Step-by-step drawing of Gorodets painting: description and recommendations. How to draw flowers in Gorodets painting

Gorodets painting originates from the 19th century. At that time, it became a Russian folk art craft, which arose in the Nizhny Novgorod province near the city of Gorodets.

A bit of history

The beginning of Gorodets painting can be seen in carved spinning wheels. They were special in Gorodets thanks to the bottoms (a plank on which the spinner sits) and the comb of the spinning wheel. The bottom was decorated by local craftsmen using a special inlay technique. Figures carved from wood of another species (for example, bog oak) were inserted into the recesses.

Such elements differed in relief on the surface, and only two shades of wood in the hands of Gorodets craftsmen created real works of art based on an ordinary board.
Later, craftsmen began to use tint (bright blue, green, red and yellow colors), which made the bottom even more colorful.

The increased need for the production of spinning ends prompted the craftsmen to reconsider the decoration technique, making it simpler. In the second half of the 19th century, inlay as a complex and time-consuming technique was replaced by ordinary carving with painting, and already at the end of the century, picturesque elements became the predominant decoration of the Donets.

Characteristic features of Gorodets painting

Decorating bottoms for spinning wheels, furniture, chests, sledges, arcs and many other household items, Gorodets painting has always been rich in content and genre scenes.
They could be conditional, free in character and sometimes resembled a caricature in their decorative effect.

Life situations, usually peasant and merchant life, became subjects for painting. A significant part of the art was occupied by widely and decoratively painted floral motifs. Often there are realistic and idealized motifs of images of birds and animals.
Here you can see lions and leopards, majestic horses and roosters in a proud and warlike pose. Often the images were made in pairs, facing one another.

The Gorodets craftsmen generously dot the field of paintings with flowers (daisies, cupavkas, roses), their whole bouquets and garlands. And sometimes, where appropriate, the motif of a magnificent curtain with a cord is used.
Contrasting bright colors are used in the painting: green (bright), red (tense), blue (deep) and black color, which emphasizes the decorative effect of motifs even more.

The image is applied without a preliminary drawing. For this, a brush is used, which interacts with the surface of the future work with a free blow. At the same time, the master can use all sorts of techniques: from broad strokes to the finest strokes.

Painting technology

When creating Gorodets painting, it is popular to use tempera - a paint created on the basis of dry powder from natural materials or their artificial substitutes.
Often gouache with the addition of PVA is also used, however, it is important to consider that when working with this type of paint, after drying, the tones acquire a slightly whitish tint. Therefore, before applying a new layer of paint, it is necessary to allow the previous one to dry.

All the main colors used in the painting should have saturated and diluted shades. During work, it is important to ensure that the brushes do not dry out, because if they are not washed in time, they can only be thrown away.

The technology of Gorodets painting is in many ways simpler than the creation of Khokhloma, especially in terms of preparing the base. Gorodets painting is done directly on a wooden base, which, if desired, can be covered with red, black or yellow ground paint.

The composition of the future pattern can be outlined with thin pencil lines. The main task is to outline the dimensions of the main elements of the composition, or nodes, for example, animals and flowers. However, experienced craftsmen skip this stage, immediately applying the drawing with paint. In their opinion, the painting technology should be just that.
Medium and small details play an auxiliary role in the picture and do not significantly affect the composition as a whole.

Composite knots are usually done with lighter paint using a wide brush. Strokes of a dark shade are applied to light spots, for example, creating a stroke.
Gorodets painting is characterized by underpainting circles, spirals, drops, arcs, brackets, strokes and dots. The last two types of strokes are applied at the very end of the work with a thin brush. They give the drawing a finished look and make it come to life.

When the drawing dries, it is covered with a colorless varnish. Oil or nitro varnish is used.
Oil varnish is applied with a swab or spray gun, and nitro varnish only, which will ensure the smoothness and evenness of the surface. The varnish must be applied in two or three layers, each of which must be completely dried.
A high-quality film that forms after such a coating protects the painting from chemical and mechanical damage.

Gorodets painting today

The craft of Gorodets craftsmen is diverse in modern household items - souvenirs, furniture, housekeepers, dishes, children's toys and other household items.
Nowadays, masters also use oil paint, which has expanded the color palette of painting. The motives, images and plots remained unchanged.

Painted products are not just an element of decor, but often objects that are not only beautiful, but also carry a functional load, and are actively used. For example, when cutting food on a decorated cutting board, or storing bread in a painted bread box.

Furniture with such a painting will make colorful even a very modest room. Nevertheless, it should be taken into account that the room should not be additionally overloaded with saturated colors, because the painting in the Gorodets style is bright in itself. It will look very appropriate surrounded by a monophonic calm interior, refreshing the house with its elegance.
It is not recommended to place a very large number of different items decorated with such a painting.

Nowadays, Gorodets painting on walls, columns, borders, wall panels, friezes and other large interior elements is popular. Such a solution will look great both in the nursery and in the kitchen, making the atmosphere joyful and positively affecting the mood.

M. Ilchenko, S. Mishin
Methodological guide for
Gorodets painting

The painting, which is now called Gorodets, was born in the Volga region on the banks of the clear and bright river Uzola. There, the peasants of several villages painted spinning wheels and took their products to the Nizhny Novgorod fair to sell. Therefore, the painting was first called Nizhny Novgorod. More precisely, even before the advent of this painting, the spinning wheels were decorated with carvings. Over time, the carving began to be slightly tinted - for greater elegance, and later the carving on the spinning wheels was completely replaced by painting.

You will never confuse with anything the joyful colors of Gorodets painting, its black horses with a hooked leg and swan neck, its birds with outlandish tails in the form of a butterfly wing. Horses are always depicted in profile, and people - only full face. And all this - surrounded by luxurious flower garlands.

Gorodets painting is symbolic. The horse in it is a symbol of wealth, the bird is a symbol of happiness, and the flowers are health and prosperity in business.

The subjects of the ancient Gorodets painting were horse riders, young ladies in crinolines, weddings, feasts, tea parties and other solemn scenes from the life of the townspeople. But because all this was depicted by peasant artists, an extremely peculiar style of painting was created, in which the pomposity and pretentiousness of urban elements are naively mixed with the simplicity and sincerity characteristic of the common people.

Today, the heritage of the old masters has not died: their best traditions are being revived by artists working at the Gorodets painting factory in Gorodets. Fortunately, the ancient Volga painting is now in the safe hands of talented contemporary artists. Five of them are Laureates of the Repin Prize. This is the highest award for artists of our country. The names of these artists: Bespalova L.F., Kubatkina L.A., Kasatova F.N., Rukina T.M., Sokolova A.V. There was a time when Gorodets painting almost perished, but there were kind and talented people who revived it, and the artists I named were among them. They are our national pride.

In this manual, I will tell you about the elements, plots and techniques of Gorodets painting. These will be the simplest, elementary truths, but they must be well learned and not violated when you start painting.

Gorodets painting, as already mentioned, is wood painting. But we will begin to learn how to draw Gorodets elements on paper. Subsequently, when you master the simplest techniques of Gorodets painting, it will be told how to prepare wooden surfaces for painting, how to paint and varnish them.

Well, now stock up on paper, paint and brushes.

PAPER I need a white one from an album for drawing, drawing paper or semi-drawing paper. For the first trainings in painting, you can take worse paper: then, after all, you will still throw out unsuccessful drawings, and carefully redraw the successful ones into an album with good paper.

PAINTS. Gorodets masters paint their works with oil paints. And we will perform gouache painting.

From the school set of gouache (12 colors), take only eight colors: black, white, scarlet, kraplak (cherry), light cobalt blue (bright blue), as well as yellow, chromium oxide (dark green) and red ocher.

You will use the first five colors directly from the jars, and the last three are not suitable for Gorodets painting, they will need to be mixed with each other to get a range of colors reminiscent of Gorodets. This is discussed in more detail below. By the way, one more paint is needed - cinnabar. This is a bright red paint, but it is not found in the gouache paint set. Although this paint is expensive, you can't make a good painting without it, so you'll have to buy it from an art store.

BRUSHES. For painting, it is desirable to have at least three brushes: squirrel art (N2 or N3), kolinsky art (N1 or N2) and flute (N2 or N3) - this flat brush made of soft hair is used for underpainting, framing, etc.

We have already agreed that we will carry out our Gorodets painting with gouache paints. Do a simple experiment. Take a piece of paper and put on it one stroke of paint from each jar of gouache that are in the kit. Now look critically at the resulting palette of gouache paints. Isn't it a dull gamma? There is nothing to dream of making a decent painting "under the gorodets" using only these colors. To get a cheerful, harmonious color scheme inherent in Gorodets painting, we will have to tinker a bit with mixing colors. So far, we have to get three new colors from the gouache set: light blue, light pink and Gorodets green (that is, green with a warm “swamp” shade). So let's start mixing. Take two clean jars of gouache. In both jars, put half a spoonful of white paint (zinc white) and add a little cobalt blue light (bright blue paint) to one jar, and a little cinnabar to the other. True, cinnabar may not be available, then you will have to do with what is in the gouache set - scarlet paint. Stir well. If the paints are thick, add 2-3 drops of water. Stir again. Two new colors were obtained: pale blue and pale pink. But we will call them like this: blue razbel and pink razbel.

Make sure that when mixing these whites, brushes, paints and jars are completely clean, then the whites will turn out to be bright, clean, luminous. It very often happens that when mixing pink tint to white paint, they add not scarlet, but kraplak, and then the tint of a soft pink color does not work, but cyanotic paint comes out, which is decent to paint perhaps a drowned man. But since we are not going to do this, we will have to throw away the unsuccessful break and mix in a new one, already with the addition of scarlet (or better, as I said, cinnabar).

Now, if your whites turned out good, close them tightly with lids and put gouache in your set. You will use them all the time.

In addition to these two whitewashes, we need to mix the Gorodetsky green paint, which is used to make the underpainting of the leaves. Remember, when I said which colors from the gouache set we will use for our painting “under the gorodets”, I named five colors: black, white, scarlet, kraplak and cobalt blue. These are the colors that we will use in painting without mixing.

I singled out these three colors in a special group, because they are not used in painting, but new shades of colors, characteristic of Gorodets painting, are mixed from them. I will tell, for now, only about one, which is obtained by mixing these three colors. So, again we take an empty jar of gouache. We put half a spoonful of yellow gouache in it, add a drop of red ocher and a little chromium oxide (dark green paint); mix, try on a piece of paper - you should get a paint of a warm green swamp shade. That's what it is gorodets green dye. The paint should be creamy. Close the jar with a tight lid and make sure that it does not dry out. If it becomes thicker than you need, add a little water to it. Put a jar of this paint in your kit. Just like the whites, you will need it in your work.

One more note. It is clear that everyone who mixes the paint will get very different shades. Gorodets green, therefore, by changing the number of constituent colors, get the shade of Gorodets green that you like best. It will be your gorodets green. And yet there is a general advice for everyone: take more yellow, and less green, because of this Gorodets green will be lighter, more airy, and black animations will look good on it. If you already mixed a darkish paint, then the animations on it may be yellow.

Gorodets painting is carried out in two stages: underpainting and revival. And flowers - in three stages.

For underpainting, wide flat brushes - flutes are used. The flute is dipped in paint and all the figures of the product being painted are painted over at once (usually in 5-6 colors).

For example, all horses are completely painted over with black paint, except for the harness, which is dyed with cinnabar. Also, the bodies of birds are painted with black paint, the tails of birds are painted with kraplak, the underpainting of flowers is blue and pink, and the wings of birds and leaves are green.

Performing underpainting is a simple painting technique, it is accessible even to five-year-old children. In fact, with the same brush strokes that underpainting is done, we paint the frames and floors at home. The main thing here is to smear the paints with a thin, even layer, so that there are no gaps or influxes of paint anywhere. For this, wide brushes are used.

When the underpainting of the entire product is completed, the second stage begins - revival. The animations are done with white paint. But for animation, other brushes and other painting techniques are needed.

For animation - brushes are needed artistic. And the performance of animations is no longer a painting technique, but an artistic one, and in order to do them well, you will have to practice a lot. The tip of the brush is dipped in white paint and a lot of dots and various strokes are applied over all the underpaintings, which in a matter of minutes so dramatically transform the appearance of our painting that the thought immediately comes to mind, what a lucky word it is - animations! And exactly! From the white, like lace, decoration, Gorodets and birds, and horses, and flowers, which were completely flat before that, instantly come to life. Just don't think that once you've dipped an art brush into white paint, you have the right to scatter white dots with the generosity with which millet is sprinkled on chickens. Beginners, by the way, like to put these white dots in a multitude so much that before you have time to look around, they will already cover up all the work with them. This should not be done in any case: everything is good only in moderation. Shakespeare said: “Be neither a spendthrift nor a miser. Only in a sense of proportion is true good.

Those are golden words! In moderation, there should be animation, only then they are fabulously beautiful, and if you overdo it, all the charm of the work will disappear, as if covered with snow. And note that the painter can sometimes change the colors of the underpaintings, but the animations are always the same, because there is a certain canon, an unbreakable rule, how to make animations on horses, like on flowers, and only on the bodies of birds with animations you can be a little free .

It remains to tell that when we make animations, white strokes come in several forms. These are arcs, droplets, strokes and dots. How they are performed will be detailed later. Most importantly, remember that when making animations, the brush must be held vertically in your hand and touch the product with the thinnest tip of the brush so that the strokes are neat, elegant and elastic: all the beauty of Gorodets work depends on the animation.

Now that we are familiar with what depicted in Gorodets painting, and with what paints and brushes this can be done, let's talk in detail about the various elements of this painting. And start by yourself (simultaneously with reading the text) to depict on paper everything that will be discussed in subsequent chapters.

Gorodets painting comes from the icon, and, just like in the icon, there is a lot of symbolism in it. The bird is a symbol of family happiness.

Look at Gorodets birds - they always have a fat belly. In my long practice of teaching, I met many people who did not like this particular feature of the Gorodets bird. Many who begin to try their hand at Gorodets painting try to “improve the figure” of the Gorodets bird by thinning its body. I want to save you from this gross mistake. Such an outline of a bird is a tradition, and trying to thoughtlessly change it is the same as depriving an ancient symbolic image of its meaning. Some of you will say: “Just think, what a crime! I just wanted to make the bird thinner - so it is even more elegant.

But remember, the bird is a symbol family happiness. Perhaps this “unaesthetic” (according to others) tummy just symbolizes the birth of a new life and is the key to family happiness!

I don’t know if I correctly guessed the intention of our ingenuously wise ancestors regarding the bird, but I simply urge you to respect the tradition and draw birds the way thousands of artists painted them before you.

The bird in the Gorodets painting has a sharp silhouette: it has a flexible line of the neck and chest (sinusoid), a tail in the form of a butterfly wing, a filiform beak and legs. The traditional color of the bird is: the body is black, the tail is cherry (kraplak), the wing is green.

Two of these three colors are available in the set of gouache paints: black and kraplak, and Gorodets green is mixed.

Gorodets birds are depicted in two stages: first, underpainting is done with three colors with a brush - this is the body, wing and tail of the bird, and then animations are painted on it with white paint.

Figure 1 shows the most characteristic variants of the Gorodets bird's revival. Animations are made on the bird with white paint - using a thin artistic brush. Here you can use the entire arsenal of Gorodets animations: arcs, strokes, droplets, and dots.

strokes are very different in length and width, and they are performed as follows: the brush is held vertically in the fingers and, barely touching the paper with the end of the brush, draw a thin line at the beginning and end with more or less pressure in the middle. The strokes made the animations on the wing and tail of the bird, on the neck and at the bottom of the tummy.

Droplets are made using the priming method, known to modern children since kindergarten, where they are taught this technique. Droplets are made like this: sideways with the tip of an art brush (with white paint) easily and smoothly
touch the paper, which leaves a trace in the form of a drop.

How dots are put is easier to understand than to explain.

How to perform arcs is described in detail in the section of this technique “Flowers are a symbol of health”.

I advise you to start drawing a bird of traditional colors. Later, of course, you will try other coloring options for Gorodets birds. And yet, over time, you yourself will come to the conclusion that the combination that I called traditional is the most successful of all.

Have you heard such a word - "horseless"? When it is used even in our time, they mean the extreme poverty of the person about whom they say "horseless". Now times have changed. I have a lot of acquaintances, and not one of them has a horse! And I don't. And yet no one says about us that we are “horseless”. Some even have cars...

But in the old days, those peasants who did not have a horse were the poorest people in the village: neither to plow the land in the field, nor to bring hay to the cow, nor to go to the market to sell something from their harvest, nor to deliver a doctor to the sick .. .

In a word, it was bad on the farm without a horse. And the horse was so significant in the life of rural residents that in peasant painting it became symbol wealth.

The Gorodetsky horse is only black. This is also a tradition. And she went from that distant time, when Gorodets spinning wheels were decorated not with painting, but with carvings. Then the horse, carved from black (bog) oak, crashed flush into the light bottom of the Gorodets spinning wheel. This work was hard, as oak is a very hard wood. Therefore, over time, the masters who made the spinning wheels began to simply paint over the horse on the spinning wheel with black paint, thereby imitating their work under the inlay with bog oak. It was cheaper. Spinning wheels were made for sale.

And then they began to tint other parts of the spinning wheel, and gradually the expensive carving was replaced by coloring (painting).

Since then the horse in Gorodets painting is always black.

The Gorodetsky horse, like the bird, is sharp in shape and color. The whole horse is black with white rims, the saddle and harness are red. The horse has a flexible neck and chest line (and, mind you, exactly the same as a bird!), a rounded croup, a bushy tail and very thin legs. Moreover, they are thin only below the knees.

One hind leg is bent under the belly with a hook, and one front leg is steeply bent at the knee in front of the chest.

The Gorodets masters of the horse paint in two stages: underpainting and revival. I advise you to first draw the outline of the horse, then paint over the saddle and harness with red paint (Fig. 2a), then the horse with black paint (Fig. 2b), and then make animations with white paint using dots, strokes, droplets (Fig. 2c) .

A droplet on a horse is done like this: with the tip of the art brush, which must be held vertically, quickly draw a thin elastic line and at the end of it, slightly tilting the brush, stick a drop. They make little drops of animation on the chest and rump of the horse, and from such animation the horse becomes, as it were, shiny and smooth; “full”, as the peasants say. And this did not mean that the horse had a good meal, but that he was in good shape, round and thin at the same time, handsome and sleek.

Gorodets horses are of two types, they differ only in manes, in everything else they are always the same, except for small minor details.

Flowers are an indispensable part of any Gorodets work.

For a good mastery of Gorodets painting, it is enough to be able to draw only four flowers. Subsequently, it will be told especially about one more flower, the most beautiful, but without which you can perfectly do without, without compromising the quality of the painting.

So, let's learn how to draw only four flowers first. They are drawn in three stages:

• underpainting;
• pointing petals;
• animations.

For beginners, I think it is advisable to start drawing these flowers immediately from the second stage.

So, prepare paper, a pencil, one art brush and for now only one paint from the gouache set - kraplak. And with God!

Let's draw four circles in a row on a sheet of paper with a pencil: the first one is smaller, the rest are the same (see Fig. 3).

Using a brush and cherry paint (kraplak), draw a round colored spot in each of these circles; on the first two - from the side, and on the other two - in the middle (Fig. 3). For convenience, let's call this spot a nose in the future. Now let's finish these four flowers with the same paint (kraplak).

Draw on the first circle arc. To do this, holding the brush in the fingers vertically (perpendicular to the sheet of paper), we begin to direct the arc at first only lightly touching the paper with the tip of the brush, then we press hard on the brush (the brush leaves a wide smooth mark) and complete the arc again with a thin line. It turns out a beautiful arc in the form of a young month (Fig. 3a).

On the second circle, draw the same arc, but now not along the edge, but inside the circle. And along its edge - rounded petals in shape are exactly the same as the arc, only smaller. The result was a flower somewhat reminiscent of a rose (Fig. 3b).

On the third circle, we draw the petals along the edge of the circle (Fig. 3c).

On the fourth circle, we finish the droplets using the priming method. They are located along the radius around the spout drawn in the center (Fig. 3d).

Now compare your flowers with those in the picture ... And if they are similar, I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart: you have coped with perhaps the most difficult part of the Gorodets painting!

Of course, flowers are always painted on colored circles, but at first, color will only distract you from the correct “writing” of these very important painting elements.

If the flowers are not very good, practice until you can draw them with ease.

Make sure that all arcs are rounded and convex, like sails inflated by the wind, so that the noses of the third and fourth flowers are large enough (no less than 1/3 of the diameter of the circle in which they are placed).

Now let's agree on terminology. It will be more convenient to give a name to these four flowers:

• bud (Fig. 3a);
• rose (Fig. 3b);
• rosan (Fig. 3c);
• chamomile (Fig. 3d).

I warn you that in other sources these same flowers may be named differently. But we began to master Gorodets painting before the advent of any methods, and when I went to Gorodets with my children and asked the craftswomen-artists at the Gorodets Painting factory what they called these flowers, it turned out that they did not call them in any way. One artist said so: “What are they called? I draw them and that's it."

And we had to name these flowers ourselves. Therefore, you can name them the same as we call them in our work team, or rename them in your own way. Agree that it doesn't matter. As the people say: "Even though you call it a pot, just don't put it in the oven."

We have already, I hope, mastered the second stage (pointing the petals), and now we will start from the first stage (underpainting).

Let's talk about what color the flowers that we learned to draw will be.

For now, we will draw all the flowers only in pink and blue. There are many pink flowers in the painting, but few blue ones. There may be no more than one quarter of the total number of flowers, or even fewer, or even not at all in the Gorodets painting. But this will be discussed in the second part of this manual.

So that's what's interesting: Gorodets flowers are always drawn on colored circles. When they begin to paint the work, at first they draw only colored circles (this, in fact, is the underpainting). Why so? Really, even great masters could not make Gorodets painting without circles?

We could, of course. But such is the tradition.

You see how simple-hearted and unsophisticated this peasant painting is, that it does not make any secret of the method of drawing their luxurious flowers, and even in the works of the famous masters of Gorodets, these four flowers are always painted on colored circles. It turns out that in order to create unthinkably lush and beautiful Gorodets compositions, it is enough to be able to depict only four flowers, which are described here, and the impression of a huge number of these flowers is created only thanks to their color - red, pink, blue, blue, ocher, brown, cherry and even black ones.

There are no flowers only orange, yellow and purple.

So, again we draw the same four circles from which we began to learn how to depict Gorodets flowers.

Any of the four circles will be painted with blue white, and the remaining three with pink white.

Now on these underpaintings we will draw the same flowers as in Figure 3.

I advise you to carefully sketch these flowers in your album - they will be included in your atlas of Gorodets elements. Please note that on the blue circle we point the petals and the nose of the flower with cobalt blue, and paint the pink underpaintings with red paint.

This is how you will paint: bright blue on blue and red on pink.

Now let's move on to the third stage: it remains to make animations on the flowers. The animations on the flowers are made with white paint using an N2 and N3 art brush.

The tip of the brush is carefully dipped in white gouache and the flowers are decorated with dots and elastic strokes.

First of all, they put a white dot in the center of all the noses, then they circle the noses of roses and daisies with dots, and the noses of the bud and rose are circled with a white arc (how such an arc is drawn has already been explained).

And then the animations on the rose (those that are located along the “meridians”) are finished with very elegant strokes.

Everybody! We learned to write flowers! My advice to you is to make animations on flowers only as shown in the picture.

This is a tradition. Tradition must be respected..

Gorodets flowers are always surrounded by many leaves. The Gorodetsky leaf is simple and unpretentious in shape: its contour resembles a pumpkin seed, but the spectacular effect of luxurious Gorodets garlands largely depends on the leaves.

The leaves are painted over with Gorodets green paint.

If we compare the ancient Gorodets murals with modern ones, we will see a big difference in the craftsmanship: the masters of our time have succeeded in virtuosity in writing the elements of Gorodets murals, but the shape of the leaves has changed little. True, they began to be depicted as if “back to front”: before they were turned to flowers with a wide end, and now, on the contrary, with a narrow one. I think that this is due to the fact that before the leaves “hovered” freely near the flowers, and now in modern painting, the leaves are arranged in groups in the shape of a fan, and this can be done only by greatly thinning one end of the leaf.

It has already been mentioned that it is easier to depict a Gorodets leaf in the form of a pumpkin seed. But I advise you to write a more complex sheet like this: draw a smooth arc with a brush and connect the ends of this arc with a “sinusoid”, making sure that the sheet remains wide at one end (see Fig. 4).

Gorodets painting is a folk art craft. Bright textured drawings are made with a free stroke with a graphic stroke. A wide variety of household items and decorative paraphernalia were decorated with Russian motifs.

The history of the fishery

The birthplace of Gorodets painting is the Volga region. Residents of the villages of Khlebaikha, Kurtsevo, Savino, Bukino and some other villages decorated spinning wheels with carvings, and then tinted the ornament in order to sell the products at the Nizhny Novgorod fair later. Over time, colorful patterns completely replaced carved decor, and bright drawings began to be called Nizhny Novgorod painting.

The term "Gorodets pattern" appeared only in the 1930s, when the work of one of the most dedicated researchers of Russian folk crafts, V.M. Vasilenko. Gorodets is the main market for painted utensils. The masters took this fact into account, and the patterns displayed the way of life, customs, images associated with the town. Over time, the painting became the artistic personification of the culture and color of Gorodets and its environs.

Local craftsmen skillfully managed in wood carving. The forest expanses allowed craftsmen to use cheap and affordable material to create their masterpieces. The heyday of the craft is associated with the activities of Peter the Great, who demanded that his warships be decorated with carvings and paintings. Over time, the ships were relocated closer to the new conquered lands, and craftsmen began to look for other directions to apply the accumulated experience.

The heyday of the Gorodets craft began in 1870, when the icon painter Ogurechnikov arrived in one of the villages. His goal was to renew the paintings of the local church. It was he who helped local craftsmen to master new skills: “animation” with squirrels, the use of several paint balls at once, and other techniques.

Colors of Gorodets painting

Egg paints were originally used for painting. They were replaced by oily, tempera and gouache compositions. The coloring composition was applied to the canvas in large spots, without preliminarily forming clear contours.

Initially, craftsmen worked on primed surfaces. Later, after the Second World War, raw wood was chosen as the basis. This allowed the drawings to be made lighter, giving them transparency.

1. Zamalevki. For patterns in the form of berries and flowers, the following colors are used: ocher, pink (a mixture of red and white tones), pure red, burgundy (red and black), blue (blue and white), blue. For the design of the sheets use a pure green color. Small leaves and curls were sometimes decorated with brown paint.
2. Tenevka. The main colors of the shade are black, brown and blue. Due to the use of a deep black tone, against which the key elements of the ornament were drawn, it was possible to obtain a bright and rather contrasting pattern. If a brown tone was used for the shade, the painting turned out to be lighter and more delicate.
3. Livery. For razzhivka used white color. The yellow tint was used less frequently. It was needed only if the leaves were given volumetric accents.

Basic colors by numbers

The main colors that are traditionally used for Gorodets ornaments:

1. Ocher(#CC7722);
2. Pink(#FFC0CB);
3. Red(#FF0000);
4. Blue(#00BFFF);
5. Blue(#964B00);
6. White(#FFFFFF);
7. Green(#00FF00);
8. Black(#000000);
9. Yellow(#FFFF00).

Elements and motifs of Gorodets painting

There are three basic types of compositions. This is a “pure” flower painting, a composition with the inclusion of a “horse” motif and a complex plot painting.

Floral ornament is the easiest to perform. There are several elements of the ornament:

1. "Bouquet" is a symmetrical image. These are small compositions consisting of 1 - 3 flowers. Decorate boxes, caskets, cups, salt shakers, cups, bowls;
2. "Garland" - a type of "bouquet", when one large flower is located in the center, and a composition with smaller flowers is built around it;
3. "Rhombus" - a variation of the "garland". Several large flowers form the center, and the leaves and buds decrease at the top of the diamond. The ornament often adorns large chests, large cutting boards, cabinet doors and breadbaskets;
4. "Flower stripe" is a complex composition consisting of the upper and lower tiers. The ornament can be formed from a strip of flowers of the same size or from floral elements that are different in color, shape and type;
5. "Wreath" - a variation of the "flower strip", but only of a closed type. Usually decorates the surfaces of dishes, trays, caskets, wine barrels.

Motives "horse" and "bird"

There are symmetrical and asymmetric compositions. Birds and horses are most often placed in the center of a flowering tree or framed by a wreath. There are products-sets, on each of which there are several motives at once. For example, a chicken and a cockerel or two horses of different colors.

Similar patterns look more effective on black and red canvases. Base color: ocher, gold, orange, yellow. The paired image of birds represents family harmony and well-being. Horses symbolize success and prosperity.

Story painting

Plot drawings are placed on large items: chests, dishes, countertops. Masters traditionally depicted scenes of tea parties and celebrations, weddings against the backdrop of a rich table, tables with cups, flowers and samovars. The faces of the people turned towards the audience, which often gave unnecessarily complex compositions a certain implausibility.

The favorite theme of the drawings is the exteriors of houses with carved shutters, bright architraves, chimneys. The picture was complemented by wells, wicker fences with flowers or jugs and sitting roosters. In addition, the canvas could be "enriched" with images of other animals - dogs, cats, chickens with chickens.

Technique for performing Gorodets painting

The painting is done directly on a wooden base, which is initially primed with yellow, red and black colors. Each primary color is “whitened”, thus, exactly doubling the number of colors in the palette.

On the surface, the main lines of the painting are outlined with thin lines with a pencil. Particular attention is paid to the "nodes" of the picture, that is, the largest and most important elements. Medium and small details act as links for large patterns and can be performed during improvisation.

In the nodes of the painting with a wide brush form the basis of the flower. Usually, this spot is irregularly round or oval in shape. A darker color is applied over the light spots. The entire painting consists of simple elements: brackets, arcs, spirals, strokes, drops, and the actual underpainting itself.

The final stage is the application of contrasting (black or white) strokes and dots over the finished drawing. This stage is carried out with the help of the thinnest brush. As soon as the canvas dries, the painting is “fixed” with a thick layer of varnish.

Gorodets painting on wood is among the highest achievements of Russian folk art. What ideas do we have at the mention of this craft? Some will present bright spinning wheels, boxes, screens and other products from Gorodets, exhibited in the halls of the State Historical Museum or the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. Others will remember children's painted tables, chairs, shelves, toys. Many apartments are decorated with elegant and durable bread bins and cutting boards.

However, there was a time when this craft was not given much importance. So, in one of the reference publications of the end of the 19th century, they wrote about him: "Gorodets painting on wood is one of the many handicrafts that existed in the Nizhny Novgorod province, which owes its appearance to the infertility of the local lands." And the members of the commission for the study of the handicraft industry in Russia even spoke like this: "Whoever has seen the drawings on the donets knows how rude they are." And one should pay tribute to those representatives of the then society of Russia, who highly appreciated this art. These are the people our great artists and the most perspicacious collectors turned out to be.

I.E. became interested in Gorodets painting earlier than others. Repin, E.D. and V.D. Polenov, V.M. Vasnetsov, industrialist and philanthropist of the SI. Mamontov, director of the Russian Historical Museum, historian I.E. Zabelin, trustee of the Handicraft Museum of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo S.T. Morozov.

However, truly Gorodets carving and painting were discovered only in the early 1920s, during the preparation of the exhibition "Russian Peasant Art", held in the halls of the Russian Historical Museum. This exhibition was a unique phenomenon in the history of Russian art. The words written on the poster of the exhibition fully applied to the Gorodets painting: “At present, the works of peasant artists have been pulled out from under a bushel and the museum has the opportunity to make them available for public viewing. Almost no one knows peasant art, but meanwhile it is worthy of our profound attention. In many cases, the peasant artist can point out new paths to our contemporary art."

A noticeable revival occurred then in the study of the crafts of the Nizhny Novgorod region. In 1924, a handicraft department was opened in the Gorodets Museum, where the works of peasant craftsmen were collected. The world of peasant household life has become the subject of serious study and deep reflection of contemporaries. From individual surviving items, scattered facts, from meetings and conversations with craftsmen, a fairly complete and objective idea of ​​Gorodets and the Gorodets district as an original center of peasant art in Russia was finally formed.

On the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region, masters created completely different types of wood painting - Gorodets and Fedoseev, Polkhovmaidan and Khokhloma. Gorodets painting arose and flourished in close proximity to the "kingdom" of Khokhloma. But the golden sheen of Khokhloma did not overshadow the bright festivity of the works of the Gorodets masters. If Khokhloma strikes with a golden sheen, as if fantastic red-black inflorescences and herbs born in fire, fine calligraphy of the finest lines, then Gorodets painting captivates with the richness of the colors of the Russian summer with its herbs, the bright sun, as if flooding with its light lush garlands of flowers, bizarre birds, slender horses running through fabulous meadows.

Gorodets painting moved into the forefront of folk crafts in Russia because it surprisingly organically combined adherence to ancient traditions with an open joyful perception of modern life. Folk craftsmen combined rich floral ornaments, images of fabulous animals and paintings of modern life in a city, village, estate, and the famous Nizhny Novgorod fair into a single artistic system. At the same time, "magic realism" became the basis of the style of Gorodets painting - the transformation of everyday life into a peasant artist's dream of a joyful life of a person on a beautiful flowering land, in complete harmony with nature.

The most sophisticated connoisseurs are fascinated by the courage of Gorodets painters in choosing subjects, their skill in building multi-figure scenes, the expressiveness of the heroes of the painting, the beautifully painted interiors, according to all the laws of decorative art, and the luxurious floral ornament.

To understand why Gorodets painting has become exactly like this, you definitely need to visit its homeland. These are the villages and villages of Khlebaikha, Kurtsevo, Koskovo, Savino, Buki and others, located along the banks of the Volga tributary - the Uzola River. Why was the painting called Gorodets? Why is it not Kurtsevskaya, not Koskovskaya, not Savinskaya, or at least Uzolskaya? The name "Gorodets" sounded only in the 1930s after the appearance of the works of one of the most famous researchers of folk culture V.M. Vasilenko. In earlier editions, we are talking about "Nizhny Novgorod painting" or "Kurts dyers". The new name stuck because Gorodts was the main market for Uzol painted utensils and also had wood painting workshops. But the most important thing: since the middle of the 19th century, the very content of the painting is connected with him, his way of life, customs, images. The famous Uzol painting has grown on the basis of the entire artistic culture of Gorodets and its environs, the history of which has more than eight centuries. Without knowledge of the centuries-old history of Gorodets and its crafts, one cannot understand the essence of Gorodets painting.

Each of the periods of Gorodets history is interesting in its own way. The city arose in the second half of the 12th century as a military outpost of Rus' on the banks of the Volga. In the XIII century, Gorodets was the capital of the Gorodetsky principality, and then became part of the Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal Grand Duchy. The early history of the Gorodetsky principality is associated with the names of Andrei Bogolyubsky, Mstislav Udaly, Alexander Nevsky. The Russian chronicles reflected not only the construction of the city and the successful raids of the princes on the Bulgars, but also terrible events - the attack on Goroden by the ords of Batu Khan. "The Tatars took the city, setting fire to them, monasteries and churches, and princely and residential people's courts betraying the same flame ... people barefoot and bloodless, dying of scum, bringing them full to their own countries," the author of the Nikon Chronicle testifies about the events of 1238. But after five or six years, the surviving residents of Gorodets restored the city. Soon the younger brother of Alexander Nevsky, Andrei, became the prince in it. His clash with the Tatar Khan Pevrey threatened with a new invasion of the Tatars, which so far had nothing to repel. The older brother Alexander Yaroslavich had to go to the Horde with a bow and gifts. He returned already seriously ill and, having barely reached Gorodets in November 1263, he died here in the Fedorovsky Monastery.

In the 16th century, a second name was assigned to Gorodets - Small Kitezh, in contrast to the legendary Big Kitezh that hid from enemies in the waters of Lake Svetloyar, which is not too far from Gorodets.

Gorodets, being a center of trade and shipbuilding in the 19th century, has always remained a bright, original center of national culture. The originality of local cultural traditions was largely determined by the unique geographical location of Gorodets. Since the 12th century, it has been an inseparable part of the Vladimir-Suzdal land with its highest traditions of architecture, icon painting, and decorative art.

If you try to trace the origins of Gorodets painting, then you need to remember that Gorodets of the 17th-19th centuries was one of the centers of the Old Believers. It was it that had a noticeable impact on the spiritual life of the Gorodets district and its crafts. From the icons brought here by settlers from the northern lands after the destruction of the Pomeranian and Solovetsky monasteries by the tsarist authorities, local icon painting began.

Sometimes intuitively, but more often quite consciously, the masters of Gorodets painting strove to continue the traditions of the Nizhny Novgorod icon, especially its floral ornaments - "grass painting". It was this iconic patterning with its refined techniques of painting flowers and herbs, collecting them into garlands and bouquets that was an excellent school for every Gorodets master, and a familiar school, familiar from childhood. The icon taught both the beauty of color, and the expressiveness of silhouettes, and the techniques for constructing space, and the significance of every detail. The originality of the Gorodets painting was born at the junction of the traditions of the Old Believer forest Trans-Volga region and the completely secular life of the county and provincial cities, the famous Nizhny Novgorod fair, the influence of which was felt in the economy, life, and customs of the entire Volga region

The greedy susceptibility to everything new attracted peasant artists to depict all these innovations, new people, festive festivities in the city, steamships on the Volga, and fair entertainment.

The glory of Gorodets painting began with the decoration of women's household items. These are spinning bottoms, weaving mills and cupboards, caskets and high chairs. The Uzol craftsmen were especially fond of decorating spinning wheels. "A girl behind a spinning wheel is one of the characteristic images of old Russian peasant life. A girl's life is always decorated and decorative; a spinning wheel, standing next to a spinner, adorned her along with clothes, embroideries, beads and ribbons. She was often a gift from a man, cut out and signed with love dreams and thoughts, as evidenced by a number of inscriptions preserved on the spinning wheels, "it is difficult to say about the spinning wheel better than it was done almost 100 years ago by B.C. Voronov.

The Gorodets spinning wheel, as if by its nature, is intended for the work of an artist. Unlike spinning wheels, cut from a single piece of wood, it consists of two parts - a bottom and a comb. The base of the spinning wheel - the bottom - is a fairly wide board, the dimensions of which fluctuate. If the length is almost always about 70 cm, then the width is from 30 to 50 cm. A spear is attached to the front rounded part of such a board - a tetrahedral truncated pyramid with a hole in the upper part for inserting a rather large comb on a long handle. The comb served to attach the tow - flax or wool. The spinner, putting the bottom on the bench, sat on it and began to spin, winding the thread around the spindle. And now, with the talent and skill of the Gorodets masters of the Donets, they have become works of high art, striking with their beauty for more than one generation of connoisseurs.

According to local legend, the masters of the Uzol valley received their first painting skills from the artist N.I. Ogurechnikov, who in 1870 renovated the murals of the church in the village of Kurtsevo. Sharp-witted men from Kurtsev and Koskov, who closely followed his work, managed to find out the secrets of preparing paints, remember the methods of working with a brush. But local masters learned not only from painters.

Here we will have to get acquainted with the Uzol wood carvers. They made spinning bottoms, decorating them with a carved pattern. At first, carving was common for peasant utensils: geometric nets, rosettes with diverging rays - symbolic images of the sun, which are also called solar signs. And within a few years, along with the traditional carving, a completely different one appeared - both in content and in execution technique. Not ancient magical signs, but modern life, its images have become the main ones.

Scenes of equestrian hunts with dogs and falcons appeared on the Donets, riders on rearing horses with bare swords, luxurious carriages rushing at full speed with footmen on their backs and dashing coachmen on their rims. Scenes of city festivities were depicted with amazing love and diligence - magnificently dressed ladies with indispensable umbrellas in their hands, their gentlemen in frock coats with tightly tied waists, in high buckwheat (kind of cylinders) or cocked hats with plumes. Undoubtedly, having appeared in the market, such products of carvers made a splash. But not only with plots, but also with new carving techniques. Instead of the usual trihedral-notched carving, a faster execution, less painstaking, but by no means less expressive contour and bracket carving was used. With the help of different widths of semicircular chisels and thin knives, the carver created paintings unprecedented in the former folk art.

Old Gorodets masters. From left to right:
Ignatii Andreevich Mazin, Fedor Semenovich Krasioyarov, Ignatii Klemeitievich Lebedev

It is also interesting that among the innovations introduced by the Uzol carving craftsmen was the use of color: from coloring individual carving fragments with berry juice or plant decoctions to unique inlay with bog oak. The material for such work was not far away, at the bottom of his native Uzola. The winding wayward river during the flood period often washed away the banks, felled trees into the water. From a long lying in the water, the wood of all other species disappears, and only the oak acquires an increasing strength and a characteristic black color, to which a slightly bluish tint is added over time.

Catching pieces of bog oak from Uzola, local craftsmen soon learned how to process it well. They cut rather thin (3-5 mm thick) plates, round carnations and other details from the solid wood, which they began to include in their carved compositions. The technique of this inlay was absolutely amazing: neither glue nor any devices for attaching the inlays were used here. Figurines of horses, riders, carriage wheels and other inserts were placed in specially carved recesses and attached with wooden studs, combining both artistic and technical purposes. Such carnations fastened and decorated the hooves of horses, depicted their eyes, they also outlined the outline of the carriage with a dotted ornament. Sometimes such an ornament ran along the edge of the bottom and gradually became a distinctive feature of the entire group of inlaid bottoms.

Performing inlaid carved bottoms, the craftsmen mastered various compositional techniques. Along with the vertical tiered composition, a horizontal one was also used, which gave enough space for placement on the bottom and the massif - Walking. sing a carriage with a lady sitting in it, and a cat harnessed to the carriage. Pleasant bottom with carving and inlay.

Another important feature inherited by painters from carvers is the extraordinary concreteness and accuracy in the details of the image. The carver does not carve a carriage at all, but a 19th-century spring carriage, or depicts an old "Catherine's" carriage, which can now be seen in museums.

Carving with inlay existed in the Uzolye for only a few decades: this craft practically ceased by the 70s of the 19th century. Consequently, its history was connected with the life of no more than two generations of masters, but amazing masters. Among them, it is necessary to mention Lazar and Anton Melnikov, Anton Nikolaev, in whose work the circle of images characteristic of Gorodets art has already been basically determined - these are ladies and gentlemen, these are military men, often riders, these are dogs, birds and beautiful Gorodets horses. There were also favorite stories - festivities, gallant scenes.

In the geometric, narrative carving of Gorodets, and later in his painting, another important feature of folk art appeared - the combination of reality and fantasy in one composition. Spinners at work, the scene of presenting a wedding gift to the bride side by side with the figures of fantastic horsemen, with unprecedented plants that look like palm trees.

The transition from carving to painting was carried out quite smoothly and gradually, and the carvers themselves participated in it. Very interesting in this regard is one of the donets of Lazar Melnikov, which is important - he signed it. On this bottom, the upper part of the composition is made using the technique of carving, the middle part is carved with tint, and in the lower part there is a rosette painted with paints and a brush.

So, having carefully looked at the Gorodets carving with inlay and later carving with tinting, it is easy to make sure that the carvers were the direct teachers of the painters. It was they who determined the main theme of the future painting, identified its main characters, they laid the foundation for the visual language of Gorodets art. In a word, something completely new was born on the basis of the old art - peasant painting, which absorbed the beauty of the surrounding nature, everyday life - not only the material, but also the spiritual value of the things associated with it, the marvelous pattern of old books, icons, needlework.

And the development of this new craft took place at an unprecedented speed for folk art, in just two or three decades.

In the 1870s, Uzol craftsmen began to produce wooden items decorated with bright paintings. In the foreground, of course, were the spinning bottoms, starting with modest, narrow ones, decorated with a single flower, a branch with berries, a bird or a skate - in a word, an ordinary bazaar product, to wide, monumental ones, where the artist, showing all his art, performed painting in three whole tiers. There were scenes of crowded festivities and feasts, images of military battles, seeing off to the soldiers, dashing officers on horseback and important ladies in a decorous conversation. The painting was often made by special order as a gift to the bride from her mother or groom. The ceremonial purpose of such donets is confirmed not only by the richness of the paintings and special subjects, but also by the inscriptions on the spinning wheels or the stories of local old-timers. The donce was not only a working tool - it was treated with great respect. After finishing work, they freed it from the comb and hung it on the wall; it, like popular prints, embroidered towels, shiny icon frames, adorned the peasant's house and brought joy to it.
The forms of local spinning donets were almost perfectly worked out by the Gorodets carvers of the first half of the 19th century. They learned how to cut the bottom itself out of aspen and attach a head to it for inserting a comb - kopylk, decorate the edges of the bottom with smooth semicircular cuts, make it the height of grace, decorating two side faces with an inlaid bird and a horse, the other two with thin longitudinal cuts reminiscent of the flutes of ancient columns . However, the painters needed smooth surfaces for work, and the edges of the bottom and the edges of the co-ardor become even over time. But having become less expressive in form, the bottoms of the second half of the 19th century blossomed like a fairy garden.

The Gorodets painter manages to write a bright bird among flowers, a black horse on a very small plane of a kopyk. And when it comes to decorating the wide plane of the bottom, there is no limit to his imagination! People in then fashionable costumes, animals and birds, fantastic flowers, rooms - almost palace halls and streets with their motley crowd. But no matter how fantastic the ideas of the master, a certain order, custom, canon always reigns in his painting. And according to this custom, he divides the oblong surface of the bottom into three tiers. Upper, near the stump, usually slightly larger than the lower; the ornamental frieze separates both parts. It can consist of multi-colored stripes, or it can become a lush garland of flowers or a branch with berries. It depends only on the taste of the master whether to write all the bottoms on the same background or make the background different for the upper and lower parts of the composition. Often there are bottoms written on a favorite single golden-yellow background, but it also happens like this: the top mark is orange, and the bottom one is bright purple.

The hallmarks differed not only in background color, but also in plots. In the upper part of the bottom, the master often turned to the world of people, while in the lower part there was the realm of nature - images of animals or plants. But this is only the general scheme for constructing the painting of the classical donets, and the masters did not always follow it unquestioningly. The unique charm of Gorodets painting is precisely in the constant deviation from the canon, in the feeling of creative freedom of each master.
Next to an elegant painted spinning wheel there was usually a painted urinal - a box for spindles and "lobes". ("A lobe" is a flax tow prepared for yarn.) For the manufacture of urinals in the spring, preferably in damp windy weather, they prepared a linden bast, cut it into strips of the desired size, steamed it, bent it, and then sewed it in a special way - with a "lock", using a thin and strong pine root. From this sewn strip of bast, the base of an oblong oval box was obtained, to which a smooth wooden bottom was subsequently attached. - and the urinal was ready.

The rounded shape of urinals, bast boxes or baskets made it possible to unfold the image into a kind of frieze ribbon, to tell a whole story, as if extended in time. It could be a picturesque story about a hunt, a wedding, gatherings, about the busy movement of steamers on the Volga. The frieze could be continuous, or it could consist of several episodes or, as the old icon painters used to say, hallmarks.

The most common was the following order of decorating the urinal: two plot scenes - on the longitudinal sides of the box, two ornamental motifs - on the end. One scene was separated from the other by a vertical stripe of a characteristic Gorodets ornament - a string, bindweed, crossed brackets.

It would seem that it would have been much more convenient to paint a rose, a garland of flowers, or another ornamental motif on a small space of the wall of the urinal, but the Uzol artist also argued here that without depicting scenes of modern life, there is no Gorodets painting. How amazingly he used the expressiveness of the poses and gestures of his characters, truly directorially built almost theatrical mise-en-scenes. There is a lot to learn here for the colorist as well. In the painting of the urinal "Spinner" from the collection of the Gorodetsky Historical and Art Museum Complex, the author uses an extremely beautiful color scheme. Against a blue background, he paints a scene of village gatherings and a scene of a date for young people, using orange-pink, green, black and white colors.

The images on the end sides of the urinals often had a deep meaning. Such, for example, is a favorite motif in Gorodets painting - the image of a clock in a rich ornamental frame. The figure of an elderly woman - the mother of the bride or groom on the other end of the urinal, as it were, also reminds of the inexorable run of time. These images are another confirmation that urinals, like spinning wheels, were not just everyday peasant things, but were associated with village rituals and holidays, the most important of which was a wedding.

No matter how good urinals and baskets are, it’s hard for them to argue with beauty and originality with painted chairs - nurses and wheelchairs (the so-called chairs with wheels attached to them).

Gorodets chairs, depending on the size, were intended for the children themselves and for their dolls. This is a special area of ​​creativity for Gorodets artists - work on decorating an object of complex three-dimensional shape. Turned wheelchairs - children's chairs on wheels - were made in the villages of Repino and Koskovo, and bent chairs were made by peasants in Nikulin and Skolzikhino. For one wheelchair, more than three dozen parts were machined from aspen or birch. With the help of wooden axles and spikes, without nails or glue, these parts were connected so firmly that even today they remain intact and unharmed.

However, such chairs and wheelchairs became truly Gorodetsky only when they were painted on a crimson, brown, yellow, blue or black background. First, the seat was painted - a small plane about 20x20 cm in size, sometimes in the shape of a trapezoid. This part of the work was considered the most difficult and responsible. The most common motif here is a branch with berries and small leaves, written diagonally across the plane. A special role was played by the bleaching hatching, thanks to which the branch came to life, gained graphic clarity, but did not lose its picturesqueness. The master's love for the freedom and virtuosity of the whitening stroke was especially evident in the frame of the seat of the chair and the composition on its back - the visor.

At the disposal of the artist was only a narrow, about 2.5 cm wide, framing and a small board on the back - no more than 20x8 cm. The master ran a light stroke around the square, in the center of which a branch, a flower, a cat, a boy riding dog or other funny story. White brackets, brackets with a stroke in the middle of each hole, an intricate string or just a white stroke could serve as a frame.

Birds or animals often appear on Gorodets chairs. A particularly favorite character was a cat - a kind Cat-Purr. He was depicted with a large round head, prominent mustache, green eyes. Masters often painted lying, curled up cats, but they especially loved proudly sitting, surrounded by flowers and berries. Black, gray and bright red cats appear not only on chairs, but also on urinals, baskets.

A canon, a kind of typical composition, has developed in the Gorodets portrait. A small stamp contained a full-length figure, bust or generational image of a person in a three-quarter turn, sitting in an armchair or on a chair with a high back. The master also designated part of the furnishings of the house, drawing a high arched window with an intricate binding. Much attention was paid to other details of the interior - a table on carved patterned legs, a large flowerpot with flowers, sometimes a part of a patterned iol, cut into squares of parquet, was depicted.

In books written about Gorodets painting, it was often said that its style was undoubtedly associated with the folk picture-lubok. But with what kind of splint? The heyday of the Russian lubok picture - hand-painted wooden and copper engravings fell at the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th century. In the second half of the 19th century, this art began to decline, and it was replaced by the so-called lubok-type products. In the printing houses of Moscow and St. Petersburg, oleophafia and very poor artistic quality "prostoviks" were printed - lithofaphia, hand-painted by city artisans, recent immigrants from peasants. They depicted contemporary events, famous people, for example, the then well-known General Skobelev, fairy tales, scenes of village life, merchants' feasts in rich restaurants. These pictures were so artistically insignificant that none of the art critics even wanted to understand them. But, as it turned out, the Gorodets masters looked at them "with all their eyes" and looked at all in vain: they needed to learn how to write scenes of today's life, the buyer demanded from them that the plots, scenes of the life of the townspeople and the Volga merchants, knowledge of the furnishings of houses and modern pretty complex women's and men's costume. Late splint turned out to be an excellent auxiliary material, a kind of cheat sheet. And the talent of the Gorodets craftsmen was to be able to use this working material as nothing more than a hint. They peeped from urban artisans techniques, principles for solving space, amusing details and rethought them as genuine artists who masterfully wielded a brush.

Fedor Semenovich Krpsnoyarov is one of the greatest masters of the Gorodets trade.

What ideas do we have at the mention of this craft? Some will present bright spinning wheels, boxes, screens and other products from Gorodets, exhibited in the halls of the State Historical Museum or the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. Others will remember children's painted tables, chairs, shelves, toys. Many apartments are decorated with elegant and durable bread bins and cutting boards.

Elegant and durable products of the Gorodets craft can be found in many homes. These are cutting boards, caskets, salt shakers, children's rocking horses, etc.
However, there was a time when this craft was not given much importance. So, in one of the reference publications of the late 19th century, they wrote about him: “Gorodets painting on wood is one of the many handicrafts that existed in the Nizhny Novgorod province, which owes its appearance to the infertility of the local lands.” And the members of the commission for the study of the handicraft industry in Russia even spoke like this: "Whoever saw the drawings on the bottoms knows how rude they are." And one should pay tribute to those representatives of the then society of Russia, who highly appreciated this art. These are the people our great artists and the most perspicacious collectors turned out to be. I.E. became interested in Gorodets painting earlier than others. Repin, E.D. and V.D. Polenov, V.M. Vasnetsov, industrialist and philanthropist S.I. Mamontov, director of the Russian Historical Museum, historian I.E. Zabelin, trustee of the Handicraft Museum of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo S.T. Morozov.
This exhibition was a unique phenomenon in the history of Russian art. The words written on the poster of the exhibition fully applied to the Gorodets painting: “At present, the works of peasant artists have been pulled out from under a bushel and the museum is getting the opportunity to make them available for public viewing. Almost no one knows peasant art, and yet it is worthy of our deep attention. In many cases, the peasant artist can show new paths to our contemporary art.”

A noticeable revival occurred then in the study of the crafts of the Nizhny Novgorod region. In 1924, a handicraft department was opened in the Gorodets Museum, where the works of peasant craftsmen were collected. The world of peasant household life has become the subject of serious study and deep reflection of contemporaries. From individual surviving items, scattered facts, from meetings and conversations with craftsmen, a fairly complete and objective idea of ​​​​Goroshche and the Gorodets district as an original center of peasant art in Russia was finally formed.
On the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region, masters created completely different types of wood painting - Gorodets and Fedoseev, Polkhovmaidan and Khokhloma. Gorodets painting arose and flourished in close proximity to the “kingdom” of Khokhloma. But the golden sheen of Khokhloma did not overshadow the bright festivity of the works of the Gorodets masters. Khokhloma strikes with its golden sheen, as if fantastic red-black inflorescences and herbs born in fire, fine calligraphy of the finest lines.
To understand why Gorodets painting has become exactly like this, you definitely need to visit its homeland.
Each of the periods of Gorodets history is interesting in its own way. In the XIII century, Gorodets was the capital of the Gorodetsky principality, and then became part of the Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal Grand Duchy. The early history of the Gorodetsky principality is associated with the names of Andrei Bogolyubsky, Mstislav Udaly, Alexander Nevsky. The Russian chronicles reflected not only the construction of the city and the successful raids of the princes on the Bulgars, but also terrible events - the attack on Gorodets by the hordes of Batu. But after five or six years, the surviving residents of Gorodets restored the city. Soon the younger brother of Alexander Nevsky, Andrei, became the prince in it. His clash with the Tatar Khan Nevrey threatened with a new invasion of the Tatars, which so far had nothing to repel. The older brother Alexander Yaroslavich had to go to the Horde with a bow and gifts. He returned already seriously ill and, having barely reached Gorodets in November 1263, he died here in the Fedorovsky Monastery.

In the 16th century, a second name was assigned to Gorodets - Small Kitezh, in contrast to the legendary Big Kitezh that hid from enemies in the waters of Lake Svetloyar, which is not so far from Gorodets.
Gradually losing the importance of a military outpost, Gorodets gained strength as a trade and craft center. It was famous for its chauffeurs, tanners and saddlers, embroiderers and gold seamstresses. In former times, the city was filled with the honey spirit of the Gorodets Iryaiki. who have been baking here since the century. There were so many of them that they were enough for the neighboring Balakhna and Nizhny Novgorod, and for the distant Tver and Astrakhan. The following testimony has come down to us from a century: “At 15 versts from Balakhna there was ... the trading village of Gorodets, in which “noble auctions” took place every Saturday. The list of what was then traded in Gorodets takes several pages.
Gorodets, being a center of trade and shipbuilding in the 19th century, has always remained a bright, original center of national culture. The originality of local cultural traditions was largely determined by the unique geographical location of Gorodets. Since the 12th century, it has been an inseparable part of the Vladimir-Suzdal land with its highest traditions of architecture, icon painting, and decorative art.
If you try to trace the origins of Gorodets painting, then you need to remember that Gorodets of the 17th-19th centuries was one of the centers of the Old Believers. From the icons brought here by settlers from the northern lands after the destruction of the Pomeranian and Solovetsky monasteries by the tsarist authorities, local icon painting began.

Sometimes intuitively, but more often quite consciously, the masters of Gorodets painting strove to continue the traditions of the Nizhny Novgorod icon, especially its floral ornaments - “herbal writing”. It was this iconic patterning with its refined techniques of painting flowers and herbs, collecting them into garlands and bouquets that was an excellent school for every Gorodets master, and a familiar school, familiar from childhood. The icon taught both the beauty of color, and the expressiveness of silhouettes, and the techniques for constructing space, and the significance of every detail. The peculiarity of Gorodets painting was born at the junction of the traditions of the Old Believer forest Trans-Volga region, the famous Nizhny Novgorod fair, the influence of which was felt in the economy, life, and customs of the entire Volga region. »
The greedy susceptibility to everything new attracted peasant artists to depict all these innovations, new people, festive festivities in the city, steamships on the Volga, and fair amusements.
The glory of Gorodets painting began with the decoration of women's household items. These are spinning bottoms, weaving mills and cupboards, caskets and high chairs. The Uzol craftsmen were especially fond of decorating spinning wheels.
The Gorodets spinning wheel, as if by its nature, is intended for the work of an artist. The base of the spinning wheel - the bottom - is a fairly wide board, the dimensions of which fluctuate. If the length is almost always about 70 cm, then the width is from 30 to 50 cm. A spear is attached to the front rounded part of such a board - a tetrahedral truncated pyramid with a hole in the upper part for inserting a rather large comb on a long handle. The comb served to attach the tow - flax or wool. The spinner, putting the bottom on the bench, sat on it and began to spin, winding the thread around the spindle. And now, with the talent and skill of the Gorodets masters of the Donets, they have become works of high art, striking with their beauty for more than one generation of connoisseurs.

According to local legend, the masters of the Uzol valley received their first painting skills from the artist N.I. Ogurechnikov, who in 1870 renovated the murals of the church in the village of Kurtsevo. But local masters learned not only from painters.
Here we will have to get acquainted with the Uzol woodcarvers. They made spinning bottoms, decorating them with a carved pattern. At first, carving was common for peasant utensils: geometric nets, rosettes with diverging rays - symbolic images of the sun, which are also called solar signs. And for several years, along with the traditional
carving, a completely different one appeared - both in content and in technique x \ 'v. execution. Not ancient magical signs, but modern life, its images have become the main ones.
Scenes of equestrian hunts with dogs and falcons appeared on the bottoms, riders on rearing horses with naked swords, luxurious carriages rushing at full speed with lackeys at the back and dashing coachmen on their rims. With amazing love and diligence, the couples of city festivities were depicted - magnificently dressed ladies with indispensable umbrellas in their hands, their gentlemen in frock coats with tightly tied waists, in high buckwheat (kind of cylinders) or cocked hats with plumes. Undoubtedly, having appeared in the market, such products of carvers made a splash. But not only with plots, but also with new carving techniques. Instead of the usual trihedral-notched carving, a faster execution, less painstaking, but by no means less expressive contour and bracket carving was used. With the help of different widths of semicircular chisels and thin knives, the carver created paintings unprecedented in the old art.

Performing inlaid carved bottoms, the craftsmen mastered various compositional techniques. Along with the vertical tiered composition, a horizontal one was also used, which gave enough space to place on the bottom and a massive carriage with a lady sitting in it, and a mine harnessed to the carriage, and a coachman with a whip, and a footman on the back. And the first thing that attracts in the bottoms with carriages is an unmistakable sense of scale, the ratio of the image and the background. Every detail is visible, significant, and extremely expressive. The carved donets have already fully manifested the professionalism of the townspeople in building a plot composition based on a clear organic rhythm. This rhythm will develop even more in the painting.
Another important feature inherited by painters from carvers is the extraordinary concreteness and accuracy in the details of the image. The carver cuts out not the carriage at all, but the spring carriage
century, or depicts the old "Catherine" carriage, which can now be seen in museums.

In the geometric, narrative carving of Gorodets, and later in painting, another important feature of folk art was manifested - the combination of reality and fantasy in one composition. Spinners at work, the scene of presenting a wedding gift to the bride side by side with the figures of fantastic horsemen, with unprecedented plants that look like palm trees.
So, having carefully looked at the Gorodets carving with inlay and later carving with tinting, it is easy to make sure that the carvers were the direct teachers of the painters. It was they who determined the main theme of the future painting, identified its main characters, they laid the foundation for the visual language of Gorodets art. In a word, something completely new was born on the basis of the old art - peasant painting, which absorbed the beauty of the surrounding nature, everyday life - not only the material, but also the spiritual value of the caves associated with it, the marvelous pattern of old books, icons, needlework.
In the foreground, of course, were spinning bottoms, starting with modest, narrow ones, decorated with a single flower, a branch with berries, a bird or a horse — in a word, an ordinary bazaar product, to wide, monumental ones, where the artist, showing all his art, performed painting in three whole tiers. There were scenes of crowded festivities and feasts, images of military battles, seeing off to the soldiers, dashing officers on horseback and important ladies in a decorous conversation. The painting was often made by special order as a gift to the bride from her mother or groom. The ceremonial purpose of such donets is confirmed not only by the richness of the paintings and special subjects, but also by the inscriptions on the spinning wheels or the stories of local old-timers.

The forms of local spinning donets were almost perfectly worked out by the Gorodets carvers of the first half of the 19th century. They learned how to cut the bottom itself out of aspen and attach a head to it for inserting a comb - spears, decorate the edges of the bottom with smooth semicircular cuts, make it the height of grace, decorating two side faces with an inlaid bird and a horse, and the other two - with muddy longitudinal cuts reminiscent of the flutes of ancient columns . However, the painters needed smooth surfaces for their work, and the edges of the bottom and the edges of the stump become smooth over time.
But having become less expressive in form, the bottoms of the second half of the 19th century flourished. like a fairy garden.
The Gorodets painter manages to write a bright bird among flowers, a black horse on a very small plane of a kopyk. When it comes to decorating the wide plane of the bottom, there is no limit to his imagination! People in fashionable costumes at that time, animals and birds, fantastic flowers, rooms - almost palace halls and streets with their motley crowd. But no matter how fantastic the ideas of the master are, a certain order, custom, canon always reigns in his painting. And according to this custom, he divides the oblong surface of the bottom into three tiers. Upper, near the stump, usually slightly larger than the lower; the ornamental frieze separates both parts. It can consist of multi-colored stripes, or it can become a lush garland of flowers or a branch with berries. It depends only on the taste of the master whether to write all the bottoms on the same background or make the background different for the upper and lower parts of the composition. Often there are bottoms written on a favorite single golden-yellow background, but it also happens like this: the top mark is orange, and the bottom one is bright crimson.
The hallmarks differed not only in background color, but also in plots. In the upper part of the bottom, the master often turned to the world of people, while in the lower part there was the realm of nature - images of animals or plants. But this is only the general scheme for constructing the painting of the classical donets, and the masters did not always follow it unquestioningly. The unique charm of Gorodets painting is precisely in the constant deviation from the canon, in the feeling of creative freedom of each master.
Next to an elegant painted spinning wheel, there was usually a painted urinal - a box for spindles and "lobes". (“A lobe” is a flax tow prepared for yarn.) For the manufacture of urinals in the spring, preferably in damp windy weather, they prepared a linden bast, cut it into strips of the desired size, steamed it, folded it, and then sewed it in a special way - with a “lock” using a thin and strong pine root. From this sewn strip of bast, the base of an oblong oval box was obtained, to which a smooth wooden bottom was subsequently attached. — and the urinal was ready.

The rounded shape of urinals, bast boxes or baskets made it possible to unfold the image into a kind of frieze ribbon, to tell a whole story, as if extended in time. It could be a picturesque story about a hunt, a wedding, gatherings, about the busy movement of steamers on the Volga. The frieze could be continuous, or it could consist of several episodes or, as the old icon painters used to say, hallmarks.
The most common was the following order of decorating the mochssnik: two plot scenes - along the longitudinal sides
boxes, two ornamental motifs - on the end. One scene was separated from the other by a vertical strip of typical Gorodets ornament - a string, bindweed, crossed brackets.
It would seem that it would have been much more convenient to paint a rose, a garland of flowers, or another ornamental motif on a small space of the wall of the urinal, but the Uzol artist also argued here that without depicting scenes of modern life, there is no Gorodets painting. How amazingly he used the expressiveness of the poses and gestures of his characters, but truly directorially built almost theatrical mise-en-scenes. There is a lot to learn here for the colorist as well. In the painting of the “Spinner” from the collection of the Gorodetsky Historical and Art Museum Complex, the author uses an extremely beautiful color scheme. Against a blue background, he paints a scene of village gatherings and a scene of a date for young people, using orange-pink, green, black and white colors.
The images on the end sides of the urinals often had a deep meaning. Such, for example, is a favorite motif in Gorodets painting - the image of a clock in a rich ornamental frame. The figure of an elderly woman, the mother of the bride or groom, on the other end of the urinal, as it were, also reminds of the inexorable passage of time. These images are another confirmation that urinals, like spinning wheels, were not just everyday peasant things, but were associated with village rituals and holidays, the most important of which was a wedding.

Kryukov's workshop. Mochesnik. Late 19th - early 20th century SPGIHMZ

No matter how good urinals and baskets are, it’s hard for them to argue with beauty and originality with painted chairs - nurses and wheelchairs (the so-called chairs with wheels attached to them).
Gorodets chairs, depending on the size, were intended for the children themselves and for their dolls. This is a special area of ​​creativity for Gorodets artists - work on decorating an object of complex three-dimensional shape. Turned wheelchairs - children's chairs on wheels - were made in the villages of Repino and Koskovo, and bent chairs were made by peasants in Nikulin and Skolzikhino. For one wheelchair, more than three dozen parts were machined from aspen or birch. With the help of wooden axles and spikes, without nails or glue, these parts were connected so firmly that even today they remain intact and unharmed.
However, such chairs and wheelchairs became truly Gorodetsky only when they were painted on a crimson, brown, yellow, blue or black background. First, the seat was painted - a small plane about 20 × 20 cm in size, sometimes in the shape of a trapezoid. This part of the work was considered the most difficult and responsible. The most common motif here is a branch with berries and small leaves, painted diagonally across the plane. A special role was played by whitening strokes - karazzhivka, thanks to which the branch came to life, gained graphic clarity, but did not lose its picturesqueness. The master's love for the freedom and virtuosity of the whitening stroke was especially evident in the frame of the seat of the chair and the composition on its back - the visor.
At the disposal of the artist was only a narrow, about 2.5 cm wide, frame-frame and a small board of the back - no more than 20 × 8 cm. The master with a light stroke ran around the square, in the center
which a branch, a flower, a cat, a boy riding a dog, or another funny story has already been written. White brackets, brackets with a stroke in the middle of each hole, an intricate string or just a white stroke could serve as a frame.

Birds or animals often appear on Gorodets chairs. Masters often painted lying, curled up cats, but they especially loved proudly sitting, surrounded by flowers and berries. Black, gray and bright red cats appear not only on chairs, but also on urinals, baskets.
It would seem absurd - a portrait on the seat of a toy chair! But from the fact of the existence of such works will not go anywhere. This is how images of ladies in elegant dresses, with bows on their shoulders, carrying buckets of water on the yokes, or an image of a dignified couple walking around, where the gentleman was certainly “at the clock”, the signature under which could become a local ditty of the beginning XX century:
I asked, "What time is it?"
He said, "The ninth hour."
I asked: "Who do you love?"
He said, "Of course you!"
There are many such analogies with ditties, but if the ditty is always mischievous and fleeting, then the Gorodets ceremonial portrait, although comical, is majestic in its own way. In it, the influence of a provincial merchant portrait is palpable. Undoubtedly, the works of the first Nizhny Novgorod and Gorodets photographers also had their influence on this genre.
A canon, a kind of typical composition, has developed in the Gorodets portrait. The master also designated part of the furnishings of the house, drawing a high arched window with an intricate binding. Much attention was paid to other details of the interior - a table on carved patterned legs, a large flowerpot with flowers, sometimes a part of the patterned floor, cut into squares of parquet, was depicted.

In books written about Gorodets painting, it was often said that its style was undoubtedly associated with the folk picture-lubok. But with what kind of splint? The heyday of the Russian lubok picture - hand-painted wooden and copper favours - fell on the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th century. In the second half of the 19th century, this art began to decline, and it was replaced by the so-called lubok-type products. In the printing houses of Moscow and St. Petersburg, oleographs and “prostoviki” of very poor artistic quality were printed - lithographs, hand-painted by city artisans, recent immigrants from peasants. They depicted contemporary events, famous people, for example. then the well-known general Skobelev, fairy tales, scenes of village life, feasts of merchants in rich restaurants. These pictures were so artistically insignificant that none of the art historians even wanted to understand them. But, as it turned out, the Gorodets masters looked at them “with all eyes” and looked at all in vain: they needed to learn how to write scenes of today's life, the buyer demanded from them that the plots, scenes of the life of the townspeople and the Volga merchants, knowledge of the furnishings of houses and modern pretty complex women's and men's costume. Late splint turned out to be an excellent auxiliary material, a kind of cheat sheet. And the talent of the Gorodets craftsmen was to be able to use this working material as nothing more than a hint. They peeped from urban artisans techniques, principles for solving space, amusing details and rethought them as genuine artists who masterfully wielded a brush.

It is difficult for a modern person to believe the memories of the old masters that they worked by the light of a kerosene lamp for 14-16 hours daily, creating works of such beauty, freshness and artistry that it would never occur to talk about some kind of forced labor. It really was a great work, but a passionate, creative work, full of desire to express its artistic essence.
Bright, talented artists created a picturesque craft. Sidor Konovalov was not like the brothers A.V. and L.V. Melnikovs. I.A. Mazin painted flowers and herbs in a completely different way. The second half of the 19th century in the Uzolskaya valley passed under the sign of such a bright and varied flowering of Gorodets painting that literally each of the masters deserves a detailed story about his work.
If for the masters of the earliest times S. Konovalov and the Melnikov brothers it was characteristic, as it were, to paint a pre-applied drawing, then the second, later stage in the development of painting was truly picturesque. This second, picturesque, stage is largely determined by the works of I.A. Mazin and F.S. Krasnoyarov. I.A. Mazin, a student of S. Konovalov, was, of course, one of the most talented Gorodets masters. His methods of constructing plot and ornamental compositions are extremely diverse. He can also write a simple everyday scene, like the one called "Seryozha the Shepherd", depicting a date for a rural couple under a tree, or he can build a complex multi-figure composition, which the master himself entitled "Gift to the daughter-in-law from the mother-in-law."

The subjects chosen by him also corresponded to Krasnoyarov's creative temperament. He more often than others depicted racing troikas, horsemen, military men. In his works, there are often images of soldiers and officers of the Balkan War, dressed in blue and red uniforms, which the master always painted with great attention to the smallest details.
The sales market for Gorodets products was undermined, long-term traditional ties between producers and consumers of handicraft products were broken. Even the previously beloved painted Gorodets toy was no longer bought either in Gorodets or in Nizhny Novgorod. It seemed that all the sources of the existence of the fishery had dried up.
At the same time, the 1920s were marked by the growing interest of various sections of the Russian public in folk art, in the activity of a handicraftsman. There were many reasons for this: according to the ideas of the new government, the handicraftsmen had to replenish the commodity market that was empty as a result of the ruin of industry with their products. The original products of crafts: unique Russian lace, carved and painted wood, embroidery - made it possible to enter foreign markets, promised foreign exchange earnings to the impoverished treasury.
The ideological side of the task of reviving crafts was also important - to promote the development of art in a new social environment, in a new city and a new village. Plans for the cooperation of handicraftsmen, the creation of artels were widely advertised from the highest tribunes, at various congresses and conferences, the ideas of commercial cooperation were "introduced locally" in various regions of Russia. Representatives of the old Russian intelligentsia, who understood the need to preserve the age-old cultural heritage of the country, also joined in the propaganda of folk art.
Only in 1935 an attempt was made to unite the Gorodets masters of painting. Their vast experience, knowledge, various artistic talents were absolutely necessary for the revival of the craft. However, the ability of the old masters to work only with traditional products was also a significant obstacle in the development of a new range of decorative and utilitarian items.

In the mid-1930s, artist I.I. Oveshkov is a great connoisseur of folk art.
He put a lot of effort into recording the special techniques of each craftsman. Since the craft in those years experienced great difficulties with wood, Oveshkov suggested that the craftsmen perform part of the compositions on paper glued with carpentry glue.
On this basis, the craftsmen painted in the traditional Gorodets style with paints diluted on carpentry glue. In a relatively short period of time, Oveshkov collected a fairly large number of unique compositions by the older generation of Gorodets masters. Among these sheets were the most interesting “trips” and “tea parties” of F.S. Krasnoyarov, original compositions on the themes of the old and new life of Gorodets by I.A. Mazin, works by P.D. Kolesova, I.K. Lebedev and others. The fate of most of these sheets was unknown for a long time. An idea of ​​them could only be obtained from copies made in the mid-1940s by the artist T.A. Mavrina. In 1997, the original drawings were found in the funds of the Nizhny Novgorod State Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve. Highly appreciating the originality of I.A. Mazina. Gorodets toys are made flat on the front side and voluminous at the back, which gives them stability and allows them to be moved. Mazinskaya small plastic art - a kind of painted sculpture - seems to be one of the most successful experiences of using Gorodets painting in its new quality.

In the Kurtsevo workshop of the 1930s, craftsmen also worked on turning painted utensils, small pieces of furniture (shelves, hangers). However, many masters wanted to paint large planes, build multi-figured compositions. After all, this is what their previous long-term work has taught them. But the bottoms are finally a thing of the past, it was necessary to look for a new application for their skills. This is how a rather significant and diverse series of painted panels appeared. They were written by almost all famous Gorodets masters, choosing a wide variety of topics. There were field work, and rural weddings, and "border guards-excellent students", and views of the old Gorodetskaya street. These works are entertaining, bright in color, sometimes very decorative throughout the structure of the composition. The authors try very hard to be modern, introducing the details of a new way of life, depicting modern people. I.A. Mazin is no longer constrained by either the size of the donets, or its shape, or the Gorodets canon - a vertical two-tiered composition. Not for use in everyday life, but for the exhibition, the master writes his panel “Into the hayfield”, using the shape of a spinning bottom. The fact that in the hands of the master now is not a spinning wheel, but a kind of picture, allows him to more freely operate with space, making it deeper, introducing more elements of the landscape, which was not characteristic of traditional Gorodets painting.
The appearance of the characters also becomes different: hairstyles change, dresses become shorter. It is quite appropriate now to depict village boys in T-shirts and t-shirts of athletes.
The new time brought a lot of previously unseen things into the surrounding life, changed the very social status of folk craftsmen. After the seemingly complete decline of the fishery, in the 1930s there was hope for a better future. City residents begin to prepare for the grandiose exhibition "Folk Art" in Moscow. Recognition of the significance of their work could not but inspire these no longer young people, and they again, as in their best years, begin to glorify the joy of life. Strange as it may sound today, when we know the sad fates of many Gorodets residents, and the masters themselves, but even then, in the cruel thirties, they sincerely believed in good, remained the same “enchanted wanderers”, born in order to see all around is beautiful. Unlike the "scientific" artists of that time, who consciously carried out the social order, they were not at all cunning in their views on life at that time, preserving the major, joyful sound of the painting.

At the pre-war exhibitions of folk art, the works of Gorodets artists were exhibited more than once with great success, but, as a rule, the matter was limited to these exhibitions. The old masters failed to attract young people to their work. Of the next generation, only A.E. Konovalov and K.I. Lebedev, son of I.K. Lebedev. On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, Gorodets craftsmen were forced to paint dishes “under Khokhloma” and decorate the stations of the children's railway with paintings.
The situation of the Gorodets fishery became even more complicated during the Great Patriotic War and in the first post-war years. The war claimed the lives of many craftsmen from Gorodets, their children and relatives, to whom the taste for art could have been inherited. The production of painted products has practically ceased. The first steps to revive production were made in the 1950s.
Since the 1960s, the craft has lived the life of Soviet art and industrial production with all its attributes: workshops, plans, financial indicators, concerns about raw materials and the sale of products. It was certainly something very different from the small family workshops in the Uzola valley. Another indispensable condition for the existence of this traditional painting for a hundred and fifty years now is the sincere love for it of the masters themselves, and many Nizhny Novgorod residents, and indeed all Russians, who sometimes live far from the homeland of craft.

Each of the famous Gorodets artists has their own tastes in traditional art. It is unlikely that II.A. Stolesnikov to paint the panel “Battle of Borodino”, if there were no old Gorodets “battle painter” G.L. Polyakov. There is a lot of true Gorodets humor and at the same time degree in the works of L.A. Kubatkina, V.A. Chertkova. In the works of A.V. Sokolova's ability to build a multi-figured composition, to solve the space of the interior, to write the characters in a truly Gorodets style is remarkable.
Artists of the post-war generation, the first students of A.E. Konovalov, did a great creative job, having mastered all the richness of the Gorodetsky floral ornament, revived the Gorodets plot, proved that it is possible to reveal bright creative personalities even in production conditions. Much was done by them to continue the best traditions of craft, to educate young Gorodets painters, to expand their creative horizons.
Love for Gorodets painted items, their widespread use in rural and urban life in Russia in the second half of the 19th-20th centuries is explained not only by their aesthetic qualities, but also by their excellent, highly professional technical performance. Gorodets painting has always been distinguished by strength and durability.
Today we can judge the strength of the paint layer of the Gorodets painting, the sophistication of its classical techniques by the fairly good preservation of products in museums and private collections: the brightness of the colors has not faded, in many cases the lacquer coating has remained intact. This is convincing evidence that both the artistic and purely handicraft side of his work were equally important for the Gorodetsky master.
The technical side of Gorodets painting includes several production cycles. Both in the old craft and in modern production, everything began with a pound of wooden products. Its goal was to create such an even and moderately smooth surface that would hold paints well, not allow them to spread, would make it possible to work quickly enough, and most importantly, would preserve the beauty of a wide pictorial stroke and the elegance of graphic shading.

The most important part of the Gorodets painting skill was a good knowledge of the properties of paints, the ability to prepare them. It is unlikely that we could admire the Gorodets painting in a century and a half, if the craftsmen did not know how to fix the paint layer with the help of a varnish coating.
The technology of Gorodets writing has undergone various changes throughout its history. According to researchers, the earliest should be considered a variant of the technology borrowed from local icon painters: the technique of painting with egg tempera on gesso, a traditional ground for icon painting, composed of chalk on an adhesive basis.
It should not be forgotten that the Gorodets painting craft was not a single production - a manufactory or a factory, but a number of separate family workshops. Each had its own character of production, range of products and, naturally, with its own variants of painting technology. The difference between these options depended not only on the place of production of a particular product, but also on the time when it was created.
In recent decades, another version of work on the Gorodets plots has spread, adopted in school circles and amateur studios. This is the use of tempera or gouache both for sketches on paper and for decorating wooden products. This method can be used to master the techniques of painting at home, in an art circle or studio.
The author was lucky enough to learn the most accurate information about the traditional technology of Gorodets painting from A.E. Konovalov, a master who, as it were, embodied in himself a living connection between the past and the present of a wonderful craft. Answering my questions, A.E. Konovalov argued that the traditional classical technique of Gorodets writing was painting with glue paints. The paints were "in powder", that is, in modern terms, in the form of dry pigments. In preparation for work, the paints were carefully rubbed with a chime, sometimes several paints were mixed during grinding, achieving a richness of color shades.

Ancient Gorodets painting is always painting “on colored backgrounds” (the appearance in the 1940s and 1950s of the so-called texture painting, that is, on unpainted wood, is not associated with artistic tradition, but with economic difficulties in the fishery). The work of the old masters on the painting of the product began precisely with the choice of the background color and the primer of the wood surface. For priming and painting the background, for example, in his favorite yellow color, the artist mixed yellow crowns with ground chalk, and then diluted the paints on wood glue, pouring them into clay bowls. As a rule, several products were pounded at once: the primer was applied in one layer and dried out rather quickly. After drying, the surface was cleaned of wood "lint" and once again covered with a layer of transparent wood glue. After the second drying, the product was ready for painting.
The paints intended for painting, previously carefully ground and mixed, were also diluted with glue, diluted to the density of sour cream and stirred with special wooden sticks. If the paint was too thick, it was warmed up on the stove or a little glue was added.
The first stage of painting - painting (underpainting) is the designation of the main color spots. For her, large or medium brushes, kolinsky or squirrel were used. Usually these are factory-made brushes, but it happens that they use brushes of their own knitting.
Starting to paint a floral or plot motif, the master did this, as a rule, without any preliminary drawing, at the same time clearly presenting the features of his future pattern, the nature of the ornament or genre scene.
Having finished the underpainting, the master proceeded to the second stage. Gorodets masters called it shading. With this technique, the artist gave volume to the main color spots. Minium in combination with cormorant, blue with ultramarine, pink with speckled flowers made the shapes of flowers more expressive and decorative.
Then came the third stage - revival (revival). Here, the masters needed thin brushes, as they had to apply white strokes, thin black lines, rows of small strokes and dots. They were called "grains", "pearls". Livery is a surprisingly beautiful and expressive technique that gives each form a special completeness and harmony.
At the end of the painting, the items were covered with a thin layer of boiled linseed oil, which served as a varnish that fixed the painting.

Technologists, artists, art critics of the Moscow Research Institute of Art Industry (NIIKhP) and artists of the Gorodets painting factory in the 1960s did a lot of experimental work to restore the traditional technology of Gorodets writing in modern conditions.
We will give some practical information useful to an artist who wants to get closer to traditional technology.
The surface of the product was polished with a sandpaper, then carpenter's glue boiled until completely dissolved was applied to it (at the rate of 20 g of glue per 180 ml of water). Then the product was glued a second time and dried again.
The next stage of surface preparation was a primer, immediately before which the product had to be sanded again.
To preserve the matte surface of the painting, after drying, it was covered with NTs-243 nitrocellulose varnish.
The goal of this experiment was basically achieved - in production conditions, it was possible to recreate a technology close enough to the traditional one. It seems that, if desired, it can also be used by artists who revere Gorodets classical technology. But in the conditions of an art circle or studio, independent painting classes, it can be quite difficult to use the old Gorodets painting technology or a variant close to it.
Experience has shown that it is possible to paint using ready-made tempera or gouache. Simpler methods of priming wooden products were also quite successfully tested. Some artists glue the surface of the wood with PVA glue diluted with water, others successfully use other priming methods. One of them is as follows.
A thin layer of liquid starch paste is applied to the surface of a carpentry or turning product with a hard brush, swab or simply with the palm of your hand. In this case, it is necessary to try to apply the glue as evenly as possible, without leaving pieces of film or grains on the surface. After the paste dries, you should lightly walk on the surface of the product with sandpaper, removing irregularities. After the adhesive primer, the background is painted with gouache or tempera. In this case, you can use two ways to create a colored background: the first is to cover the surface of the tree with a dense layer of paint; the second is to only lightly tint the surface of the wood with liquid paint, without covering the texture of the wood.
Paints for painting must be prepared very carefully. For each color, prepare a small cup or use commercially available small watercolor "palettes" with small indentations for different colors of paint and a large container for mixing paints. With a small amount of work, gouache of each color should be ground with water and mixed with a wooden or plastic spatula to the consistency of liquid sour cream without lumps or grains.

Mochesnik. Late 19th - early 20th century NGILMZ. Museum of Historical and Artistic Crafts of the Nizhny Novgorod Region.

When preparing for work, it is necessary to foresee in advance what color of paint will be needed for painting, shading, and tinting.
Next to the dark green color - chromium oxide - you should place a lighter green, make up a pink color - for example, kraplak diluted with white, etc.
The artist's workplace should also have a container with water for diluting paints and washing brushes, a stand for brushes of various sizes. Such coasters, which are small triangular bars with a series of shallow grooves for brushes, can be made independently, but you can also use those that are sold in stores and are usually ceramic. A certain order in the workplace allows you not to scatter attention, not to be distracted from the main artistic task.
Earlier it was already said that experienced Gorodets craftsmen work for the most part without a preliminary drawing. This is especially true of traditional compositions, which the masters know, as they say, by heart. It was about such people that Leskovsky Lefty said that they had “shooting eyes”. However, it would be wrong to build work into a principle without a preliminary drawing.
I had to see quite a few works of the early 20th century, where traces of a preliminary basting with a pencil were visible. Fragments of a preliminary drawing are often visible on many works by masters of the 1920s and 1930s that are new in terms of plot.
Preliminary drawings only outlined the main features of the composition and, as it were, gave the artist more confidence. However, when painting, they were never followed literally. As a rule, drawing was necessary for mastering new themes and new forms. Modern Gorodets artists, being able and loving to work directly with wood, sometimes use not only preparatory drawings to develop new subjects, but also sketches in color, done in watercolor or gouache on paper. It seems that at the initial stage of work, a preliminary sketch on paper or a thin pencil outline of the main figures, flower shapes, and interior details applied directly to the tree will not interfere with the novice master of painting.

The first works of an artist who masters the basics of Gorodets painting are flat carpentry, for example, small cutting boards. Having primed such a plank with starch paste, as described above, after drying and lightly sanding it, paint is applied to the surface of the color that best suits the plan. Such a background can be yellow or orange, light brown or dark red. Here I would like to warn the novice master against a typical mistake - haste. No matter how quickly gouache or tempera dries, the background must be allowed to dry as best as possible. Set aside the painted boards for a few hours, and then you will have a guarantee that the next stage of work - painting - will be successful. In the same way, it is necessary to dry each layer of painting well.
It should be noted that Gorodets painting is beautiful and expressive at all its stages. No wonder the audience, being at the exhibition next to the working master, admires, looking at the still far from finished composition, and even asks the artist to stop at the shading stage. The artist perfectly understands the charm of an unfinished work, but he also understands that it is impossible to stop at this stage, since Gorodets painting without lovely light whitewash does not have that artistic completeness for which connoisseurs appreciate it so much. Lighting is done with whitewash and black soot paint, work with which requires special care and caution, subtlety and a sense of proportion. Therefore, as already mentioned, the brushes are chosen the thinnest, allowing the master to draw graceful lines, perform curved strokes with pressure or light shading.

Often you recognize the hand of this or that master by the flair: it shows not only the skill, but also the artistic temperament, the manner of work, even the emotional mood of the master.
White and black thin lines, emphasizing the contours of human figures, images of animals, fragments of flower forms, give the composition a special grace. A picturesque spot and a graphic touch not only coexist in Gorodets painting on an equal footing, but also perfectly complement each other, creating an integral decorative picture. A.E. Konovalov emphasized the importance of animation in Gorodets painting.
After completing all the stages of painting, from painting to painting, you should again give the work enough time to dry, and only after making sure that the paint has dried well, fix the painting with varnish.
Particular attention should be paid to the fragments of the painting, made in white.
These are white dots - "pearls", stamens of flowers, hatching of various patterns. Sometimes, when painting, the details written in white turn out to be dense, “pasty”. When using whitewash on the faces and hands of the characters, it is necessary to apply whitewash in several layers. If these fragments of the painting are not allowed to dry completely, then when coated with a rather liquid varnish, they can be damaged. Correcting these errors is very difficult, almost impossible.
The final operation - coating the finished composition with varnish - is very responsible. The most successful and organic for this type of painting is a lacquer coating that does not give a bright shine, retains colorful combinations, and does not introduce unnecessary yellowness into the white color. The old masters covered the painting with a layer of drying oil - well-boiled linseed oil. Pure transparent drying oil retained the color of the paints and was so strong that it did not require repeated coating, which, in turn, made it possible to preserve the special velvety of the picturesque surface. But the drying oil coating went away along with the classical period of Gorodets painting.
When working with oil paints, which was practiced in the field for quite a long time (approximately from the second half of the 1930s to the end of the 1970s), the painting was covered with colorless oil-resin varnishes of industrial production, as well as with pentaphthalic varnishes PF-283/4C and PF 231. Under production conditions, varnishing was carried out in one step by pneumatic spraying.

In the conditions of a workshop, art studio or circle, amateur artists can also use these varnishes. They allow you to preserve the expressiveness of color when painting with tempera or gouache. Coating methods may vary. You can adapt a household spray gun, or you can work with a brush. With both methods of coating, the varnish must be sufficiently thin, and some experience is needed to achieve an even and smooth coating, avoiding streaks and uneven varnish.
Repeated varnishing is undesirable, since even colorless varnishes, when applied in a thick layer, affect the color of the paints, make the painting darker, less bright and decorative.
In conclusion, it should be emphasized that these general rules of Gorodets technology have author's variants. Each of the masters of painting has many of his own devices, creative techniques, habits, which determine the uniqueness of the artist's handwriting. Therefore, knowing the basics of the traditional Gorodets technology, its variants that have arisen in the course of the development of the craft, each of those wishing to join this art is free to choose those technological methods that most of all correspond to his creative individuality.
Currently, Gorodets painting is of such great public interest, so much desire and experienced and just beginning artists to comprehend its secrets, that more and more people are striving to learn the details of the history, technologies, techniques and means of artistic expression of this art, the features of the work of its most outstanding masters.

Many circles and studios will be created, there are many schools and even kindergartens, where they introduce the basics of painting. This speaks of creative aspirations, of the kinship of modern people with the artistic culture of distant ancestors, but there is also a hidden danger of simplifying painting, blurring its true deep traditions. There are many different manuals in which the authors try to teach their readers some knowledge about folk painting, in particular Gorodets. Unfortunately, the main drawback of these manuals is amateurism, an attempt to transfer experience "through third parties", the absence of direct creative contacts with the most experienced Gorodets masters.
Nowadays, many celebrities - musicians, singers, drama artists open their schools in different cities of the world, hold creative seminars, calling them "master classes". It is not shameful for Gorodets virtuosos to directly, directly, turn to lovers of Gorodets painting with a display of their vast and diverse creative experience.
On the pages of this book, his "master class" is conducted by a wonderful Gorodets master, laureate of the State Prize of Russia named after I.E. Repina Alexandra Vasilievna Sokolova. She went through the school of old Gorodets masters, worked for many years next to A.E. Konovalov, and today heads a large creative team. But above all, she is a wonderful, original artist, subtly feeling all the features of Gorodets painting, the traditional sequence of elements: from simple to the most complex. She inherited a sense of decorative composition from her predecessors, she knows the intricacies of working with wooden products of various shapes, the peculiarities of working with different types of paints and varnish coatings. The experience of such a master is invaluable for new generations of artists.
It is difficult to designate the techniques of this type of folk brush painting with the word "technical": they are so connected not with technology in its usual sense, but with a skillful human hand, its ability to move smoothly and flexibly, rhythmically and assertively, and most importantly, deeply meaningful and at the same time same time emotionally.
It is with the transfer of the unique Gorodets experience of owning a brush that A.V. Sokolov, leading us step by step from the simplest to the most complex in the Gorodets painting art.

Old Gorodets masters. From left to right Ignatii Andreevich Mazin, Fedor Semenovich Krasnoyarov, Ignatii Klementievich Lebedev