Homo sapiens and craft are the same age. It is by signs of conscious practical mastering of the surrounding reality that we can determine the level of development of consciousness in a given historical period. The craft began with stone, existing in the form of various ways of finding and splitting pieces of rock for about a million years, until they were joined by the simplest woodworking in the form of breaking and processing sticks and tying them to stones with a vine. So there were craftsmen who made stone axes and spears. This meager technological knowledge was passed down from generation to generation, sometimes lost for centuries, sometimes gaining strength again. It will take another 300 thousand years until humanity, represented by some advanced communities, invents, for example, tailoring. Before the discovery of agriculture at this time, there are still more than 80 thousand years.
Of course, the scope of knowledge is not limited to knowledge in a particular technology. In order to survive, ancient man needed to know and understand his wild habitat perfectly. In our time, there are examples of individual lost tribes studied in sufficient detail, by the time of the study they were not familiar not only with the processing of metal or glass, but also with agriculture or had not even invented the wheel. And every time it is obvious that the gradually accumulating culture of the group, once having come to some balance with a relatively stable environment, is capable of being transmitted and preserved for centuries and even millennia.
At first, all knowledge was inherited by demonstration and copying. A set of inarticulate sounds and facial expressions was enough to convey all the advanced knowledge of their time in a matter of days, even taking into account the low intellectual development of the people of that time. Much, for sure, could not be transmitted, and many of the discoveries and ideas of those people remained unexpressed due to the complete lack of funds for this. For centuries and millennia, bit by bit, various communities have accumulated examples and knowledge, embedding them in their picture of the world in different ways. Gradually accumulating experience, acquiring the means for its transmission and preservation in the form of sounds, drawings and signs, communities acquired their own unique cultural systems.
Culture, as a rule, takes the form of a certain tradition that determines the form of public and private life of people. It is with the help of traditions that the experience accumulated over the centuries is transmitted. The main way to transfer practical technological knowledge for thousands of years has been direct demonstration with oral comments and work on errors. As long as the volume of knowledge remains relatively small, almost every member of society can be the bearer of the entire set of traditions, of culture as a whole.
To be sure, the specialization of activity in a primitive form existed from the earliest times: obvious differences between sexes or age groups led to the primary division of production roles. The further development of the division of labor could only take place many thousands of years later as a result of the development of technology and the resulting sophistication of culture. The emergence and separation of cattle breeding and agriculture, the separation from agriculture and the independent development of various crafts, the emergence of new forms of mental and physical labor outlined the main boundaries between various fields of activity. Having existed for many centuries as a domestic industry, crafts satisfied the internal needs of the community and were predominantly family in nature. Only with the advent and development of market relations did narrower specialization and isolation of individual professions become possible.
Artisans as a social stratum
Despite the widespread use of slave labor, already in the cities of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and the countries of the Ancient East, the layer of professional artisans was quite numerous. The cultural decline that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire only briefly postponed further development, and already in the Early Middle Ages blacksmithing, carpentry, weaving began to stand out, professional builders and glaziers appeared. The then masters were, as a rule, generalists and each represented an entire industry. At this time, the separation of universal patrimonial production, the purpose of which was to meet the internal needs of the economy, and market-oriented commodity production began. Work to order is becoming more widespread, and with the development of market trade, the production of goods for sale is actively developing. The first wandering artisans appear, for whom their skills and personal tools become the only way to feed themselves.
The flourishing and gaining strength of the city absorbed huge masses of craftsmen, who consisted not only of landless peasants, who became mainly hired workers, but also of wealthy people who were passionate about production and formed a layer of successful craftsmen and entrepreneurs. Urban artisans for a long time became the main population of most cities.
Gradually, a new production cell was formed - a craft workshop, which included the master himself, several apprentices, as well as several students. Masters of the same or similar professions united in workshops that took on many different functions from regulating the quantity and quality of workshop equipment and their products, the number of apprentices and apprentices and determining the length of the working day to upholding the collective interests of the industry and even forming a city military militia. In the event of increased competition between craftsmen, the management of the workshops could ask some of the craftsmen to move to another city, but most often they boldly moved to new places where their skills were more in demand. The guilds maintained and developed the prestige of the craftsmen and their art. More and more people became apprentices to the masters in order to reach a certain level within a few years and get the opportunity to become an apprentice. At first, in order to become a full-fledged master, a member of the workshop and get the right to have his own workshop, the apprentice needed several, usually seven, years to gain experience, and then, on his own and at his own expense, make a “masterpiece” - a sample of skill presented to the masters of the workshop . At first, willingly accepting new masters into their ranks, the workshops gradually became more and more closed organizations. The rules for admission to the workshop became more complicated, and the gap between masters and apprentices widened. The apprentices, burdened with guild hardships, were often forced to leave the cities in search of better conditions. And just as workshops were born among wandering craftsmen, their similar unions, companions, were born among apprentices dissatisfied with their position. Voluntary associations of artisans - workshops, guilds, artels - for many centuries formed the basis of production, but the rapid development of capitalism, which managed to ride the wave of progress, led to dramatic changes in this area.
Turning craft into industry
The continued growth of cities and the accumulation of significant capital by citizens led to the emergence of a class of urban bourgeois - owners of large property, living on the income brought by its use. Concentrating goods, premises, territories and means of production in its hands, this class is gaining ever greater economic influence. It is not uncommon for handicraft shops and workshops to turn into capitalist enterprises, and craftsmen with capital to become entrepreneurs who use exclusively hired labor in production.
The practice of buying up is becoming more widespread, when large merchants immediately purchased large volumes of products and resold them on local and foreign markets. Gradually moving away from the market, the craftsman had already begun to lose elements of his independence, and the accumulation of merchant capital contributed to the further reduction of craftsmen to the status of simple hired workers. First, in the form of the distribution of raw materials to individual craftsmen, followed by the buying up of the results, then in the form of dispersed manufactories, taking advantage of the low cost of the work of rural handicraftsmen at home, capitalism led to an ever-increasing concentration of funds in the hands of an influential minority, an increasing specialization of workers and a greater wealth stratification of the population. In the production of goods, large industrial manufactories take the first place, exploiting the labor of hired workers who perform increasingly specialized functions. The penetration of the manufacturing mode of production into various crafts quickly separates them into separate components of action and specialization, greatly increasing the efficiency of production. Each manufactory worker represents only a small part of the production chain, and although he is getting better at mastering the area entrusted to him, increasing overall efficiency, he is becoming more and more dependent on the owner of the enterprise and his narrow specialization.
Remaining for several centuries the main form of large-scale production, manufactories created the basis for subsequent industrialization. The invention of spinning machines and other machine tools contributed to rapid mechanization, and the development of capitalism created the prerequisites for the enlargement of production. Initially driven by water mills, machines greatly simplified mass production, transforming predominantly custom-made manufactories into a new type of industrial enterprise - factories. Factory production contributed to even greater property and intellectual stratification, reducing the labor of the worker to the performance of ever simpler and more strictly regulated functions.
Starting in the second half of the 18th century, the industrial revolution radically changed almost all spheres of human life in just one century. The invention of the steam engine made it possible to move factories scattered along the banks of rivers to cities and to concentrate and mechanize production even more. The development of new methods for obtaining and processing metal not only expanded the scope of its application, but also contributed to a significant enlargement of the metallurgical and mining industries. This period is characterized by an explosive growth in industrial production, taking place against the backdrop of an increasingly worsening situation for the worker. The ruin of the countryside and small industries forced a huge number of people to move to the cities, who went to work in factories to perform, as a rule, low-skilled monotonous labor. And if before the invention of gas lighting, the working day was normalized according to the duration of daylight hours, then with the introduction of widespread gas and then electric lighting, the working day began to reach 12-15 hours a day. Thanks to machines, significant physical strength was no longer required for production; female and child labor began to be actively used in industry.
Of course, the workers did not always put up with such exploitation, and throughout the industrial revolution there are many cases of first sporadic destruction of machines and factories by angry people, then collective appeals and ultimatums to the government, and subsequently a number of full-scale uprisings and revolutions. As a result of this struggle, working hours were sharply reduced, the practice of using child labor was practically stopped, and a system of universal education was developed.
New turns of the industrial revolution, no longer based on individual successful inventions, but on a purposeful process of scientific study, contributed to an even greater increase in production efficiency. By the beginning of the 20th century, the industrial age had begun to flourish. Mechanization is replaced by automation, production becomes streaming. Despite the still prevailing low-paid labor of low-skilled workers, the profession of engineer and technologist is becoming more and more in demand. Along with the profiling of education, there is also the development of various career growth schemes. The middle class is gradually expanding, made up of the most highly skilled workers and small business owners. Industrialization is beginning to face various constraints to further growth, whether limited markets and overproduction crises, or rising labor costs in the most industrialized areas, making production uncompetitive in a rapidly globalizing world. Bursts of industrial production are often replaced by periods of deep socio-economic crises. Access to dwindling natural resources is beginning to play an increasingly important role. The 20th century demonstrated the full power of mass production, not only with millions of cars and household items, but also with tanks and artillery shells, delivered in bulk to the fields of horrific world wars.
Conditions of modernity
In the shadow of a huge industrial machine, it is not easy to see the ongoing history of the craft. It can be seen that almost any new types of human production activity, even in times of total industrialization, still initially go through the stage of a personal craft, where single masters master and develop new technological processes. Only then these developments are broken down into separate elements and steps in a form reminiscent of manufacturing production, and only then do they get the opportunity to turn into another industry. This happened not only with the ancient crafts of weavers and blacksmiths, exactly the same process is observed everywhere. Single craftsmen produced the first cameras and radio devices, lifted the first planes into the air and shot the first movies. Even the initial development of computers, which played a crucial role in the information revolution of the late 20th century, took place within small groups of interacting craftsmen, whose cooperation in many ways resembled first the cooperation of craftsmen in medieval workshops, and then the first manufactories with relatively little specialization and division of labor. Only in the 21st century, such areas of activity as programming and computer graphics, which were previously the lot of a few masters, acquire the character of mass production.
It is easy to see that since ancient times, the development of crafts and technology, even despite cataclysms and crises, continues at an increasing pace, and if already in the 20th century the rate of revolutionary changes in the way of life of a city dweller was equal to the rate of change of human generations, then at present the process of changes and transformations looks like a rushing stream. Such a speed of transformation of all conditions of human life literally demolishes the traditional foundations of many cultures. Most cultures, claiming to be universal, in fact often turn out to be tied to a certain climate, to a specific area and its flora and fauna, to the current level of technology development and education of the population, to historically established stereotypes and dogmatic statements taken for granted without constant rechecking. In such a turbulent stream, it is already difficult to discern the outlines of old cultures, but a common global cultural field is beginning to actively take shape, made up of the strongest fragments of past and newly emerging traditions and generally accepted norms. The increasingly bright and eventful present makes people increasingly forget about the past and build relationships with the world anew, consciously or unconsciously adapting to new conditions of existence.
Of course, the development of technology is a far from uniform process. One can imagine it as waves of new knowledge and the consequences of their application from the points of origin of the invention to the limits that are maximally accessible for the form of production used. Automated in-line production makes it possible to deliver the fruits of technological progress to a huge number of people in the shortest possible time, but this method also has obvious limits outlined by the finiteness of available natural resources, the market capacity and the solvency of the population. Despite more than two hundred years of history of the development of electricity, more than 1 billion people still do not have access to it, and in the age of seemingly ubiquitous information technology, less than half of the world's population has access to the Internet. In many ways, the main technological and related cultural inertia is preserved in villages and small towns, while the megacities of the world are becoming more and more similar to each other, merging into a single field of world mass culture that has developed by the end of the 20th century in the form of a post-industrial economy. .
The extensive growth of production always reveals its possible limits, and such a discovery is often extremely painful. For example, the exhaustion of wood available for use as a fuel for bronze casting at the end of the Bronze Age was one of the causes of a civilizational catastrophe. Having turned the once dense forests that covered the entire Mediterranean into a semi-desert, the first attempt to build a global civilization did not stand the test of warming and the subsequent severe drought and famine and was quickly destroyed almost to the ground by the warlike "peoples of the sea". For more than 400 years, the region was almost completely deprived of culture: economic ties were destroyed, many cities and even countries ceased to exist, even a fairly developed written language completely disappeared. History knows many such crises, albeit not so destructive. And every time the resolution of the accumulated contradictions requires a relatively quick reaction from society and culture and the concentration of great efforts for intensive adaptation.
The introduction of the principles of mass production in an increasing number of industries and the associated rapid growth in the volume of manufactured products was at first offset by the extensive growth of the market trade zone and the transport accessibility of its remote corners. Such an expansion already in the second half of the 20th century reached its limiting limits - the available resources of our planet and the size of its solvent population. Only the efforts of a huge number of specialists were able to ease these restrictions with the help of various tricks, such as moving from meeting existing needs to creating new needs or creating additional effective demand for lending. The formation of a consumer society was to some extent a salvation, although in reality it only delayed the need for more dramatic changes. By the end of the 20th century, the limited resources and the associated limited quantity of goods produced were partially compensated by the transformation of a large part of the economy into an information one, associated with the production of an intellectual product. In this process, all stages of the development of the craft are also observed in an accelerated form, from the skill of individual engineers and programmers to the formation of stream production of programs, films, books and other elements of culture. Having brought colossal changes in the standard of living of people all over the planet, the 20th century left as a legacy the untwisted flywheel of a large state-capitalist economy that absorbed almost all spheres of human life. Even the very invention of new products and activities becomes to some extent mass production in the form of all kinds of start-ups and crowdfunding companies, a short period of development by enthusiastic founders of which, if successful, usually ends with the absorption of one of the large corporations, or transformation into a new corporation. Most of the undertakings do not achieve “success”, do not fit into the modern capitalist model, which is usually interpreted as complete failure.
At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, the rate of changes in a person’s lifestyle significantly exceeded the rate of generational change, and if the 20th century never ceased to amaze with radically new scientific and technological discoveries that happened almost every decade and gradually became part of everyday life, today this gap between an invention and its wide implementation is getting shorter and is calculated in years and even months. This acceleration of change turned out to be unprecedented, and man has only just begun to form adaptive mechanisms for existence in such a changing environment. The stability of living conditions, the familiarity of well-established forms of social relationships and the value of once acquired knowledge, which persists over time, threaten to disappear under the onslaught of constantly emerging new industrial and social technologies. Each individual and society as a whole is faced with the need to accelerate and intensify learning, rapid practical mastery of innovations. Such variability challenges human nature and receives a natural response, breaking through centuries of specialization and division of labor. The ideal of a highly specialized professional with a higher profile education is beginning to lose its appeal, against the backdrop of a growing lag of educational standards from production realities, as well as a rapid change in the economic conditions of professional activity.
In the real world, a person, if he wants to remain confident in his abilities and in accordance with their constantly changing requirements of the world around him, needs to maintain sharpness and openness of mind, readiness to accept and study everything new and unknown. Now, in order not to get lost in the flow, you need to constantly maintain and develop your knowledge and horizons, improve and modify your skills and abilities. Global information networks and the culture of information exchange in it actively support this process and to some extent compensate for the lag of traditional educational systems. The Internet has accumulated huge knowledge bases, both theoretical and practical, and this knowledge is eager to find application. It only takes a desire and a certain amount of time to independently master almost any skill or ability, to study any field of knowledge, only with the help of the Web. Gradually, not only ways of presenting information are developing, but also ways of mutual learning. Conducting online training for remote groups of students is turning into a new type of professional activity.
Crafts in modern times
In the conditions of mass production of almost everything that can be produced, the craft, it would seem, should have completely disappeared, but it has not only been able to survive in certain areas, but is also gaining wider prospects for development. Already in the 19th century, the spirituality and individuality of handicraft products were actively opposed to soulless factory goods of mass production and consumption. Throughout the Industrial Revolution, crafts persisted in remote corners of the industrial centers, in the form of hobbies, arts and crafts, fine arts, folk arts and crafts, and custom-made luxury goods. New inventions and discoveries, even passing through the process of industrialization and turning into a mass product, always leave a certain proportion of small producers working independently and independently. Against the background of the industrial production of clothing, design and individual tailoring continue to exist and develop, against the backdrop of the film industry, independent auteur cinema continues to exist, and despite the dominance of Internet corporations, open communities of independent programmers continue to create masterpieces of computer code.
Crafts are not the remains of past cultures frozen in time, but constantly developing living organisms, even despite sometimes adverse environmental conditions. The fierce confrontation between the craftsman and the machine at the dawn of factory production was replaced by thoughtful study and creative application of the most advanced technologies and machines. All new technological discoveries and industry developments are actively assimilated by craftsmen and handicraft work over time becomes more modern and technically equipped. A modern carpenter has in his workshop dozens of machines and machines that facilitate work and speed up the production process, without depriving the results of such work of the individuality and creative message of the master. Progress has filled and enriched crafts, expanding the capabilities of the master, freeing him from monotonous and inefficient operations, expanding the scope for genuine creativity. Mass production affected not only consumer goods, but also all kinds of tools and machines, reducing their price and making them accessible to many. Since the middle of the 20th century, the DIY-movement (Do It Yourself, “Do it yourself”) has been gaining strength, which carries the ideas of independent independent production, repair and modification of all kinds of things. Moreover, the motivation of this movement is far from being limited to filling the inaccessibility of certain goods on the market, but is associated with the need for self-realization and expanding the horizons of people, as well as personalization and animation of various aspects of life in the world of impersonal mass culture.
The culture of consumption has created the image of a successful person who owns a lot of expensive things, uses expensive services and receives satisfaction and pleasure from this. For many, this ideal to this day remains the main guideline for directing the application of their vitality. However, there are already quite numerous those who have realized the entire limitation of such an ideal and the unattainability through the simple consumption of the higher states available to man. No purchases can replace a person's joy in solving a difficult task, confidence in their own independence and happiness in creative self-realization. Industry, on the other hand, can provide tools, materials for this, provide energy and the necessary information. Today, a person needs only to step back from filling life with mass-produced goods and discover the full breadth of his possibilities to surround himself with something warmer and more real. Those who have already realized and felt the happiness of being a creator in our consumerist age are very often ready to share not only their joy and inner freedom, but also their knowledge, skills and abilities with others who have not yet known these exalted states. Just as at the dawn of the industrial revolution, the advanced knowledge of the era was transferred in the form of internships with various masters and meetings of philosophical societies and circles, many modern masters conduct master classes and publish instructions on the techniques of their work on the Internet. In a society of narrow specialists and standardized work, the need to expand knowledge and skills becomes essential for many people, especially urban dwellers who are engaged in the field of intellectual labor and are actually cut off from many opportunities for productive activity. Separated from creative self-realization by a wall of prejudices of the industrial age and the uncertainty generated by the lack of practice, modern city dwellers often do not even fully realize the full importance of creativity and independence, but once they have tasted this sweet feeling of self-realization, they are no longer ready to give it up.
Once the domain of individual artists and designers, creative spaces and workshops are opening up to more and more people. Large companies provide access to the workshop as a social package for employees. Creative and production spaces are created as centers for the invention and design of mass-industrial products. The subscription model of using equipped workshops is gaining popularity, providing access to professional tools and various materials to almost everyone. And the amateur-class tools themselves are widely available and allow you to master almost any area of \u200b\u200bproduction on your own or in a small group. Even today, cases of joint organization of craft workshops and their arrangement according to the principles of an artel are not rare.
Conclusion
Crafts from the very moment of their inception became the pinnacle of technological thought and remained the basis of production for many millennia. Despite the passage of various historical stages and the transformations that took place in their course, the handicraft way of working, based on the personal skill of the worker or their small coordinated groups, always finds a place for itself in an ever-changing world. Displaced from the production of everyday goods by mass industry, the craft approach has shifted up the production chain and has become the basis for the design and research of new technologies and products. And if the production of consumer goods has become the prerogative of large factories and plants, then the creation of the factories themselves for a long time remained a special craft - the lot of a few masters of architectural and engineering design. Stream production is able to quickly and accurately copy finished products, but their development and testing today often represents the skill of artisans rather than an established stream inventive process. In the field of information technology, many different fields of activity have arisen and continue to exist, such as programming or web design, blogging or supporting communities in social networks, often retaining handicraft features, not willingly turning into forms of mass production.
The high frequency of changes in the technological and cultural conditions of life in the modern world is becoming a serious test for many cultures and their individual representatives. Once upon a time, periods of serious changes in social life seemed to be separate crises and were not easily overcome with the hope of establishing forms more resistant to crises in the future. And every time these forms also experienced new crises in connection with new rounds of historical changes. Today, we can state the onset of a permanent crisis, the entry into a state of constant transformation as a result of adaptation to constant technological and social changes. Inertial large-scale industry is not able to instantly respond to such changes, mass production with great difficulty copes with resource constraints and global market gaps. The handicraft approach can become the basis for the preservation and enhancement of knowledge and technologies, their practical implementation and maintaining the resilience of society in the incessant flow of change. There are already quite a few representatives of the class of new artisans who have rediscovered personal skill and the joys of creative self-realization. Thanks to the widespread dissemination of information networks and easier access to the necessary equipment, almost everyone can now become a master, and not necessarily in only one area, which becomes especially important against the backdrop of the obvious inability of traditional forms of education to keep up with the increasing pace of socio-economic transformations. Seemingly lost in the wilderness of consumer society and the flow of globalized mass production, knowledge, skills and abilities are preserved among individual craftsmen and craftsmen, accumulate on the Internet and can become the basis for the imminent localization and humanization of the production process. Who knows, maybe the developed forms of master classes will become the basis for a new education system, and self-creation of objects will turn out to be a worthy alternative to mass production and consumption of goods. Let's give the craft a chance!
Craft- small-scale manual production, based on the use of hand tools, which makes it possible to produce high-quality, often.
Craft arose with the beginning of human production activity, went through a long historical path of development, taking various forms: a) home craft- in the conditions of natural economy; b) craft to order- in the conditions of decomposition of natural economy; V) craft to market. The appearance and development of cities as craft and trade centers is associated with the emergence of handicrafts to order and especially to the market. Home craft is often referred to as domestic industry (i.e. production of non-agricultural products), craft to order and to the market - handicraft industry. In Russian statistical literature, often all artisans of the 19th-20th centuries. were called artisans.
home craft widespread throughout the history of pre-capitalist societies. The rural population produced most of the handicrafts they consumed. Gradually, the craft to order and the market began to play a leading role. In ancient Greece, ancient Rome, in the countries of the ancient East, there were a significant number of artisans who led independent households and made products to order or to the market.
Formation professional craft, especially in cities, led to the emergence of a new sphere of production and a new social stratum - urban artisans. The emergence of advanced forms of their organization (shops), which protected the interests of this layer, created especially favorable conditions for the development of urban crafts in the Middle Ages. The leading branches of urban craft were: cloth-making, the production of metal products, glass products, etc. In the process of the industrial revolution (mid-18th century - first half of the 19th century), the factory industry, based on the use of machines, replaced handicraft. The craft (to order and to the market) has been preserved in industries associated with servicing the individual needs of the consumer or with the production of expensive art products - pottery, weaving, artistic carving, etc.
To a greater extent, the craft has been preserved in underdeveloped countries. However, even here it is being supplanted by the factory industry as a result of the industrialization of these countries. Folk arts and crafts associated with tourism and export are preserved.
Types of crafts
Since ancient times, mankind has known such crafts as:
and many others.
In Russia, after 1917, the number of artisans and handicraftsmen was sharply reduced, they were united in trade cooperation. Only a few world-famous folk art crafts have survived: Gzhel ceramics, Dymkovo toy, Palekh miniature, Khokhloma painting, etc.
art craft
art craft- the culture of labor professional skills and techniques of artistic processing of various materials (metal, leather, fabrics, etc.), developed in the process of accumulating the creative experience of craftsmen who create artistic products. The professional experience of artistic craft was formed by discovering the most aesthetically effective methods and techniques of artistic processing of material, bringing it to perfection. This experience has been accumulated over the centuries, passed down from generation to generation. In the old days, the well-being of the country and the general level of its culture were judged by artistic craft. The masters of Ancient Rus' and the Western European Middle Ages were divided according to professions, within which they possessed the universal ability to apply various methods of artistic processing of a particular material. Thus, gold and silver craftsmen mastered the techniques of forging, casting, chasing, filigree, engraving, blackening on silver, and enamelling. They specialized in types of products (weapons, book frames, jewelry, etc.). This kind of specialization took place in pottery, weaving, artistic sewing, etc. In ancient Kyiv, for example, there were 60 different craft professions. According to their social status, artisans were divided into patrimonials, who worked at the princely court, and monastic, urban and suburban. The former worked on commission carefully and for a long time, reaching the highest perfection and skill in their work. Posad art craft was reflected in the work of urban craftsmen associated with the market. They developed the ability to economically achieve an artistic effect that brings the product closer to expensive samples. The general aesthetic ideals of the people, the professional artistry of manual labor determined the development of the culture of artistic crafts. Every item was creatively created. The artistry of the master was highly valued; belonging to the category of masters was determined by the ability to perfectly complete the most difficult artistic product. In Rus', there were handicraft corporations organized according to the type of Western workshops. Their activities were regulated by special rules and laws. Developing on the basis of folk traditions, the artistic craft of each country retained its national identity and at the same time reflected the development of world styles. , since its development is inseparable from the artistic imagery, aesthetics, culture of each nation.
Folk arts and crafts
Folk arts and crafts (folk craft) - a wide range of products made using simple improvised materials and simple tools. This traditional type of craft is diverse, where things are created with one's own hands with the help of skills and ingenuity. Work can be done on fabric, wood, non-ferrous metals, paper, etc. Usually the term is applied to things that have not only aesthetic value, but also find practical applications.
folk craft takes some of the origins of the rural craft, thanks to which the basic necessities were created, including complex structures. Rural crafts have been known since ancient times, in fact, having appeared at a time when humanity needed new tools and household items. In different regions and regions, among different peoples, arts and cultures differed, therefore, their crafts also varied. Like folk art, folk craft often depended on religious, cultural, and sometimes even political beliefs.
Many handicrafts created from natural or near-natural materials, but many modernists also use unusual elements and structures, such as industrial parts and mechanisms.
Products are considered folk craft until the process of their manufacture is put on stream (mass production of a factory type).
Since manual work and this kind of craft develops intelligence and various kinds of skills, sometimes special tasks for creating something are introduced into the educational processes of schools and institutes. Many products require certain skills to make, but generally anyone can learn the craft. Many types of crafts become popular after some time after their appearance, sometimes not.
History of crafts
Already in the ancient world, there are the beginnings of handicraft activity, manifested in the processing of known objects, mostly at the home of the owner of the material and by the hands of slaves. We have the testimony of Homer about this character of handicraft work in Greece.
With the contempt of the Greeks for handicraft work, which was recognized as unworthy of a free person, R., as a permanent professional activity, was the work of a very limited contingent of people, except for the metoiki and slaves that were part of the house.
Some crafts in Greece, however, rose to a high level, despite the use of the simplest tools and tools. Over time, R. became widespread not only in luxury goods, but also in satisfying the everyday needs of the lower classes of the population.
Already in Greece, artisans sometimes experienced competition from relatively large industries that arose from the middle of the 5th century BC. e. The same, in general, is the nature of handicraft production in Rome. With the existence of isolated, closed farms that satisfied their needs with the help of the specialization of slave labor, in Rome there was no ground for the development of slavery as a free professional activity; in the absence of a contingent of people who would constantly need the products of someone else's labor and would be able to pay for them, Roman artisans, budler, etc. and (artifices) had to fill the ranks of the proletarians. Only in the presence of certain property that served as a source of income (usually a small plot of land), the artisan could live comfortably and, in the execution of random orders, have ancillary earnings. With the formation of large estates, which absorbed a significant part of the small land plots, artisans, whose ranks were mainly replenished by freedmen, had to look for work on the side and perform it at the customer's home.
In order to increase the volume of production in any artel, the artel could be economically controlled or acquired by one or more owners, and then it would grow into a factory or plant. With the appearance in any craft of an increasing number of complex and energy-intensive machines and mechanisms, and, especially, with the involvement of the achievements of science, the craft grew into industry. The presence of complex and numerous machines and mechanisms and science-intensive processes is exactly the line beyond which fishing ends and industry begins. An example here is the transformation in Russia in the 19th century of Ivanovo, formerly a typical settlement consisting mainly of weaving artels, into a city with a large number of weaving factories. Further, with the great application of modern, scientifically based processes, Ivanovo became the center of the textile industry in Russia. Here are some other examples of the "evolution" of crafts into industry with increasing production volumes, increasing complexity and an increase in the number of equipment used and with the involvement of science:
- baking and milling have become, each in its own part of the food industry
- shoemaking has evolved over the years into the footwear industry
- weaving and spinning together gave birth to the textile industry
- tailoring turned into a clothing industry
- blacksmithing became the progenitor of a number of industries associated with metal processing.
However, many crafts continue to exist alongside the industries they gave birth to, creating a professional environment from which a mass of specialists is recruited into the respective industry. So, for example, highly skilled carpenters or shoemakers use their potential in the furniture or shoe industries.
Ordinary ideas about the craft as an obsolete phenomenon in modern society are deceptive. And in our time, new crafts continue to appear. In the field of information technology, with the beginning of the development of social networks, the craft of an SMM specialist or, as it is more commonly called, a community manager, appeared. Such new crafts You can count at least ten.
small-scale manual production of industrial products, which are characterized by the use of economic, simple tools. In the craft, the personal skill of the craftsman, the individual nature of production, is of decisive importance - the craftsman works either alone or with a very small number of assistants.
Great Definition
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Craft
For the ancient slave owner. society is characterized by division of labor and a high (for that time) level of organization of production. Individual branches of agriculture began to separate from agriculture in Greece as early as the beginning. 1st millennium BC e., for example, blacksmith and pottery R. From the 6th–5th centuries. BC e. other types of R. became independent. The division of labor and the specialization of R. in certain Greek. cities developed very unevenly. Mn. artisans were free, but slavery was not a hindrance to the development of R. Some industries of R. often dominated local production, such as pottery and metalworking in Corinth and Athens, weaving and wool processing in Miletus. In the 4th c. BC e. and in the era of Hellenism, when policies took a wide scale social and farming, differentiation, there were large crafts. workshops in which slaves worked primarily, for example in Alexandria. In the Hellenistic states, the kings had a monopoly on some R. The social position of artisans in Greece was not the same. In many In agrarian policies, artisans were considered a low social stratum (for example, in Sparta, Boeotia, Thessaly). In trading and port cities, artisans were respected people (for example, in Corinth, Miletus, Athens). In Rome during the early Republic, artisans did not have much weight in society. Specialization and division of labor developed in Rome. R. only from the 2nd century. BC e. Since that time, R. made extensive use of slave labor. In the late Republic and Empire, R. were engaged in many. freedmen. According to the prevailing ideas, societies, the position of artisans in Rome was not highly valued, but during the crisis of slavery during the Empire, it changed. Numerous the inscriptions on the tombstones of artisans speak of their pride in their profession. Since the late Republic, an increasing number of artisans have been organized into colleges, the origin of which probably goes back to ancient times. In the 3rd–4th centuries n. e. colleges became compulsory corporations. Since that time and in app. prov. Empire urban R. is in crisis, pl. artisans leave the cities and settle in large land holdings. In the large cities of the Eastern Empire, the meaning of R. has been preserved. R. were based on manual labor, the technique of production was primitive. Only in large bakeries there were dough-kneading machines, at large construction sites - construction cranes. The simplest tools - potter's wheels, bellows, fuller presses and mills - were at the disposal of every potter, blacksmith, fuller and miller. Primitive technology required considerable time for the production of products, and this determined the low productivity of labor.
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The meaning of the word craft
craft in the crossword dictionary
Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, Vladimir Dal
craft
old craft cf. handicraft, needlework, manual labor, work and skill by which bread is obtained;
the very occupation by which a person lives, his trade, requiring more bodily than mental labor. You don’t carry crafts behind you (behind your back), but good with it. And that craft, if someone knows how to make an oar. You won't miss a craft. Without craft, without hands. Not at the craft, so at the craft, trappers, fishermen. Forest craft, arches, rims, shafts, etc. They have a craft under the bridge, they rob passers-by. Our craft has overgrown with past, or there was a craft, but with past overgrown, there was a craft, but flooded with wine. The plow feeds, the craft gives water, crafts dress, shoe. Every trade is honest, except theft. A bad trade is better than a good theft. And theft is a craft (add. Yes, not bread). Craft is respected everywhere. The craft does not hang over the shoulders (does not burden). Craft fiefdom. Craft breadwinner. Know one craft, but be careful not to overgrow with hops! There was a craft, but overgrown with hops. The craft does not ask for food and drink, but with it goodness (but feeds itself). The craft is not a yoke, it will not delay the shoulders. Craft to the dogs skidded. Such a craft that the hell skidded (hops). This is the craft that shook the whole house! Whoever steals has a craft. Not with the craft of a thief - and not without fishing. A man is fed with one bread, but not with one craft. More crafts, more sinister things (i.e. deeds, troubles). Walking for a craft, orphaning the earth. Handicraft, craft people, craftsman, -nitsa, and old. an artisan who feeds on a craft, and so on. Craft Administration. Craft estates. Craft industries. -nikov and -nitsyn, everything that is personally them; -nobody's, -nichesky, relating to crafts and artisans. Handicraft -nichestvo cf. craftsmanship, handicrafts, handicrafts. Handicrafts, crafts, especially among the peasantry.
Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. D.N. Ushakov
craft
crafts, pl. crafts, cf. Requiring special skills work on the manufacture of any. handicraft products. Shoe craft. Furrier craft. Binding craft.
trans. Profession, occupation. Toothy pike came to mind for a cat to take up the craft. Krylov.
Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova.
craft
Ah, pl. crafts, - sat down, - rented out, cf.
Professional occupation - production of products by hand, artisanal way.
In general, a profession, occupation (colloquial). Secrets of the writing craft. * Take up the old craft (colloquial disapproval) - return to the old unseemly deeds, deeds.
adj. handicraft, -th, -th (to 1 value).
New explanatory and derivational dictionary of the Russian language, T. F. Efremova.
craft
Profession, occupation.
Some occupation, business.
Requiring special skills work on the manufacture of any. handicraft products.
trans. Work without creative initiative, according to the established pattern.
Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998
craft
small-scale manual production of industrial products, which dominated until the emergence of large-scale machine industry (and then partially preserved along with it). Crafts are characterized by: the decisive importance of the personal skill of the artisan, the individual nature of production (the artisan works alone or with a limited number of assistants).
craft
Craft Vasily Nikolaevich (1907-83) Russian breeder, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1974) and VASKhNIL (1964), twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1966, 1977). He developed breeding methods that made it possible to create high-yielding varieties of wheat ("Mironovskaya"). Lenin Prize (1963), State Prize of the USSR (1979).
Craft (disambiguation)
Craft:
- Craft - small manual production, based on the use of hand tools.
- Craft, Vasily Nikolaevich (1907-1983) - Ukrainian Soviet breeder.
Craft
Craft- small-scale manual production, based on the use of hand tools, the personal skill of the worker, which makes it possible to produce high-quality, often highly artistic products.
The craft arose with the beginning of human production activity, went through a long historical path of development, taking various forms: a) home craft - in the conditions of a natural economy; b) handicraft to order - in the conditions of decomposition of natural economy; c) craft to market. The appearance and development of cities as craft and trade centers is associated with the emergence of handicrafts to order and especially to the market. Home craft is often referred to as home industry, handicraft to order and to the market as handicraft industry. In Russian statistical literature, often all artisans of the 19th-20th centuries. were called artisans.
Home crafting has been widespread throughout the history of pre-capitalist societies. The rural population produced most of the handicrafts they consumed. Gradually, the craft to order and the market began to play a leading role. In ancient Greece, ancient Rome, in the countries of the ancient East, there were a significant number of artisans who led independent households and made products to order or to the market.
The formation of a professional craft, especially in cities, led to the emergence of a new sphere of production and a new social stratum - urban artisans. The emergence of developed forms of their organization, which protected the interests of this layer, created especially favorable conditions for the development of urban crafts in the Middle Ages. The leading branches of urban craft were: cloth-making, the production of metal products, glass products, etc. In the process of the industrial revolution (mid-18th century - first half of the 19th century), the factory industry, based on the use of machines, replaced handicraft. The craft was preserved in industries associated with servicing the individual needs of the consumer or with the production of expensive art products - pottery, weaving, artistic carving, etc.
To a greater extent, the craft has been preserved in underdeveloped countries. However, even here it is being supplanted by the factory industry as a result of the industrialization of these countries. Folk arts and crafts associated with tourism and export are preserved.
Since ancient times, mankind has known such crafts as:
- blacksmith craft
- pottery
- carpentry
- joinery
- tailoring
- weaving
- spinning
- furrier
- saddlery
- bakery
- cobbler
- furnace
- jewelry
and many others.
In Russia, after 1917, the number of artisans and handicraftsmen was sharply reduced, they were united in trade cooperation. Only a few world-famous folk art crafts have survived: Gzhel ceramics, Dymkovo toy, Palekh miniature, Khokhloma painting, etc.
Examples of the use of the word craft in literature.
Madame Rosa had no idea who Banania was, who was also called Toure: Malian, Senegalese, Guinean or anyone else - his mother, before leaving for the patience house in Abidjan, fought for life on the rue Saint-Denis, and with such craft come figure it out.
The classes were recruited from young men and women trained in the Palanesian tradition: good manners, agriculture, arts and crafts, and even medicine borrowed from folklore, psychology and biology based on grandmother's tales and belief in magic.
Let the neophyte know what assonance and alliteration are, what rhyme is adjacent and distant, simple and complex, just as we have the right to expect from a musician that he knows harmony and counterpoint, and all other trifles of his own. crafts.
Only forty years of occupation craft did not let a grimace of hatred distort the face of Amerigo Bonaser.
He looked upon this incident as a misfortune connected with the apothecary craft, took a napkin, dried himself without saying a word, and withdrew, determined that he would force me to pay the stain remover, to whom, no doubt, he was forced to send his suit.
His natural data allowed him to quickly learn all the wisdom of the gladiatorial crafts, and pretty soon Arak watched with pleasure as Caramon easily dealt with Kiiri and coolly wrapped Peragas in his own web.
For ever since people learned to enchant the spirit of flowers and herbs, trees, resins and animal secretions and keep it in closed vials, the art of scenting has gradually eluded the few universally versed craft masters and opened up to charlatans who only knew how to keep their nose in the wind - like this smelly ferret Pelissier.
Mouret raised his head and again slapped his friend on the knee, repeating with solid gaiety of a man who is not in the least ashamed of having enriched him crafts: - Arshinnik in the full sense of the word!
Most of the income was brought by the bull, which allowed the robbers to indulge with impunity in their venerable craft on the condition of giving the pope part of the loot.
After graduating from elementary school, which he attended with Pastor Boehme, Gottlieb Adler studied weaving craft and at the age of twenty he was already earning a lot.
I heard Kudyk more than once that if Berendey went at least once with a convoy - not to craft, you will not return it to the plow.
Is it because Thackeray's mental constitution tells him to accept the world as it is, or because he knows from his own experience how ungrateful craft reformer, but one way or another, he elevated his dispassion into a theory, and it can be stated with all certainty that in the works that he continued to publish, having already become one of our most famous authors, he, unlike Dickens, almost did not deal with external laws of social life and rarely appeared before the reader as a critic of society and a reformer.
It is only under the guise of a buffoon that a real bully is hiding. craft.
Having admired, Bulba made his way further along the cramped street, which was cluttered with artisans, who immediately sent craft their own, and people of all nations who filled this suburb of the Sich, which looked like a fair and which clothed and fed the Sich, which knew only how to walk and shoot from guns.
The door creaked open, a switch clicked, and Corso looked around the workshop: the main place was occupied by an old printing press, next to it stood a zinc table littered with tools, notebooks half-stitched or already assembled into blocks, right there - a paper cutter, multi-colored pieces of leather, bottles of glue, binding tools and other accessories crafts.
Craft- small manual creation, based on the use of hand tools, the personal skill of the worker, which makes it possible to create high-quality, often highly artistic products.
The craft appeared with the beginning of human production activity., has passed a long historical path of development, taking different forms:
Home crafts have been widely distributed throughout the history of pre-capitalist societies. The rural population produced a huge part of the handicrafts they consumed. A handicraft to order and the market began to play an equally leading role. In ancient Greece, ancient Rome, in the countries of the old East, there were a significant number of artisans who led independent households and made products to order or to the market.
The formation of professional crafts, separately in cities, led to the emergence of a new sphere of production and a new social stratum - urban artisans. The emergence of advanced forms of their organization (shops), which protected the interests of this stratum, created especially suitable conditions for the development of urban crafts in the Middle Ages. The leading branches of urban craft were: cloth-making, the creation of metal products, glass products, etc.
In the process of the industrial revolution (mid-18th century - first half of the 19th century), the factory industry, based on the use of machines, supplanted handicrafts. The craft (to order and to the market) has been preserved in industries associated with servicing the personal needs of the consumer or with the creation of expensive art products - pottery, weaving, artistic carving, etc.
Basically, the craft has been preserved in underdeveloped countries. But even here it is being supplanted by the factory industry as a result of the industrialization of these states. Folk arts and crafts related to tourism and export are preserved.
In Russia, after 1917, the number of artisans and handicraftsmen decreased sharply, they were united in trade cooperation. Only a few world-famous folk art crafts have survived: Gzhel ceramics, Dymkovo toy, Palekh miniature, Khokhloma painting, etc.
Story handicraft goes back to the beginning of man's productive activity. In the conditions of the primitive communal form of organizing people's lives, home crafts dominated (the creation of products from stone, wood, bone, pottery, etc.). With the transition of the earth's population to an agricultural-pastoral economy and a sedentary lifestyle, when handicraft technology becomes more complex and new branches of production arise, artisans are singled out, specially engaged in some kind of craft. This was the first step towards the separation of handicraft from agriculture, which gave a great impetus to the development of handicraft production.
With the separation of professional urban crafts, a new social stratum arises - urban artisans, who played an important role in the development of society. In Kievan Rus already in the XII century. more than 40 craft specialties were known (carpenters, coopers, carpenters, bogomazs, shoemakers, etc.). But the process of development of crafts in the XIII century. in most Russian lands it was interrupted by the Horde yoke and began to resume only after liberation from it. However, in the specific criteria for the formation of the Russian centralized country, the process of forming an association of artisans in organizations, unlike in Western Europe, has not been developed.
In the main craft was concentrated in the estates of the landowners-boyars, in urban settlements that belonged to the state. In the direction of the XVI century. in the country, the number of handicraft specialties in processing metal, leather, wood, etc. has grown sharply, an increasing number of products were made for the market. Saturated development of small-scale production in the XVII century. almost everything paved the way for the economic transformations of the first quarter of the 18th century. At the same time, handicraft creation coexisted with the manufacturing industry.
In the XVIII century. handicrafts appeared that duplicated manufactories. Handicraft creation of the 18th - early 19th centuries. in Russia, in terms of the form of labor organization, it often acted as a decentralized manufactory. In the 19th century In connection with land overpopulation in the country, handicraft industry (crafts) in the countryside received extensive development. On the whole, the development of machine production led to a decrease in the share of handicrafts in the total mass of commodities on the market.
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