What is a lubok? What is "lubok" and "lubok pictures.

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Original view folk art. It was carried out in the technique of woodcuts, copper engravings, lithographs and was complemented by freehand coloring.

Lubok is characterized by simplicity of technique, conciseness visual means(rough stroke, bright coloring). Lubok often contains a detailed narrative with explanatory inscriptions and additional (explanatory, complementary) images to the main one.

Story

The most ancient luboks are known in China. Until the 8th century, they were drawn by hand. Since the 8th century, the first popular prints made in woodcuts have been known. Lubok appeared in Europe in the 15th century. The woodcut technique is typical for early European lubok. 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 agitation (for example, “flying sheets” during Peasants' War and the Reformation in Germany, popular prints of the times of the Great 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 of obscene content are widespread, for example, "Tableau de l'amur conjual" (Picture of conjugal love). “Seductive and immoral pictures” were brought to Russia from France and Holland.

The Russian lubok of the 18th century is notable for its sustained composition.

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

AT late XIX century, lubok was revived in the form of comics.

In Russia

Story

AT Russia XVI century - early XVII For centuries, prints were sold, which were called “Fryazhsky sheets”, or “German amusing sheets”.

AT late XVI In the 1st century, a Fryazhsky mill was installed in the Upper (Court) printing house for printing Fryazh sheets. In 1680, the craftsman Afanasy Zverev carved “all kinds of Fryazh cuts” on copper boards for the tsar.

German amusing sheets were sold in the Vegetable Row, and later on the Spassky Bridge.

Censorship and prohibitions

Moscow Patriarch Joachim in 1674 forbade "buying sheets printed by German heretics, Luthers and Calvins, in their accursed opinion." The faces of the revered saints were to be written on the board, and the printed images were intended for "handsomeness".

The decree of March 20, 1721 forbade the sale "on the Spassky Bridge and in other places in Moscow, composed by people of various ranks ... prints (sheets) printed arbitrarily, except for the printing house." The Izugrafskaya Chamber was created in Moscow.

The chamber issued permission to print luboks "arbitrarily, except for the printing house." Over time, this decree ceased to be executed. Appeared a large number of low-quality images of the Saints.

Therefore, by decree of October 18, 1744, it was ordered "to submit the drawings in advance for approbation to the diocesan bishops."

The decree of January 21, 1723 demanded that "Imperial persons skillfully write to painters testified in good craftsmanship with all danger and diligent care." Therefore, in popular prints there are no images of reigning persons.

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

Plots of paintings

Initially, the plots for lubok paintings were handwritten legends, life stories, "father's writings", oral legends, articles from translated newspapers (for example, "Chimes"), etc.

Plots and drawings were borrowed from foreign Almanacs and Calendars. AT early XIX centuries, plots are borrowed from the novels and stories of Goethe, Radcliffe, Cotten, Chateaubriand and other writers.

At the end of the 19th century, pictures on themes from the scriptures, portraits of the imperial family prevailed, then genre pictures came, most often of a moral and instructive nature (about the disastrous consequences of gluttony, drunkenness, greed).

Face editions of "Yeruslan Lazarevich" and other fairy tales, images in faces folk songs(“The boyars rode from Nova-Gorod”, “Husband’s wife beat”), female heads with absurd inscriptions, images of cities ( Jerusalem - the navel of the earth).

Lubok production

The engravers were called "Fryazh carving masters" (in contrast to the Russian "ordinary" wood carvers). In Moscow at the end of the 16th century, the first engraver was supposedly Andronik Timofeev Nevezha.

Signing was called drawing and coloring. Approximately in the 16th (or in the 17th) century, commemoration was divided into commemoration and engraving. The bannerman applied the drawing, the engraver cut it out on a board, or metal.

Copying boards was called translation. The boards were originally lime, then maple, pear and palm.

The splint was made as follows: the artist applied pencil drawing on a linden board (bast), then, according to this drawing, with a knife, he made a deepening of those places that should remain white. The board smeared with paint under pressure left black contours of the picture on paper.

Printed in this way on cheap gray paper were called plain paintings. Prostoviki were taken to special artels. In the 19th century, in the villages near Moscow and Vladimir, there were special artels that were engaged in coloring popular prints. Women and children were engaged in coloring luboks.

Later, a more perfect way to produce popular prints, engravers appeared. With a thin chisel on copper plates, they engraved a drawing with hatching, with all the small details, which could not be done on a lime board.

One of the first Russian figure factories appeared in Moscow in mid-eighteenth century. The factory belonged to the merchants Akhmetievs. The factory had 20 machines.

Prostovikov, that is, the cheapest pictures, costing ½ a penny a piece, were printed and colored in the Moscow district for about 4 million annually. Top price popular prints was 25 kopecks.

Popularity

Luboks fell in love in Russia immediately and by everyone without exception. They could be met in the royal chambers, in the serf's hut, in the inn, in monasteries.

There are documents showing that Patriarch Nikon had two hundred and seventy of them, for the most part, however, still Fryazhsky. And Tsarevich Peter has already bought a lot of domestic ones, in his rooms there were about a hundred of them. There are two reasons for such a rapid and wide popularity of seemingly simple pictures.

Firstly, the splints were replaced common man books inaccessible to him: textbooks, starting with the alphabet and arithmetic and ending with cosmography (astronomy), fiction- in luboks with a series of successive pictures, as in stamps hagiographic icons, with extensive signatures, epics and stories were retold or published.

Adventure translated novels about Bova Korolevich and Yeruslan Lazarevich, fairy tales, songs, proverbs. There were luboks like newsletters and newspapers that reported on the most important state events, about wars, about life in other countries.

There were interpreters Holy Bible depicting the largest monasteries and cities. There were medical splints and about all sorts of folk beliefs and omens. There were the worst satires.

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origin of name

The name comes from boards of special sawing, which were called bast (deck). On them back in the 15th century. wrote plans, drawings, drawings. Then the so-called “fryazh sheets” appeared, and later small paper pictures were simply called lubok (popular folk picture).

In Russia

In Russia folk pictures became widespread in the 17th-20th centuries. They were cheap (even low-income segments of the population could buy them) and often performed the function decorative design. Popular sheets performed the social and entertaining role of a newspaper or a primer. They are the prototype modern calendars, posters, comics and posters. In the 17th century, painted bast boxes became widespread.

Lubok types

• Spiritual and religious - In the Byzantine style. Icon type images. Lives of saints, parables, morals, songs, etc.
• Philosophical.
• Legal - images of lawsuits and court actions. Often there were plots: “Shemyakin Court” and “Yorsh Ershovich Shchetinnikov”.
• Historical - "Touching stories" from the annals. Image historical events, battles, cities. Topographic maps.
• Fairy tales - fairy tales, heroic ones, "Tales of daring people", everyday tales.
• Holidays - images of saints.
• Cavalry - Luboks depicting riders.
• Joker - funny popular prints, satires, caricatures, fables.

Coloring method

Artel workers accepted orders for coloring hundreds of thousands of copies from lubok publishers. One person per week painted up to one thousand popular prints - one ruble was paid for such work. The profession was called a colorist. The profession disappeared after the advent of lithographic machines.

Advantages of a printed picture

First Benefits printed picture in Moscow all the same regulars of the Spassky Bridge, or the Spassky Krestets, as this place was often called then, saw through. The book trade flourished there even to the splint - the main trade in Russia was in this part. But only books were sold more handwritten and very often of the most poisonous quality, such as the satirical "Priest Savva - great fame” and “Services of the tavern”. The writers themselves and their friends - artists from the same common people - drew illustrations for these books, or sewed them into the pages, or sold them separately. But how much can you draw by hand?!

Manufacturing

It was these writers and artists who drew attention to the popular prints, which were brought by foreigners, first as a gift to the Moscow tsar and the boyars, and then for a wide sale. It turned out that making them is not so difficult, moreover, many thousands of pictures can be printed from one board, and even with text cut out in the same way next to the picture. Someone from foreigners or Belarusians, apparently, built the first machine in Moscow and brought ready-made boards for the sample.

I.D. Sytin

In the second half of the 19th century, ID Sytin was one of the largest producers and distributors of printed popular prints. In 1882, the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition took place in Moscow, at which Sytin's products were awarded a silver medal. ID Sytin collected boards from which popular prints were printed for about 20 years. The collection, worth several tens of thousands of rubles, was destroyed during a fire in Sytin's printing house during the 1905 Revolution.

Style formation

The still young Russian popular print, of course, borrowed a lot from other arts, and first of all from the book miniature, and therefore, artistically, it soon became, as it were, a kind of alloy, a synthesis of all the best that had been developed. Russian art per previous centuries of its existence.

But only to what extent did the lubochniks sharpen and exaggerate all forms, to what extent did they increase the contrast and heat up the colors, heat up to such an extent that each leaf literally burns, splashes with cheerful multicolor.

Nowadays

AT modern world the style of the lubok is not forgotten. It is widely used in illustrations, theatrical scenery, paintings and interior design. Dishes, posters, calendars are produced.

AT modern fashion Lubok also found its reflection. As part of the 22nd Textile Salon in Ivanovo, the collection of Yegor Zaitsev, “iVANOVO. Splint".

How often does such a word as lubok come up now? No, quite rarely. This is understandable, because the word is considered obsolete and not everyone even knows its meaning. So what are luboks? We'll tell you below.

They were popular in Germany, in France. Factories for their production were located in many countries and cities. The arrival of a peddler or a visit to a fair was very joyful events for the whole family. After all, everyone could find an interesting product for themselves. For children - fairy tales, for women - helpful tips, for men - luboks with images of history and battles. Thanks to such boards, people began to learn more about the world and their country. After all, before they were even more limited in this.

Lubok: the meaning of the word, meaning

So, lubok (in the most common sense of the word) is a type of folk graphics, a picture, a drawing with the addition of inscriptions. hallmark is the simplicity of the depicted images. This type of folk art is first done in the technique of engraving on copper or woodcuts, and then painted by hand. They depicted mostly heroes of fairy tales and epics.

This name is derived from boards of special sawing. They were called bast (hence the word "deck"). Before pictures were made on boards, they were still used for similar purposes. For example, drawings were made on them, plans were written. At first, the pictures were called "fryazh sheets", and then just popular prints.
The meaning of the word lubok in explanatory dictionary ambiguously. For example, splint is also a plate of a fresh layer of tree bark. That is, the inner part of the cortex, mostly young deciduous trees. Small wooden boxes and boxes are often made from it.

Another purpose of splints (the meaning of the word in the dictionary confirms this information) is to help with a fracture. This name was worn by a tire for speedy splicing bone tissue. So called baskets, boxes made of this material.

Often, splint also means a lime board, on which an engraving of the image necessary for printing was subsequently made. But much less often the word has such a meaning as “literature” (lubok literature). Such works were distinguished by extreme simplicity, one might say - primitiveness. Such they were not only in content, but also in design.

Meaning obsolete word splint was not always used for images or making boxes. Dry lubok also covered the upper part of the roof in the villages. But in order for it to be suitable for this, the lubok had to undergo certain training. First, it was dried all summer in the forest, then it was cleaned of the outer thick crust, steamed, and then dried again under oppression. And only then they were taken out of the forest. Definitely in an upright position.

Synonyms for lubok

So, having studied the meaning of the word lubok, the 4th grade of the school involves familiarization with the synonyms of the word. One of the main ones is bast. Bast is also the inner part of the bark of a young tree. Still a weak undercoat. How the material is used in many products.

The next common (but less well-known) synonym is agitlubok. Agitlubok is the same popular print, but with an agitational inclination. His images are more intelligible and capacious, and they call for something.

Another little-known synonym is a joker. A joker is not just a picture, but a popular print with a funny image, with some kind of satire or caricature.

In more scientific terms, lubok is simply called bast. If we take the meaning not as a bark, but as an image, then it is often called in the usual way - a picture.

The history of lubok as graphics

Luboks originated in China. Until the eighth century, they were completely made by hand, and only starting from it they began to be made in the technique of engraving. Further, the splint appeared in Europe. Here he initially began to be performed in the technique of woodcuts. A woodcut is an engraving on wood. Later, copper engravings and lithography began to be added. Lithography is the imprint of an image from something flat onto paper. Immediately, luboks began to be used not only as regular image, but also as campaigning or This was facilitated by their simplicity and intelligibility.

There were also luboks and obscene content. They were popular mainly in Europe, but also got to Russia. Mostly from France and Germany.

ubiquity

Consider what luboks are in the understanding of the inhabitants of the East. His colors were much brighter. And at the end of the 19th century, he began to be drawn in the form of comics.

AT XVI-XVII centuries and in Russia certain “fryazh sheets” or “German amusing sheets” appeared. Here, the images were made on special boards, which were called bast. Not only boards with images began to appear, but also boxes and caskets painted in this technique. There were also paper prints.

Luboks in Russia were quite widespread, as they were inexpensive and looked beautiful. Such sheets served both social and entertainment roles. It was from them that all modern and known posters, comics, calendars came from.

Plots

At first, the plots for popular prints were handwritten legends, some oral stories, fairy tales or epics. After the plots began to be taken from foreign works and almanacs. They were taken from the plots of such writers as Goethe or Radcliffe.

By the end of the 19th century, images on the theme of the Holy Scriptures or portraits of famous and statesmen. More was invested in images deep meaning. Even if this was not agitation, it still had some kind of instructive character. Often these were simple illustrations to fairy tales or images of cities.

Lubok types

The meaning of the word lubok is multifaceted and varied, and its types can be listed for a very long time:

• Spiritual (religious) - images similar to icons. They could also depict parables or some kind of moralizing.
• Fabulous - ordinary illustrations for a variety of fairy tales. Images of heroes, wizards.
• Holidays - oddly enough, but on the luboks of this type saints were depicted, and not various festivities.
• Philosophical - similar to spiritual, but without a religious character.
• Historical - plots taken from chronicles. Battles were also depicted, simply historical events, cities. Sometimes even topographic maps.
• Legal - images of the court.
• Cavalry - horsemen on horseback were depicted on such luboks.
• Balagurnik - caricatures, satire images.

Production and production of popular prints

Engravers were engaged in the production of popular prints. They were also called "fryazh carving masters". Among such people there was a term "sign". So called the process of applying and painting pictures. Therefore, responsibilities were usually divided. That is, at first the denominator applied the drawing itself, and then the engraver already cut it out on necessary material. There was also such a term as "translation". That was the name of copying popular prints.

The manufacturing process was as follows: first, the drawing itself was applied to the board with a pencil, then those places that should have been white were deepened with a knife. The board was lubricated and then pressed down with a press to the paper. As a result, the black contours of this image remained on it.

Next, the luboks were painted. Very often this was done by women with children. The price of a lubok depended, of course, on the paper on which it was made. What are luboks on the cheapest and grayest paper? It was they who were called "prostoviki".

Over time, production technology has improved and improved. Not just engravers, but artists-engravers began to appear. They began to work on copper plates using a variety of cutters. It helped to add a lot to the images small parts and details.

Production in Russia

In Russia, the first factory was born in Moscow. Many machines worked on it, and popular prints were produced in huge quantities. The price was different (from half a kopeck to twenty-five kopecks).

Thanks to the production of popular prints, new professions also appeared. For example, "flowerers". Such people painted a very large number of popular prints for short time while earning pretty good money. Industrialization was not long in coming, and the profession did not live long, as lithographic machines began to appear.

The popularity of luboks

The first important reason for such universal love is that lubok pictures carried the functions of books and textbooks that were not available ordinary person and were very expensive. They not only taught, but also served as a kind of fiction, as epics, fairy tales, and oral stories were often retold on them.

In addition, luboks also served as sources of information, like newspapers or leaflets. On such boards, one could often find useful advice on medicine, or simply have fun with a joke depicted on them.

Many popular prints were made really skillfully and very beautifully. Therefore, they were often used as decor in their homes.

Censorship

Of course, we should not forget that censorship in our country has always been closely connected with creativity and literature. Before making a splint, the image itself had to be checked by the censor. If the image did not pass it, then the reason was always indicated so that the manufacturer could correct it and try his luck again. Only after complete approval (not only of the drawing, but also of the finished lubok) did the manufacturer receive required document, allowing the release of circulation. And even then, it should not exceed the specified amount. The release of bast images was necessarily accompanied by documents that were kept by the publisher. For each new issue circulation and new documents were issued.

Most often censors corrected spelling mistakes. But it also happened that the images did not correspond to the Russian mentality or traditions. They broke the rules of the faith.

In the modern age

We can say with confidence that the style of the popular print has not been forgotten to this day. Many people know what luboks are. They are used in illustration, design. Many posters and calendars are made in this style even now. There are many master classes on this topic. You can also learn the lubok technique in art schools, craft workshops.

The traditions of antiquity are never forgotten, including lexical meaning lubok words. Although they have been modernized.

Who and why called them "bast" - is unknown. Maybe because the pictures were carved on linden boards (and linden was then called bast), maybe because they were sold in bast boxes by the peddlers, or, according to Moscow legend, everything went from Lubyanka - the street where the masters lived for the manufacture of luboks.

It was humorous folk pictures sold at fairs as early as the 17th century, right up to the beginning of the 20th, that were considered the most massive view visual arts Russia. Although they were not taken seriously, higher strata societies categorically refused to recognize as art what self-taught commoners created for the joy peasant people, often on gray paper. Of course, few people cared about the careful preservation of popular prints, because at that time it never occurred to anyone that the pictures that had survived to this day would become a true treasure, a real masterpiece of Russian folk painting. It is clear today that not only folk humor and history were embodied in the lubok ancient Russia, but also the natural talent of Russian artists, the origins of live caricature craftsmanship and colorful literary illustrativeness.

Lubok is an engraving, or an impression, obtained on paper from a wooden cliché. Initially, the pictures were black and white and served to decorate the royal chambers and the boyar choirs, but later their production became more widespread and already in color. Black-and-white prints were painted with hare feet by women near Moscow and Vladimir. Often such popular prints looked like a modern coloring book. small child, inept, hasty, illogical in color. However, among them there are a lot of pictures that scientists consider especially valuable, talking about the innate sense of color of artists, which made it possible to create completely unexpected, fresh combinations that are unacceptable with careful, detailed coloring, and therefore unique.

The subject of folk pictures is very diverse: it covers religious and moral themes, folk epic and fairy tales, historical and medical, necessarily accompanied by an edifying or humorous text, telling about the customs and life of that time, containing folk wisdom, humor, and sometimes masterfully disguised violent political satire.

Over time, the technique of lubok also changed. In the 19th century, the drawing began to be made not on wood, but on metal, which allowed the craftsmen to create more elegant works. The color scheme of popular prints has also changed, becoming even brighter and richer, often turning into a fantastic, unexpected riot of color. For a long time popular prints were the main spiritual food of the simple working people, a source of knowledge and news, since there were very few newspapers, and popular prints were popular, cheap and spread throughout the country, overcoming unimaginable distances. By the end of the 19th century, popular art had exhausted itself - new pictures appeared, made in factories.

Russian lubok is the creation of nameless folk craftsmen. Rapidly developing under the stigma of mediocrity and bad taste, set by a highly educated part of Russian society, today it is recognized as a special value and is the subject of gathering and careful study of many scientists not only in Russia, but also foreign countries, occupying a worthy place on the walls of museums of fine arts next to the works the greatest masters of the past.

Lubok Lubok

Folk picture, a work of graphics (mainly printed), characterized by the intelligibility of the image and intended for mass distribution. Lubok is characterized by simplicity of technique, laconism of visual means (a rough touch, usually bright coloring), often designed for a decorative effect, a tendency to an extended narrative (lubok series, popular print books), and often complementarity of the image and explanatory inscription. Lubok, performed, as a rule, by craftsmen, is a type of folk art, but professional graphic works, borrowing certain popular prints and folklore techniques, are usually also referred to as lubok. The oldest popular prints appeared in China and were originally performed by hand, and from the 8th century. - woodcut. The European lubok, made in the technique of wood engraving, has been known since the 15th century. Since the 17th century splint spread in the technique of engraving on copper, and from the 19th century. - lithographs. The formation of the European popular print is associated with such types of late medieval mass pictorial products as paper icons distributed at fairs and places of pilgrimage. Religious images in the popular print acquired a shade of visual and moralizing entertainment. During the years of social revolutionary movements, lubok was used as a journalistic weapon - "flying sheets" of the times of the Reformation and the Peasant War in Germany 1524-26, lubok of the Great French Revolution of 1789-94, etc.; narrating about historical events, battles, rare natural phenomena, the lubok served as a means of mass media. The Russian lubok of the 18th century is peculiar, distinguished by the decorative unity of composition and coloring, independence from the techniques of professional graphics. In the 19th century masters increasingly turned to the images of lubok professional art or those who directly imitated it (in Russia, for example, A. G. Venetsianov, I. I. Terebenev, I. A. Ivanov - the authors of colored etchings dedicated to the Patriotic War of 1812), or inspired by some of his techniques and themes (F. Goya, O. Daumier, G. Courbet). Oriental lubok (Chinese, Indian), which initially often had a magical meaning, is distinguished by its bright colors. Deliberate appeal to the forms of popular print ( cm. Primitivism) manifested itself in late XIX-XX centuries in the work of many artists; A. Derain, R. Dufy, P. Picasso, masters of the association "Bridge" in Germany and so on. In Soviet art, lubok techniques were creatively used by V. V. Mayakovsky and others to create posters and propaganda pictures, as well as by T. A. Mavrina to illustrate children's books.

"Jung-hoi, cutting the demon." Woodcut, coloring. China. 19th century

"The bear hunter pricks, and the dogs gnaw." Woodcut, coloring. Russia. 1st floor 18th century
Literature: D. A. Rovinsky, Russian folk pictures, vol. 1-5 (text), vol. 1-4 (atlas), St. Petersburg, 1881; V. M. Alekseev, Chinese folk picture, M., 1966; (Yu. Ovsyannikov), Lubok. (Album), M., 1968; O. Baldina, Russian folk pictures, M., 1972; Duchartre P.-L., Saulnier R., L "imagerie populaire, P., 1926.

Source: Popular art encyclopedia." Ed. Field V.M.; M.: Publishing house " Soviet Encyclopedia", 1986.)

Folk picture, work charts(mainly printed), characterized by simplicity and intelligibility of the image and intended for mass distribution. The term appeared in the beginning. 19th century Russian word"Lubok" comes, perhaps, from "bast" - the top layer of wood; large boxes were made from it, in which folk pictures were carried. Bast was also called linden, which served as material for printed boards. The oldest luboks appeared in China. In Europe folk pictures have been known since the 15th century, in Russia since the 18th century. The first European and Russian luboks were paper icons sold at fairs and places of pilgrimage.

The heyday of the Russian popular print - 18 - early. 19th century Luboks were created mainly in Moscow and, possibly, in the North and the Volga region. At first, folk pictures were engraved using the technique woodcuts, from the end of the 18th century. more often made engravings on copper. The first copper prints were made by professional engravers from St. Petersburg - A. F. and I. F. Zubov, as well as Moscow silversmiths from the royal village of Izmailovo. Black and white prints were painted by hand with bright, "sunny" colors - red, orange, yellow, which "flashed" even more strongly against the background of dark purple and deep green. Folk pictures brought a sense of celebration into the house, at the same time they taught and amused. Favorite popular plots - hunting, feasts, fist fights, walks with beauties, fun of jesters and buffoons, fabulous adventures Bovs of Korolevich and Yeruslan Lazarevich and various "diva" (a sea monster-whale found in the White Sea, a comet, a "strong elephant beast"). Luboks often use the language of allegory, the grotesque, they can serve as a tool for sharp political satire: so, Peter I turns into them either into a cat (“Cat of Kazan”), which can be buried (“Mice bury a cat”, late 17th-early 18th century), then into a funny monster - a crocodile, and his wife Ekaterina I - to Baba Yaga (“Yaga Baba goes to fight with a corcodile”, early 18th century). The biting pictorial language of folk pictures was addressed professional artists who created patriotic leaflets during Patriotic War 1812 (A. G. Venetsianov, I. I. Terebenev and others). The image in luboks is complemented by text, which is often a dialogue of characters in the spirit of mischievous jokes of buffoons or folk representations. square theater.
images folk art, captured in popular prints, enriched the work of P. A. Fedotov, L.I. Solomatkina, partly V. G. Perov. At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. many artists, especially participants artistic association « Jack of Diamonds» , sought to revive the naive charm of the popular print. In the 20th century visual techniques folk pictures were creatively used by V. V. Mayakovsky and D. S. Moor to create posters and propaganda pictures, as well as by T. A. Mavrina and other illustrators of children's books.

In contact with

Originally a kind of folk art. It was carried out in the technique of woodcuts, copper engravings, lithographs and was complemented by freehand coloring.

Lubok is characterized by simplicity of technique, laconism of visual means (a rough stroke, bright coloring). Lubok often contains a detailed narrative with explanatory inscriptions and additional (explanatory, complementary) images to the main one.

Story

The most ancient luboks are known in China. Until the 8th century, they were drawn by hand. Since the 8th century, the first popular prints made in woodcuts have been known. Lubok appeared in Europe in the 15th century. The woodcut technique is typical for early European lubok. 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 agitation (for example, "flying sheets" during the Peasants' War and the Reformation in Germany, popular prints of the Great 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 of obscene content are widespread, for example, "Tableau de l'amur conjual" (Picture of conjugal love). “Seductive and immoral pictures” were brought to Russia from France and Holland.

The Russian lubok of the 18th century is notable for its sustained composition.

Oriental 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

Story

In Russia of the 16th century - the beginning of the 17th century, prints were sold, which were called "Fryazhsky sheets", or "German amusing sheets".

At the end of the 17th century, a Fryazhsky mill was installed in the Upper (Court) printing house for printing Fryazh sheets. In 1680, the craftsman Afanasy Zverev carved “all kinds of Fryazh cuts” on copper boards for the tsar.

German amusing sheets were sold in the Vegetable Row, and later on the Spassky Bridge.

Censorship and prohibitions

Moscow Patriarch Joachim in 1674 forbade "buying sheets printed by German heretics, Luthers and Calvins, in their accursed opinion." The faces of the revered saints were to be written on the board, and the printed images were intended for "handsomeness".

The decree of March 20, 1721 forbade the sale "on the Spassky Bridge and in other places in Moscow, composed by people of various ranks ... prints (sheets) printed arbitrarily, except for the printing house." The Izugrafskaya Chamber was created in Moscow.

The chamber issued permission to print luboks "arbitrarily, except for the printing house." Over time, this decree ceased to be executed. A large number of low-quality images of the Saints have emerged.

Therefore, by decree of October 18, 1744, it was ordered "to submit the drawings in advance for approbation to the diocesan bishops."

The decree of January 21, 1723 demanded that "Imperial persons skillfully write to painters testified in good craftsmanship with all danger and diligent care." Therefore, in popular prints there are no images of reigning persons.

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

Plots of paintings

Initially, the plots for lubok paintings were handwritten legends, life stories, "father's writings", oral legends, articles from translated newspapers (for example, "Chimes"), etc.

Plots and drawings were borrowed from foreign Almanacs and Calendars. At the beginning of the 19th century, plots were borrowed from the novels and stories of Goethe, Radcliffe, Cotten, Chateaubriand and other writers.

At the end of the 19th century, pictures on themes from the scriptures, portraits of the imperial family prevailed, then genre pictures came, most often of a moral and instructive nature (about the disastrous consequences of gluttony, drunkenness, greed).

Face editions of "Yeruslan Lazarevich" and other tales, images in the faces of folk songs ("The boyars rode from Nova-gorod", "Husband's wife beat"), women's heads with absurd inscriptions, images of cities ( Jerusalem - the navel of the earth).

Lubok production

The engravers were called "Fryazh carving masters" (in contrast to the Russian "ordinary" wood carvers). In Moscow at the end of the 16th century, the first engraver was supposedly Andronik Timofeev Nevezha.

Signing was called drawing and coloring. Approximately in the 16th (or in the 17th) century, commemoration was divided into commemoration and engraving. The bannerman applied the drawing, the engraver cut it out on a board, or metal.

Copying boards was called translation. The boards were originally lime, then maple, pear and palm.

The splint was made as follows: the artist applied a pencil drawing on a linden board (bast), then using this drawing with a knife he made a deepening of those places that should remain white. The board smeared with paint under pressure left black contours of the picture on paper.

Printed in this way on cheap gray paper were called plain paintings. Prostoviki were taken to special artels. In the 19th century, in the villages near Moscow and Vladimir, there were special artels that were engaged in coloring popular prints. Women and children were engaged in coloring luboks.

Later, a more perfect way to produce popular prints appeared, engravers appeared. With a thin chisel on copper plates, they engraved a drawing with hatching, with all the small details, which could not be done on a lime board.

One of the first Russian figure factories appeared in Moscow in the middle of the 18th century. The factory belonged to the merchants Akhmetievs. The factory had 20 machines.

Prostovikov, that is, the cheapest pictures, costing ½ a penny a piece, were printed and colored in the Moscow district for about 4 million annually. The highest price of popular prints was 25 kopecks.

Popularity

Luboks fell in love in Russia immediately and by everyone without exception. They could be met in the royal chambers, in the serf's hut, in the inn, in monasteries.

There are documents showing that Patriarch Nikon had two hundred and seventy of them, mostly, however, still from Fryazh. And Tsarevich Peter has already bought a lot of domestic ones, in his rooms there were about a hundred of them. There are two reasons for such a rapid and wide popularity of seemingly simple pictures.

Firstly, luboks replaced books inaccessible to the common man: textbooks, starting with the alphabet and arithmetic and ending with cozmography (astronomy), fiction - in luboks a series of successive pictures, as in the hallmarks of hagiographic icons, with extensive signatures, epics, stories were retold or published .

Adventure translated novels about Bova Korolevich and Yeruslan Lazarevich, fairy tales, songs, proverbs. There were luboks like newsletters and newspapers that reported on the most important state events, about wars, about life in other countries.

There were interpreters of the Holy Scripture, depicting the largest monasteries and cities. There were lubok-medical books and about all sorts of popular beliefs and signs. There were the worst satires.

Photo gallery

Useful information

Splint
lubok picture
popular leaf
funny leaf
prostovik

origin of name

The name comes from boards of special sawing, which were called bast (deck). On them back in the 15th century. wrote plans, drawings, drawings. Then the so-called “fryazh sheets” appeared, and later small paper pictures were simply called lubok (popular folk picture).

In Russia

In Russia, folk pictures became widespread in the 17th-20th centuries. They were cheap (even low-income segments of the population could buy them) and often served as a decorative design. Lubok sheets performed the social and entertaining role of a newspaper or primer. They are the prototype of modern calendars, posters, comics and posters. In the 17th century, painted bast boxes became widespread.

Lubok types

• Spiritual and religious - In the Byzantine style. Icon type images. Lives of saints, parables, morals, songs, etc.
• Philosophical.
• Legal - images of lawsuits and court actions. Often there were plots: “Shemyakin Court” and “Yorsh Ershovich Shchetinnikov”.
• Historical - "Touching stories" from the annals. Image of historical events, battles, cities. Topographic maps.
• Fairy tales - fairy tales, heroic ones, "Tales of daring people", everyday tales.
• Holidays - images of saints.
• Cavalry - Luboks depicting riders.
• Joker - funny popular prints, satires, caricatures, fables.

Coloring method

Artel workers accepted orders for coloring hundreds of thousands of copies from lubok publishers. One person per week painted up to one thousand popular prints - one ruble was paid for such work. The profession was called a colorist. The profession disappeared after the advent of lithographic machines.

Advantages of a printed picture

The first to see through the advantages of a printed picture in Moscow were the same habitues of the Spassky Bridge, or Spassky Krestets, as this place was often called then. The book trade flourished there even to the splint - the main trade in Russia was in this part. But only books were sold more handwritten and very often of the most poisonous nature, such as the satirical "Priest Savva - great glory" and "Service to the tavern." The writers themselves and their friends - artists from the same common people - drew illustrations for these books, or sewed them into the pages, or sold them separately. But how much can you draw by hand?!

Manufacturing

It was these writers and artists who drew attention to the popular prints, which were brought by foreigners, first as a gift to the Moscow tsar and the boyars, and then for a wide sale. It turned out that making them is not so difficult, moreover, many thousands of pictures can be printed from one board, and even with text cut out in the same way next to the picture. Someone from foreigners or Belarusians, apparently, built the first machine in Moscow and brought ready-made boards for the sample.

I.D. Sytin

In the second half of the 19th century, ID Sytin was one of the largest producers and distributors of printed popular prints. In 1882, the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition took place in Moscow, at which Sytin's products were awarded a silver medal. ID Sytin collected boards from which popular prints were printed for about 20 years. The collection, worth several tens of thousands of rubles, was destroyed during a fire in Sytin's printing house during the 1905 Revolution.

Style formation

The still young Russian lubok, of course, borrowed a lot from other arts, and first of all from book miniatures, and therefore, artistically, it soon became, as it were, a kind of alloy, a synthesis of all the best that Russian art had developed over the previous centuries of its existence.

But only to what extent did the lubochniks sharpen and exaggerate all forms, to what extent did they increase the contrast and heat up the colors, heat up to such an extent that each leaf literally burns, splashes with cheerful multicolor.

Nowadays

In the modern world, the style of lubok is not forgotten. It is widely used in illustrations, theatrical scenery, paintings and interior decoration. Dishes, posters, calendars are produced.

Lubok is also reflected in modern fashion. As part of the 22nd Textile Salon in Ivanovo, the collection of Yegor Zaitsev, “iVANOVO. Splint".