Novgorod Region.
Other known centers are in the Vyatka, Tver, Mariel and Mordovian areas. The
art of matryoshka painting has spread from Russia to the Ukraine and
Byelorussia. The art of authors’ matryoshkas has seen vigorous development.

The wooden painted doll appeared in Russia in 1890s, the period that saw
burgeoning economic and cultural development. It was the time of a growing
sense of national identity and interest in Russian culture and art. As part
of this general trend a new artistic current called "Russian style" emerged.
The so-called Mamontov circle was among the early centers that advocated the
revival of Russian culture. It was presided over by Savva Mamontov
(1841-1918), a Russian industrialist, patron and connoisseur of arts who had
gathered around him a group of outstanding Russian artists including I.E.
Repin, M.M. Antokolsky, V.M. Vasnetsov, M.A. Vrubel and others. In his
Abramtsevo estate near Moscow Savva Mamontov built art studios where folk
craftsmen worked along with professional artists. The enthusiasts who formed
the Mamontov circle engaged in education, art and collection with a heavy
emphasis on reviving Russian culture, especially the national and folk
traditions. Among the items of folk art they collected were peasant toys.

The development of the folk peasant toy was a major area of their efforts. To
this end a Children’s Education workshop was opened in Moscow which began by
making dolls to demonstrate the festive costumes of inhabitants of various
gubernias and uyezds in Russia and were an accurate portrayal of ethnic
features of peasant women’s dress. It was at this workshop that the idea of a
Russian wooden doll was conceived. S.V. Malyutin (1859-1937) made sketches, a
professional artist and member of the Mamontov circle, an active pioneer of
the "Russian style" in art. His matryoshka was a round-faced peasant girl in
an embroidered shirt, a surafait (a Russian national dress) and an apron, in
a colored kerchief holding a black rooster.

The Russian wooden doll was called matryoshka. The name is not fortuitous. In
provincial Russia before 1917 the name Matryona or Matryosha was among the
most common female names derived from the Latin root "mater", which means
"mother". The name conjured up the image of a staid, sturdy family matron.
Subsequently, it became a symbolic name and was specifically applied to
describe painted wooden dolls fashioned in such a way that they could be
taken apart to reveal smaller dolls fitting into one another. Yet to this day
matryoshka remains a symbol of motherhood and fertility. A doll with a
numerous offspring of dolls is a fine metaphor for the oldest symbol of human
culture.

The first Russian matryoshka manufactured from the sketches of S.V. Malyutin
by V. Zvezdochkin, the best toy-maker of Sergiev Posad, contained eight
dolls. A girl with a black rooster contained a boy, which contained a girl
again. No two figures were alike with the smallest, eighth, figure portraying
a baby tightly wrapped in a diaper. S.V. Malyutin borrowed the idea of a
"take-apart" doll from a Japanese toy which S.I. Mamontov’s wife had brought
from the Island of Honshu. That figure showed a sage by the name of Fukuruma,
a good-natured bald- headed old man, a doll that contained several other
figures nestled in one another. The Japanese, incidentally, claim that a
Russian monk made such doll on the Island of Honshu the first.

Russian craftsmen who had a long tradition of making wooden objects that
fitted into each other (for example, Easter eggs) mastered the matryoshka
technology with ease. The basic technique of matryoshka-making remains
unchanged and it draws on all the turning skills used by Russian folk
craftsmen.

The most common kinds of tree used for matryoshkas are lime and birch. The
trees that chosen are usually cuts in early spring. Stripped of their bark
leaving a few rings to prevent the wood cracking when dried. The logs are
arranged in piles with a clearance between them to allow aeration. The logs
are kept in the open air for several years. It is essential not to allow the
wood to be too dry or not dry enough. Only an experienced master can tell
when the material is ready. The logs are then cut into workpieces for
matryoshkas. Every work piece passes through as many as 15 turning operations
before being fashioned into a doll.

Fashioning a doll on a turning lathe requires a high degree of skill, an
ability to handle a beguilingly small set of tools - a knife and chisels of
various length and shape. The first to be made is usually the smallest
figures which cannot be taken apart. In the making of the next matryoshka the
bottom part is fashioned first. Then it is processed to a necessary height
and the top end is removed. After that the upper ring is made on which the
top part of the matryoshka will be fitted and then its lower part is made.
Then the matryoshka’s head is fashioned and enough wood is removed from
within the matryoshka’s head to slip on the upper ring. All these operations
do not involve any measurements, and rely on intuition and require great
skill.

The upper part of the matryoshka stuck on the lower part dries and tightens
the ring so that it sits securely in place. The turning work done, the
snow-white wooden doll is thoroughly cleaned, primed with starchy glue to
make its surface ideally smooth and to prevent the paint making smudges and
then dried. The matryoshka is now ready to be painted.

The pattern of the first Russian matryoshka was poked and it was painted with
gouache and covered with varnish by S.V. Malyutin himself. Until the late
1890s matryoshkas were manufactured in the Children’s Education workshop in
Moscow and after the workshop was closed the showcase and training works in
Sergiev Posad near Moscow, an old toy-making center, picked up the tradition.
It soon launched commercial production of the toy and developed the type of
matryoshka that became known as Sergiev Posad or Zagorsk matryoshka. In 1930,
the city was renamed Zagorsk but its old historic name has been recently
restored.

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