Puppetry of the Ancients
Mechanical puppets
household doll
History of puppets
Dramaturgy of puppet theater
Puppet theaters of the peoples of the world
Parody as the basis of the repertoire
Puppet theater characters
Church and puppet theater
Conflict with the Church
From the ancient puppet show of wayang-kulit, a beautiful theater has grown, which still exists today. Is this not superfluous evidence of the assertion of the literary critic Alexander Ivanovich Beletsky that "the magical principle underlying the primitive religion also brought primitive art to life."
Decorations were already used in ancient wayang-kulit. The solidity of the performance, that is, the designation of the place of action (the gates of the palace, mountains, forest, etc.), was necessary for greater reliability of the story. And the story itself, an amazing mixture of magic and reality, remained a document of the time, as it was a kind of version of the “Javanese cosmogonic world, telling about the earthly life of the divine ancestors of the two halves of the tribe, about their birth, maturation, marriage and the foundation of the first settlement. All actors in this world are located in accordance with the organization of the tribe in primitive society, divided into two exogamous groups (phratries), and behave depending on their permanent place in the cosmogonic system, the structure of which is also modeled on the basis of the binary division of the tribe.
Charles Magnan connects the first mention of puppetry with the festival of Dionysius or Bacchus in Egypt, referring to several sources, including the work of Herodotus. These performances were described by him as follows: “Women went from village to village with songs and wore small statues, one cubit high, whose members were set in motion by means of ropes. The flutist walked ahead. Similar dolls are later found in Syria, in the Sherapol pagan temple, as can be seen from the treatise of pseudo-Lucian.
Archaeological relics helped to restore the picture of the oldest festival in Egypt, dedicated to the life of the gods Osiris and Isis (VI-VII centuries BC). The audience of this performance did not sit in one place. Crowds of onlookers lined up on either side of the road, and the spectacle was mounted on many chariots. Such a cart drove up to the first group of spectators, the actors played the first scene on it - the chariot drove on. The next one drove up - that's the continuation of the action (this principle was subsequently preserved in the English medieval theater and was called "pedzhent"). The division of a single action into separate scenes, moreover played by different actors, is not yet the most essential feature of this performance. The main thing was that the roles of the gods were performed only with the help of puppets. They were carried on the hands and set in motion by the hands. Auxiliary functions were assigned to a person. He could not take on the role of God.
We also find mention of these first performances with puppets in other sources. It is known that the feast of Osiris and Isis in Egypt was staged with great staged luxury. And here is the life story of the "divine" ancestors, the story of the birth of love, the marriage of Osiris and Isis. The images of the gods acquire a more collective character. They already express the ideology of not only one tribe, but the whole people. But even here - it should be noted - a person portrays God, a mysterious higher being, not with the help of a costume, disguise, not with the help of his own body, he alienates from himself, from his frailty, some immortal idea. And he expresses this idea with immeasurably less mortal (and in the eyes of the audience even immortal) material than he himself, a mortal man.
The audience obviously followed the story of the life and love of the two gods with great interest. It can be assumed, however, that it was precisely the fact of animation, the movement of those creatures that he used to sit only in a dead sculptural image that shocked them more than anything else.
The idea of the immortality of God, embodied by man in all the diversity of mind, talent and fiction, has been preserved for many centuries by the cult theater, widely known from the descriptions of ancient Greek and Roman historians. Huge automatons, motionless and luxuriously decorated (they were made of precious metals, less often - precious woods) came into motion only at the most solemn moments of the cult action. These automata can hardly be called a theater in the full sense of the word, but the element of theatricality in such performances existed beyond any doubt. With the help of steam, driving belts, people controlled the movements of a kind of puppets, and this separation, the alienation of what was depicted into some kind of allegedly independently existing substance, had, in essence, the same character as the cult theater of Ancient Egypt.
Mechanical puppets
Variety puppetry and TV art puppet programs.
Puppet Theatre
In puppet theater performances, the appearance and physical actions of the characters are depicted and / or indicated, as a rule, by voluminous, semi-voluminous (bas-relief, high-relief) and flat puppets-actors. Puppet actors are usually controlled and driven by humans, puppeteers, and sometimes automatic mechanical devices. In the latter case, actor puppets are called robot puppets.
There are three main types of puppet theaters:
- Theater of riding puppets (glove, large-cane and puppets of other designs), controlled from below. Actors-puppeteers in theaters of this type are usually hidden from the audience by a screen, but it also happens that they are not hidden and are visible to the audience in their entirety or half of their height.
- Theater of grassroots puppets (puppet puppets), controlled from above with the help of threads, rods or wires. Actors-puppeteers in theaters of this type are most often also hidden from the audience, but not with a screen, but with an upper curtain or a hedge. In some cases, puppeteers, as in riding puppet theaters, are visible to the audience in their entirety or half of their height.
- Theater of middle puppets, managed at the level of actors-puppeteers. Middle puppets are voluminous, controlled by actors-puppeteers either from the side or from the inside (the actor-puppeteer is inside large puppets). Among the middle puppets are, in particular, puppets of the Shadow Theater. In such theaters, puppeteers are not visible to the audience, as they are behind the screen, on which shadows from flat or voluminous puppets are projected. Puppet puppets are used as middle puppets (they are controlled behind the puppets by puppeteers visible or not visible to the audience), glove puppets or puppets of other designs. How does this happen, for example, in the famous pop miniature by S. V. Obraztsov with a puppet baby named Tyapa (a glove doll worn on one of Obraztsov’s hands) and his father, whose role is played by Obraztsov himself.
Recently, more and more often, puppet theater is a stage interaction of puppeteers with puppets (the actors “play openly”, that is, they are not hidden from the audience by a screen or any other object). In the 20th century, the beginning of this interaction was laid by S. V. Obraztsov in the same pop miniature in which two characters acted: a baby named Tyapa and his father. But in fact, such interactions of actors-puppeteers and puppet-actors led to a blurring of the boundaries between puppet and non-puppet types of spatio-temporal art. Professional puppeteers still urge not to abuse the "third genre", but to use mainly the expressive means inherent in the puppet theater.
It should be noted that the specific identity of the art of puppet theater and puppet spatio-temporal art in general is formed not only and not so much due to puppet actors, but due to a single set of many features. Moreover, some features are characteristic of puppet art, while others are common to puppet art and all or some other types of space-time art. For example, such common features as the compositional construction of the dramatic basis of performances: exposition, plot, climax, denouement (or finale without denouement). In addition, general genres, realistic and conventional artistic forms, pantomimic and non-pantomimic versions of stage actions, etc., are widely used.
Story
The art of puppeteers is very old - different countries arose their own, which later became traditional, types of puppets and types of performances. There is evidence of the existence of ritual mysteries in Egypt, during which women carried the doll of Osiris. In ancient Greece, puppet theater existed during the Hellenistic era. The origins of the puppet theater are in pagan rituals, games with materialized gods. The mention of playing dolls is found in Herodotus, Xenophon, Aristotle, Horace, Marcus Aurelius, Apuleius. However, puppet shows, relatively speaking, of the variety type and the art of puppet theater came to Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome with wandering groups of puppeteers from Ancient India (land and sea routes through Ancient Iran) and Ancient China. (O. Tsekhnovitser, I. Eremin. Petrushka Theater. - Moscow-Leningrad.: Gosizdat, 1927)
Types of puppet theaters
puppet puppet
The variety of forms of performance in the puppet theater is determined by the variety of types of puppets and their control systems. There are puppet dolls, cane, glove, tablet. Dolls can range in size from a few centimeters to 2-3 meters.
The difference in the forms of representations is determined, most often, by the national traditions of the country; the tasks set for the actors by the director of the performance, as well as the relationship of puppets and actors with the artistic design of the performance.
The art of puppet theater is characterized by: the ability to reflect the bright traits of a person's character, the persuasiveness of allegory and figurative common noun. This determines the inclusion in the repertoire of puppet theaters of satirical, and in a number of countries in Southeast Asia - heroic-pathetic performances.
nativity scene
A traditional Ukrainian Christmas puppet show performed in a two-story crib box, where the story of the birth of Christ was depicted on the upper level, and scenes from folk life were depicted on the lower level. The first vertepniks were bursaks-seminarians. The analogues of the nativity scene in Poland are a one-story shopka, in Belarus - a three-story batleyka. The word "nativity scene" means the cave in which Jesus Christ was born.
Puppet theaters of Northeast Asia
Types of dolls
- A puppet (including a stock puppet) is a puppet set in motion by an actor-puppeteer with the help of threads, metal rods or wooden sticks.
- A parsley (glove) puppet is a character of the French puppet theater, a glove-type fair theater.
- Doll on a vertical gape - the gapit is fixed vertically, the head of the doll is made in the same way as the head of the glove. In the same way, it is put on the actor's arm up to the elbow, which gives the doll considerable flexibility and mobility.
- Doll on a horizontal gape - the gapit is fixed horizontally.
- Doll with canes - got its name from the canes with which the actor controls the hands of the doll. The cane puppet is not put close to the actor's hand, like a parsley puppet, but is only controlled from the inside. The arms of a cane puppet, having folds in all joints, can repeat most of the gestures characteristic of a person.
- Nativity scene - a small, inactive puppet of the Christmas mystery theater. Often such dolls have neither arms nor legs, and their faces are only outlined.
- Tablet (output) puppet - a theatrical puppet that "can walk" on the stage tablet. Some varieties of tablet puppets are controlled by the puppeteer's feet.
- Mimic - are used mainly in variety and concert numbers. The facial expressions of this kind of dolls are exaggeratedly comical, and even with the most skillful handling of such a doll, there will always be a lot of random in facial expressions.
- Shadow theater puppet (including Javanese) - a flat image of a person or animal that casts a shadow on the screen, which is a shadow theater stage.
- Tantamaresque is a puppet with the help of which facial expressions, emotional expressiveness of speech and gestures, expressiveness of movements are practiced.
Puppet theater in psychology
In the 1990s, I. Ya. Medvedeva and T. L. Shishova created a psychological correction technique called "dramatic psychoelevation", designed for children with behavioral and communication difficulties. The main tool of this technique is the puppet theater.
Notes
Literature
- Peretz V. N. Puppet theater in Russia (Historical essay) // Yearbook of the Imperial Theaters. - Applications. - Prince. 1. - St. Petersburg, 1895. - S. 85-185.
History of puppet theaters
The history of the puppet theater goes back to ancient times. Ancient people believed in various gods, devils and sacred animals. To offer prayers to these gods, people began to make their images. These were dolls made of stone, clay, bone, wood of various sizes. Dances were arranged around them, they were carried on a stretcher, carried on the backs of elephants and chariots. Subsequently, due to various devices, the puppets representing the object of worship were forced to raise their arms or paws, open and close their eyes, nod their heads and bare their teeth. Gradually, these spectacles became similar to modern theatrical performances. With the help of dolls, legends were played out, folk tales and satirical scenes were played; in European countries in the Middle Ages, dolls depicted the creation of the world.
There were no state puppet theaters in Russia. Wandering puppeteers gave small performances at fairs, in city courtyards, on boulevards. Under the loud sounds of a hurdy-gurdy, the puppeteer showed a short story about Petrushka from behind a small screen. The life of folk puppeteers was hard and not much different from the life of ordinary beggars. After the performance, the actor-puppeteer took off his hat and handed it to the audience so that those who wished to throw copper kopecks into it.
Dolls similar to the Russian Petrushka were also in other countries. They all portrayed a long-nosed, noisy bully. They had different names, for example, in England the doll was called Punch, and in France it was Polichinel, Pulcinella in Italy, two heroes in Germany were Kasperle and Hanswurst, in Turkey the bully was called Karagoz, and in Czechoslovakia - Kasparek.
Types of dolls
In the modern world, there are puppet theaters in almost all countries. They use three types of puppets for performances:
- dolls driven by threads;
- hand puppets;
- puppets on canes.
When using puppets on strings, the actor-puppeteer is located on a raised platform behind the stage and holds a vaga in his hands.
Definition 1
vaga- a special device consisting of two or three crossed sticks with threads attached to them.
At the same time, the lower ends of the threads are connected to the doll in the area of the head and back, tied to her arms, shoulders, knees and feet. A doll usually has $10-20$ of threads, but sometimes their number reaches $40$ of threads. When swinging the stick, from which the threads go to the knees of the doll, she begins to move her legs, walk and even dance. When the thread attached to the back is pulled, the doll bows. Puppets of such a system are also called puppets, which is not entirely true, because it is customary to call any theatrical puppet in many countries. It is more correct to call these dolls - dolls on strings.
Another system of puppets is puppets that are worn on the hand like gloves. In this case, the doll's head is put on the index finger, one hand on the middle finger, and the other hand on the thumb. Such dolls are often called parsley in our country, which is also not entirely true, since there are dolls of this system in different countries. Their correct name is glove puppets or finger puppets.
The actor-puppeteer plays with puppets on canes from behind a screen. Such a doll is held by a central stick that runs through the entire doll. The head and shoulders of the doll are attached to the stick. The actor controls the puppet's arms with thin sticks, which are attached to the puppet's elbows or hands. The sticks are invisible to the audience, they are hidden in the clothes of the toy.
Puppets on strings and glove puppets on fingers have existed for many hundreds of years in almost all countries. Until the beginning of the 20th century, puppets on sticks existed only in the East, mainly in China and Indonesia. In Russia, puppets on a cane appeared for the first time among puppeteers-artists Efimovs.
Modern puppet theaters
Remark 1
State puppet theaters in Russia were created only after the 1917 revolution.$
Puppet theaters stage folk tales, as well as plays written by playwrights. Most puppet theaters are for children, but some have performances for adults who love puppet theater as much as children.
Puppet theaters are the first step in introducing children to theatrical art. They do not just give joy, teach to understand the art of the theater, form an artistic taste, teach the perception of the world around.
Puppet show
Puppets and puppeteers
Puppet Theatre- one of the varieties of puppet type of spatio-temporal art, which includes cartoon and non-cartoon animated film art, pop puppet art and art puppet television programs. In puppet theater performances, the appearance and physical actions of the characters are depicted and / or indicated, as a rule, by voluminous, semi-voluminous (bas-relief or high-relief) and flat puppets (actor puppets) Actor puppets are usually controlled and driven by people, puppeteer actors, and sometimes automatic mechanical or mechanical-electrical-electronic devices. In the latter case, actor puppets are called robot puppets. It should be noted that the phrase "puppet theater" is incorrect and offends the professional dignity of puppeteers, since the adjective "puppet" is associated with the concept of "fake". It is correct to say: “puppet theater”, by the way, this is how all professional animation theaters are called.
There are three main types of puppet theaters:
1. Theater of riding puppets (glove puppets, large cane puppets and puppets of other designs), controlled from below. Actors-puppeteers in theaters of this type are usually hidden from the audience by a screen, but it also happens that they are not hidden and are visible to the audience in their entirety or half of their height.
2. Theater of grassroots puppets (puppet puppets), controlled from above with the help of threads, rods or wires. Actors-puppeteers in theaters of this type are most often also hidden from the audience, but not with a screen, but with an upper curtain or a hedge. In some cases, puppeteers, as in riding puppet theaters, are visible to the audience in their entirety or half of their height.
3. The theater of puppets of middle (not riding and not grassroots) puppets controlled at the level of puppeteers. Middle puppets are voluminous, controlled by actors-puppeteers either from the side or from the inside of large-sized puppets, inside of which there is an actor-puppeteer. Among the middle puppets are, in particular, puppets of the Shadow Theater. In such theaters, puppeteers are not visible to the audience, as they are behind a screen onto which shadows from flat or non-flat puppets are projected. Puppet puppets are used as middle puppet actors, controlled from behind the puppets by puppeteers, visible or not visible to the audience. Either glove puppets or actor puppets of other designs. How does this happen, for example, in the well-known pop miniature by S. V. Obraztsov with a puppet baby named Tyapa (obraztsov’s glove doll put on with one hand) and his father, whose role is played by Obraztsov himself.
Recently, more and more often, puppet theater is a stage interaction of puppeteers with puppets (the actors “play openly”, that is, they are not hidden from the audience by a screen or any other object). In the 20th century, the beginning of this interaction was laid by S. V. Obraztsov in the same pop miniature in which two characters acted: a baby named Tyapa and his father. But in fact, such interactions of actors-puppeteers and puppet-actors led to a blurring of the boundaries between puppet and non-puppet types of spatio-temporal art. Professional puppeteers still urge not to abuse the "third genre", but to use mainly the expressive means inherent in the puppet theater.
It should be noted that the specific identity of the art of puppet theater and puppet spatio-temporal art in general is formed not only and not so much due to puppet actors, but due to a single set of many features. Moreover, some features are characteristic of puppet art, while others are common to puppet art and all or some other types of space-time art. For example, such common features as the compositional construction of the dramatic basis of performances: exposition, plot, climax, denouement (or finale without denouement). In addition, general genres, realistic and conventional artistic forms, pantomimic and non-pantomimic versions of stage actions, etc., are widely used.
Story
The art of puppeteers is very old - different countries arose their own, which later became traditional, types of puppets and types of performances. There is evidence of the existence of ritual mysteries in Egypt, during which women carried the doll of Osiris. In ancient Greece, puppet theater existed during the Hellenistic era. The origins of the puppet theater are in pagan rituals, games with materialized symbols of the gods. The mention of playing dolls is found in Herodotus, Xenophon, Aristotle, Horace, Marcus Aurelius, Apuleius. However, puppet shows, relatively speaking, of the variety type and the art of puppet theater came to Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome with wandering groups of puppeteers from Ancient India (land and sea routes through Ancient Iran) and Ancient China. (O. Tsekhnovitser, I. Eremin. Petrushka Theater. - Moscow-Leningrad.: Gosizdat, 1927)
History of puppet theater in Russia
The first news about the existence of a puppet theater in Russia dates back to 1636, recorded by the German traveler Adam Olearius.
In 1700, the first tour of puppeteers in Russia took place: one troupe traveled through the cities of Ukraine, and the second through the cities of the Volga to Astrakhan. In 1733, at the invitation of Anna Ivanovna, four puppet theaters from among the Italian comedians who arrived as part of the commedia dell'arte troupe worked in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
One of the most famous puppet theaters in Russia is.
Types of puppet theaters
puppet puppet
The variety of forms of performance in the puppet theater is determined by the variety of types of puppets and their control systems. There are puppet dolls, cane, glove, tablet. Dolls can range in size from a few centimeters to 2-3 meters.
The difference in the forms of performances is most often determined by the national traditions of the country, the tasks that are set for the actors by the director of the performance, as well as the relationship of puppets and actors with the artistic design of the performance.
The ability to reflect the bright traits of a person’s character, the persuasiveness of allegory, the figurative common noun characteristic of the art of puppet theater determine satirical puppet theater repertoire, and in a number of countries in Southeast Asia, heroic-pathetic performances.
nativity scene
A traditional Ukrainian Christmas puppet show performed in a two-story crib box, where the story of the birth of Christ was depicted on the upper level, and scenes from folk life were depicted on the lower level. The first vertepniks were bursaks-seminarians. The analogues of the nativity scene in Poland are a one-story shopka, in Belarus - a three-story batleyka. The word "nativity scene" means the cave in which Jesus Christ was born.
Puppet theaters of Southeast Asia
Puppet theater technique
- Vaga- a device for controlling a puppet puppet.
Types of dolls
- Puppet (including stock)
- Doll on a vertical gape
- Doll on a horizontal gape
- Gapite cane doll
- doll on canes
- Piglet doll
- Nativity scene
- Tablet (output) doll
- miming
- Shadow puppet (including Javanese)
- life puppet
Currently, mime dolls are especially popular in the USA, in Ukraine - piglet parsley and nativity scenes, in Europe - puppets. The use of a hatching doll among professionals is not welcome.(?)
The largest puppet theaters
Russia
- One of the most famous puppet theaters is the State Academic Central Puppet Theatre. S. V. Obraztsova
- Moscow Fairytale Theater
- Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Puppet Theater (one of two academic puppet theaters in Russia)
- Yaroslavl Puppet Theater
Ukraine
An academic theater school is developing in Ukraine:
- Department of Animation Theatre, Kharkiv State University of Arts. Kotlyarevsky,
- Department of Puppet Theater of the Kyiv National University of Theater and Cinema. Karpenko-Kary.
- Dnepropetrovsk Theater College
Courses have also been recruited at other universities, such as in Lviv.
Western Europe
Puppet theater in psychology
In the 1990s, I. Ya. Medvedeva and T. L. Shishova created a psychological correction technique called "dramatic psychoelevation", designed for children with behavioral and communication difficulties. The main tool of this technique is the puppet theater.
Notes
Literature
- Peretz V. N. Puppet theater in Russia (Historical essay) // Yearbook of the Imperial Theaters. - Applications. - Prince. 1. - St. Petersburg, 1895. - S. 85-185.
- Shafranyuk V. A. Puppet spatio-temporal art
see also
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| Musical Theatre | ||
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| Directions in theater | ||
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| Miscellaneous |
theater schools theatrical terminology theatrical roles theater critics |
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Do only children play with dolls? No matter how! An amazing master puppeteer, whose work can be found all over the world, and just a person in love with his work, Liza Babenko, told our portal about his amazing work, which has become the main business of life. Let's give the floor to the master himself.
Talking about yourself is always a little strange. It is very difficult not to slip into a harsh officialdom, like - I was born there, studied this, achieved this or did not achieve it .. But on the other hand, everything starts with some things, from some point in life. My current occupation comes from childhood - what is there to be surprised, I am a master puppeteer. Of course, in childhood I played and sculpted, but in childhood we generally get joy and pleasure from simple things: walking, drawing, playing.
Difficulties begin when we become adults, and childhood is very simple, you prefer to do what you want, because children will not waste time on stupid and uninteresting activities. And this is such an amazing honesty, which is difficult to allow at an older age. Therefore, many creative people, it seems to me, are trying to catch and return this pure buzz from childhood, to find that very honesty deep in themselves. At least that's how it is for me. Therefore, if someone asks me why I do dolls at all, then, first of all, I will answer that it gives me pleasure.
I love sculpting the most. From scratch. Hands. Feel the material, watch how the face, body is born. Planing, sticking new pieces ... And only then everything else will come - material rewards for work, talent, skill, time.
I understand that even if there was no Internet and there would be no one to show my dolls, I would still sculpt. Well, I would draw. However, in puppetry, this comes in handy - face painting requires a firm hand and the ability to handle color and paint, pastel.
Having started professionally dealing with dolls, I had to master several professions. That is, I am not just a sculptor or a person who knows how to sculpt a human and not only a figure and faces. I am also a make-up artist and a hairdresser. And a shoemaker. I'm making shoes. Also with pleasure, this is a separate Zen for me. Alas and ah, the only thing I haven't learned is sewing. I can make clothes. Easy! But working with fabric is a separate issue. Therefore, I turn to the masters for help, who are good at it and they help me in the work in the right way and embody ideas.
Among other things, I would not want my occupation to be defined as "puppetry". I would still like my dolls to be treated like sculptures, but movable. I don't like simplification, but I like high detail and miniature. That is why, at one time, I chose a small format for my works, but also refused to generalize, large stylization. I like to sculpt human dolls - these volumes, details, curves. It is so beautiful. How can something be missed or simplified?
I really believe that the human body is beautiful. Beauty, in my opinion, can be different and often you need to see it and be able to show it to others.
I started, of course, with the embodiment of my ideas about beauty and sculpted the figures that, at that time, seemed to me the most attractive. Thus, several doll series were born - Belle Petite (whose production, however, has already been closed), Top Model and Femme Fatale. Belle Petite is a slender young woman, short and curvaceous, somewhere between a teenager and an adult mature lady.
Belle petit doll collection
Top model - my idea of what an ideal model should look like - tall, thin-boned, graceful, with small breasts, long, beautifully shaped legs, with a thin waist, sharp collarbones and protruding pelvic bones, narrow wrists and ankles.
Collection of dolls Top model
Fam Fatal is a chic adult lady with a beautiful breast shape, sloping shoulders, a wasp waist and steep hips. She is all so smooth and exciting - the embodiment of a femme fatale in my mind. By the way, the latter has more fans among male collectors.
Collection of puppets Fam Fatal
In my plans, I have the embodiment of other female types, perhaps. Not so unambiguous, but I hope I have the patience and interest to bring to mind all the ideas.
I could not immediately appreciate the beauty of the male body. Nevertheless, I am a girl, feminine is closer to me, dearer. In the end, she went to the mirror, looked at what and how. For men, everything is different, it's like learning a foreign language. Now there are 2 male bodies in the work at once and the 3rd one is already in the plans.
Many people think that dolls are an eccentricity. I can understand such an opinion, yet it is not a matter of first necessity. Not food, not clothes, but rather what feeds our emotional needs, the same thirst for affordable beauty - reach out and it is with you.
I attribute my dolls to art, but contact. Which can be picked up, examined, bent, touched, dressed, even change emotions. The process of the game is also a creative action. When you play, you are a co-creator. And it also gives pleasure. Some people just like to contemplate. A beautiful doll is also an ornament, and not only at home, but also thoughts.
That is why I somehow immediately became interested in working with articulated dolls. I almost did not do static. Well, perhaps, a few figurines - she embodied the heroes from her stories about a witch girl. Perhaps they are the only ones who did not have articulated joints. By their example, I learned to sculpt. I got acquainted with the material, picked up the tools.
And then immediately took up the articulated doll. I have repeated this word so many times, but I have not explained it. The main feature of articulated dolls is that they can change poses, thanks to the presence of articulated joints, practically repeat the radius of human movements. But here you need to make a reservation - this largely depends on the talent of the artist and whether he is a good engineer - whether he managed to develop good hinges that allow the doll to take beautiful and natural poses. And also it largely depends on the tasks - whether the doll needs super-mobility or you can get by with simple, traditional solutions for making hinges. I, for example, have a few know-how - articulated solutions that I am proud of, when the hinge itself is practically invisible, but the doll can squat at the same time.
In general, all my dolls can be divided into 2 main categories - basic and full-walled. When ordering basic dolls, customers choose their own make-up, hair color, body type, face, hand gestures and foot type - under the heel, pointe shoes or just flat. That is, they form a doll to their liking.
With fulsets, things are a little different. These are collectible dolls with their own history. In this case, the story is born by itself or while working on the doll, it is overgrown with details. This doll already has a character, an image. She is a complete art object, she has an outfit consisting of a large number of details, a hairstyle that matches the image, shoes, a certificate. These dolls are one of a kind. Theoretically, they can also be undressed, but I don’t think that a hand will be raised .. Nevertheless, even with them you can play, if you wish, only very carefully and carefully.
Here, for example, is my latest collection: Mystical Family. I write a piece of the novel for each character, as if dedicating a chapter, telling his story. Despite this, all the characters interact with each other to one degree or another, so at the exhibition it was important to arrange them in a certain order, demonstrating who is who to whom. The count sat in an armchair and held his wife's hand. The Countess, who was standing next to him, hugged their daughter Annabelle, who was sitting next to her on a high pouf .. A little further away stood, embracing, 2 sisters, Insomnia and Amnesia, the most important people for each other. All of them seem to have gathered for a ceremonial family portrait, posing either for a photographer or an artist.
In contrast to the mystical stories of the doll family, now I am working more on a children's project: I am sculpting an articulated baby doll with false eyes. Nevertheless, the baby will be quite in my style, but more joyful and positive in mood.
As you can see, dolls are a whole world open not only to children, but also to adults, and capable of bringing beauty, fantasy and inspiration into our everyday life.
