Russian pictorial popular print (popular prints, popular prints, popular prints, funny sheets, simple people) - inexpensive pictures with signatures (mostly graphic) intended for mass distribution, a kind of graphic art.
It got its name from bast (upper hard linden wood), which was used in the 17th century. as an engraving base for boards when printing such pictures. In the 18th century. bast was replaced by copper boards, in the 19th and 20th centuries. these pictures were already produced by a typographic method, but their name "popular prints" was retained for them. This kind of unpretentious and crude art for mass consumption became widespread in Russia in the 17th and early 20th centuries, even giving rise to mass popular literature. Such literature fulfilled its social function, introducing the poorest and least educated strata of the population to reading.
Former works of folk art, at first performed exclusively by amateurs, popular prints influenced the appearance of works of professional graphics of the early 20th century, which was distinguished by a special pictorial language and borrowed folklore techniques and images.
The artistic features of popular prints are syncretism, courage in the choice of techniques (up to the grotesque and deliberate deformation of the depicted), highlighting the thematically main thing with a larger image (this is the closeness to children's drawings). From luboks, which were for ordinary townspeople and rural residents of the 17th - early 20th century. Modern home posters, colorful loose-leaf calendars, posters, comics, many works of modern popular culture (up to the art of cinema) trace their history to newspapers, TVs, icons and primers.
As a genre combining graphics and literary elements, popular prints were not a purely Russian phenomenon.
The oldest pictures of this kind were used in China, Turkey, Japan, India. In China, they were performed initially by hand, and from the 8th century. engraved on wood, differing at the same time with bright colors and catchiness.
In the Russian state, the first popular prints (which existed as works of anonymous authors) were printed at the beginning of the 17th century. in the printing house of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. The craftsmen cut both the picture and the text by hand on a smoothly planed, polished linden board, leaving the text and lines of the drawing embossed. Further, with a special leather pillow - matzo - black paint was applied to the drawing from a mixture of burnt hay, soot and boiled linseed oil. A sheet of damp paper was laid on top of the board and the whole was clamped together in a press of a printing press. The resulting print was then painted by hand in one or more colors (this type of work, often entrusted to women, in some areas was called "daubs on the noses" - coloring taking into account the contours).
The earliest popular prints found in the East Slavic region are considered to be the icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos 1614-1624, the first Moscow popular print from now kept in the collections of the late 17th century.
In Moscow, the spread of popular prints began with the royal court. In 1635, the so-called "printed sheets" were bought for the 7-year-old Tsarevich Alexei Mikhailovich in the Vegetable Row on Red Square, after which the fashion for them came to the boyar mansions, and from there to the middle and lower strata of the townspeople, where the popular print gained recognition and popularity by about 1660.
Among the main genres of popular prints, at first there was only a religious one.
Among the artists who worked on the production of engraving bases for these prints were the famous masters of the Kiev-Lviv printing school of the 17th century. - Pamva Berynda, Leonty Zemka, Vasily Root, Hieromonk Elijah. Printed prints of their works were hand-painted in four colors: red, purple, yellow, green. Thematically, all the luboks created by them were of religious content, however, biblical heroes were often depicted on them in Russian folk clothes (like Cain plowing the land on Vasily Koren's lubok).
Gradually, among the popular prints, in addition to religious subjects (scenes from the lives of saints and the Gospel), illustrations appear for Russian fairy tales, epics, translated knightly novels (about Bove Korolevich, Eruslan Lazarevich), historical legends (about the founding of Moscow, about the Battle of Kulikovo).
Thanks to such printed "amusing sheets", today the details of peasant labor and everyday life of pre-Petrine times are being reconstructed ("Old man Agafon weaves sandals, and his wife Arina spins threads"), scenes of plowing, harvesting, logging, baking pancakes, rituals of the family cycle - births, weddings , funeral. Thanks to them, the history of everyday Russian life was filled with real images of household utensils and the furnishings of huts.
Ethnographers still use these sources, restoring the lost scripts of folk festivals, round dances, fairgrounds, details and tools of rituals (for example, fortune-telling). Some images of Russian popular prints of the 17th century. for a long time came into use, including the image of the "ladder of life", on which each decade corresponds to a certain "step" ("The first step of this life is to go through a safe game ..."). But why is splint called "amusing"? Here's why. Very often in the popular prints such funny things were depicted that at least stop, at least nad. Lubki depicting fair holidays, booth performances and their barkers, which with hasty voices beckoned people to attend the performance:
“I have a beautiful wife. There is a blush under the nose, snot all over the cheek; As it rolls along the Nevsky, only dirt flies from under your feet. Her name is Sophia, who dried on the stove for three years. I took it off the stove, it bowed to me and fell apart three to three. What should I do? I took a washcloth, sewed it, and lived with it for three years. I went to Haymarket, bought another wife for a penny, and with a cat. A cat is in a pittance, but a wife is in a lover, whatever you give, so will eat. "
“But, timid, this is Parasha.
Only mine, not yours.
I wanted to marry her.
Yes, I remembered that with a living wife it would not work.
Parasha would be good for everyone, but it hurts her cheeks.
That’s why there’s not enough brick in St. Petersburg ”.
A funny splint caricature about the girl Rodionova:
“The girl Rodionova, who arrived in Moscow from St. Petersburg and was awarded the benevolent attention of the St. Petersburg public. She is 18 years old, her height is 1 arshin 10 vershoks, her head is rather large, her nose is wide. She uses her lips and tongue to embroider different patterns and lower beaded bracelets. He also uses food without the help of strangers. Her legs serve instead of hands; she takes plates of food with them and brings them to her lips. In all likelihood, the Moscow public will not leave the girl Rodionova happy with the same attention that she gave to the girl Yulia Pastratsa, especially since seeing Rodionova and her art is much more interesting than seeing only the ugliness of the girl Yulia Pastratsa. "
Russian popular print ceased to exist at the end of the 19th century. It was then that the old colored sheets began to be preserved and cherished as relics of the bygone past. At the same time, the study and collection of popular prints begins. A large collection of popular prints was collected from the famous compiler of the "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language" Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl. The artists Repin, Vasnetsov, Kustodiev, Kandinsky, Konchalovsky, Dobuzhinsky, Lentulov were interested in Lubok.
The artistic motives of the popular print influenced the decorative folk art of the 20th century. The connection with the aesthetics of popular prints can be traced in some works of artists Fedoskino and Palekh. Some of the popular prints have been used to create cartoons based on folk tales.
The first who took up the serious study and collection of popular prints was Dmitry Alexandrovich Rovinsky. In his collection there were every single Russian lubok that were issued by the end of the 19th century, and this is almost 8 thousand copies.
Dmitry Alexandrovich Rovinsky - art historian, collector and lawyer by profession - was born in Moscow. He acquired the first copies for his collection in his youth. But at first he was fond of collecting Western engravings, Rovinsky had one of the most complete collections of Rembrandt prints in Russia. In search of these prints, he traveled all over Europe. But later, under the influence of his relative, historian and collector, M.P. Pogodin, Rovinsky began to collect everything that was domestic, and primarily Russian folk pictures. In addition to popular prints, DA Rovinsky collected old illustrated primers, cosmographies and satirical leaflets. Rovinsky spent all his money on collecting the collection. He lived very modestly, surrounded by countless folders with prints and art books. Every year Rovinsky went on trips to the most remote places of Russia, from where he brought new sheets for his collection of popular prints. DA Rovinsky wrote and published at his own expense "A detailed dictionary of Russian engraving portraits" in 4 volumes, published in 1872, "Russian folk pictures" in 5 volumes - 1881. Materials for Russian Iconography and Complete Collection of Rembrandt Prints in 4 volumes in 1890.
Thanks to his research in the field of art, Rovinsky was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Arts. Rovinsky instituted prizes for the best works in artistic archeology and for the best painting, followed by its reproduction in engraving. He gave his dacha to Moscow University, and from the income received he established regular prizes for the best illustrated scientific essay for public reading.
Rovinsky bequeathed his entire collection of Rembrandt prints, and this is over 600 sheets, to the Hermitage, Russian and folk pictures - to the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum, about 50 thousand Western European prints - to the Imperial Public Library.
What is splint? Why and how was it made? What does it have to do with the deck of a ship? And why did the authorities ban him? The answers are in the article!
All kinds of news have become an integral part of the life of a modern person. And it doesn't matter where we get them from: from the Internet, from newspapers or on television. It is important for us that the information is fresh, versatile and constant. And if you think that our ancestors did without it, then you are greatly mistaken. In the old days, there were also media outlets. And they, too, were wildly popular. And some of them were also banned. And they also advertised something, scolded someone, inspired something. So what did the then editions release?
In the old days, there was only one type of media, and that is splint. A popular print, also known as a popular print or a picture, is a stylized image printed on paper with comments. And since it reflects the creativity of the people rather than the professionals, it was distinguished by its simplicity, brevity and clarity.
Short story
The first luboks (nianhua) appeared in China. Moreover, at first, each sheet was drawn by hand, and only after the 8th century did the Chinese learn how to make prints. From the Middle Kingdom, the art of popular prints spread to India and the Arab countries. Like all oriental painting, Asian popular prints were distinguished by their richness of colors and an abundance of elements.
In European countries, splint has been known since the 15th century. At first, the images were black and white, and looked like unsightly children's coloring pages; they acquired color a little later. European popular prints were distinguished by a variety of plots and were similar to modern newspapers and magazines: in large cities there were editorial factories (which were later reborn as printing houses), and shops selling them.
In some countries, popular prints existed until the 19th century. They were supplanted by the usual printed newspapers and comics.
Lubok plots
In the East, the pictures had a predominantly religious and philosophical content, but as soon as popular prints came to Europe, their themes expanded significantly. There were fabulous or epic, historical and legal (images of trials, filled with satire and morality). And also pictures depicting saints (like modern calendars), horsemen and folk heroes. A separate place and great popularity were jokes - humorous popular prints with caricatures, satire, jokes, toasts and fables.
In addition, in Europe, some large firms and enterprises ordered advertising prints telling about their products or services. Very often luboks were used by the government and the church as propaganda or agitation. In general, popular prints used to play the same role as modern newspapers and leaflets.
Lubki in Russia
Lubok came to Russia from Europe in the 16th century and it was then called the "fryazhsky leaf". At first, only imported pictures were on sale, but from the end of the 17th century, the Moscow Court Printing House learned how to make them on their own. According to the method of production, they got their new name - splint. But more on that below.
Despite the availability of domestic products for sale, imported jokes were very popular. The Orthodox Church was outraged by their "immorality and obscenity", and it came to a ban on the sale of "sheets of heretics." The ban was introduced in 1674, and in 1721, at the insistence of the church, censorship was introduced on domestic popular prints. The so-called Izugrafsky Chamber monitored the morality of the pictures.
But, fortunately, printing houses thrived that knew how to circumvent censorship. Otherwise, we would not have had wonderful popular prints demonstrating the folk customs of the past.
Making splints
In Russia, lubok makers were called “Fryazhsk carving masters”. The very process of drawing and painting a picture is a sign.
The work consisted in the following: the artist (flag bearer) drew an image on the board, and the engraver cut it out, that is, made a print. Then the copier applied dark paint to it and made a print on paper - a simple picture was obtained. These sheets were handed over to the painting artels. As a rule, children and women worked in them. The professional workers of such cartels were called flower-growers. But with the advent of new, more perfect methods of drawing (lithography and engraving), such artels were disbanded.
So why did the printed pictures get such a name - splint? Answer: the drawing for the impression was applied to a linden board obtained by a special method of sawing from the lower part of the tree bark. Such boards were called bast. They were used to make roofs of houses and decks of ships, and the bast obtained from young trees was good for bast.
This is the story of popular prints - a special kind of folk art, the predecessor of newspapers, magazines and comic strips that are popular today.
Russian popular print is a graphic type of folk art that arose in the era of Peter the Great. Sheets with bright, funny pictures were printed in the hundreds of thousands and were extremely cheap. They never depicted grief or sadness, funny or informative stories with simple understandable images were accompanied by laconic inscriptions and were kind of comics of the 17th-19th centuries. In every hut there were similar pictures on the walls, they were very much appreciated, and foren, distributors of popular prints, were eagerly awaited everywhere.
Origin of the term
At the end of the 17th century, prints from wooden boards were called German or Fryazhski amusing sheets by analogy with prints, the technique of which came to Russia from the western lands. Representatives of southern Europe, mostly Italians, have long been called fryagami in Russia, all other Europeans were called Germans. Later, Fryazh sheets were called prints with a more serious content and a realistic image, and traditional Russian popular print was the art of folk graphics with simplified, brightly colored graphics and intelligibly capacious images.
There are two assumptions why the amusing sheets got the name of a popular print. Perhaps the first impression boards were made from bast - the bottom layer of the bark of a tree, most often linden. The same material was used to make boxes - containers for bulk products or household belongings. They were often painted with picturesque patterns with primitive images of people and animals. Over time, they began to call the planks intended for work with a chisel.
Execution technique
Each stage of work on the Russian popular print had its own name and was carried out by different masters.
- At first, the contour drawing was created on paper, and the flag bearers applied it with a pencil on the prepared board. This process was called a sign.
- Then the carvers got down to work. With sharp tools, they made indentations, leaving thin walls along the contour of the drawing. This delicate painstaking work required special qualifications. The base boards ready for impressions were sold to the breeder. The first woodcutters, engravers on wood, and then on copper, lived in Izmailovo, a village near Moscow.
- The board was smeared with dark paint and, with a sheet of cheap gray paper superimposed on it, was placed under a press. The thin sides of the board left a black outline pattern, and the cut-out spots kept the paper unpainted. Such sheets were called simple sheets.
- Paintings with contour prints were taken to flower-growers - village artel workers who painted simple paintings. This work was done by women, often children. Each of them painted up to a thousand sheets a week. The artels did the paints themselves. The crimson color was obtained from boiled sandalwood with the addition of alum, the blue color was given by lapis lazuli, various transparent tones were extracted from treated plants and tree bark. In the 18th century, with the advent of lithography, the profession of flower-growers almost disappeared.
Due to wear and tear, the boards were often copied, this was called a translation. Initially, the board was cut from linden, then pear and maple were used.
The appearance of funny pictures
The first printing press was called the Fryazh mill and was installed in the Court (Upper) printing house at the end of the 17th century. Then other printing houses appeared. Copper boards were cut. There is an assumption that professional printers began to make Russian popular prints for the first time, installing the simplest machines in their homes. The typographic craftsmen lived in the area of modern Stretenka and Lubyanka streets, here, near the church walls, they sold funny fryazhski sheets, which immediately began to be in demand. It was in this area that by the beginning of the 18th century, popular prints acquired their characteristic style. Soon, other places of their distribution appeared, such as Vegetable Ryad, and then Spassky Most.
Funny pictures under Peter
Wanting to please the sovereign, draftsmen came up with funny stories for amusing sheets. For example, the battle of Alexander the Great with the Indian king Porus, in which the Greek ancient commander was given a clear portrait resemblance to Peter I. Or the plot of a black and white print about Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the robber, where the Russian hero both in appearance and clothing corresponded to the image of the sovereign, and a robber in Swedish military uniform portrayed Charles XII. Some plots of Russian popular prints, perhaps, were ordered by Peter I himself, such as, for example, a sheet, which reflects the reform instructions of the sovereign from 1705: a Russian merchant dressed in European clothes prepares to shave his beard.
The printers also received orders from opponents of Peter's reforms, although the content of seditious popular prints was veiled in allegorical images. After the death of the tsar, the famous leaf with a scene of the burial of a cat by mice spread, which contained many hints that the cat was the deceased sovereign, and the satisfied mice were the lands conquered by Peter.
The heyday of popular prints in the 18th century
Beginning in 1727, after the death of Empress Catherine I, the issue of print in Russia was sharply reduced. Most of the printing houses, including the St. Petersburg one, were closed. And printers, who were left without work, reoriented to the production of popular prints, using printing copper boards, in large part left after the closure of enterprises. From that time the flowering of the Russian folk popular print began.
By the middle of the century, lithographic machines appeared in Russia, which made it possible to multiply the number of copies many times, to obtain a color print, a better and more detailed image. The first factory with 20 machines belonged to the Moscow merchants Akhmetyevs. Competition among popular printers increased, the plots became more and more diverse. Pictures were created for the main consumers - city dwellers, therefore they reflected city life and everyday life. The peasant theme appeared only in the next century.
Lubok production in the 19th century
Beginning from the middle of the century, 13 large lithographic printing houses operated in Moscow, along with the main products producing popular prints. By the end of the century, I. Sytin's enterprise was considered the most prominent in the field of manufacturing and distribution of these products, which produced annually about two million calendars, one and a half million sheets with biblical subjects, 900 thousand pictures with secular subjects. Morozov's lithograph annually produced about 1.4 million luboks, Golyshev's factory - about 300 thousand, the circulation of other industries was smaller. The cheapest leaflets were sold for half a kopeck, the most expensive pictures cost 25 kopecks.
Subject
Chronicles, oral and handwritten legends, epics served as popular prints of the 17th century. By the middle of the 18th century, Russian drawn popular prints with images of buffoons, buffoons, noble life, court fashion became popular. Many satirical sheets have emerged. In the 30s - 40s, the most popular content of popular prints was the image of folk city festivities, festivals, entertainment, fist fights, and fairs. Some sheets each contained several thematic pictures, for example, the splint "Meeting and seeing off Maslenitsa" consisted of 27 drawings depicting the fun of Muscovites from different parts of the city. Redrawings from German and French calendars and almanacs have spread since the second half of the century.
Since the beginning of the 19th century, literary plots of the works of Goethe, Chateaubriand, François René, and other popular writers at that time appear in popular prints. Since the 1820s, the Russian style has come into vogue, which in print was expressed in a village theme. At the expense of the peasants, the demand for popular prints also increased. The themes of spiritual-religious, military-patriotic content, portraits of the royal family, illustrations with quotes to fairy tales, songs, fables, and sayings remained popular.
Lubok XX - XXI centuries
In the graphic design of advertising leaflets, posters, newspaper illustrations, signs of the beginning of the last century, popular prints were often used. This is due to the fact that pictures remained the most popular type of information product for the illiterate rural and urban population. The genre was later characterized by art critics as an element of Russian Art Nouveau.
Lubok influenced the formation of political and propaganda posters in the first quarter of the 20th century. At the end of the summer of 1914, the publishing society "Today's Lubok" was organized, whose task was to produce satirical posters and postcards. Apt short texts were written by Vladimir Mayakovsky, who worked on the images together with the artists Kazimir Malevich, Larionov, Chekrygin, Lentulov, Burlyukov and Gorsky. Until the 1930s, popular prints were often featured in advertising posters and designs. For a century, the style has been used in Soviet cartoons, illustrations for children and satirical cartoons.
The Russian popular print cannot be called a modern type of fine art that is popular. Such graphics are extremely rarely used for an ironic poster, design for fairs or thematic exhibitions. Few illustrators and cartoonists work in this direction, but on the Internet their bright witty works on the topic of the day attract the attention of netizens.
"We draw in the style of Russian popular print"
In 2016, under this name, the Hobbitteka publishing house published a book by Nina Velichko, addressed to everyone who is interested in folk art. The work contains articles of an entertaining and educational nature. Based on the works of old masters, the author teaches the features of popular prints, explains how to draw a picture in a frame in stages, depict people, trees, flowers, houses, display stylized letters and other elements. Thanks to the fascinating material, the technique and properties of popular prints are not at all difficult to master in order to create bright entertaining pictures on their own.
In Moscow on Sretenka there is a museum of Russian popular prints and naive art. The foundation of the exposition is a rich collection of the director of this institution, Viktor Penzin. The exposition of popular prints, starting from the 18th century and ending with our days, arouses considerable interest of visitors. It is no coincidence that the museum is located in the area of Pechatnikov Lane and Lubyanka, where more than three centuries ago lived the same typographers who were at the origins of the history of Russian popular print. Here the style of Fryazhski amusing pictures was born, and sheets for sale were hung on the fence of the local church. Perhaps expositions, books and demonstration of pictures on the Internet will revive interest in Russian popular prints, and it will again come into fashion, as has happened repeatedly with other types of folk art.
Traditions section publications
The art of popular print in pre-revolutionary Russia
Lubki appeared in Russia in the 17th century and quickly became popular with peasants and urban estates due to the variety of topics. They replaced icons, books and newspapers and even decorated the interior. Read how popular prints conquered the publishing market and the pages on which topics were especially loved by customers.
The art of popular prints originated in China. In Russia, the predecessor of this genre is considered paper icons, which were massively sold at fairs and in monasteries. The first religious prints were printed at the beginning of the 17th century in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. Over time, simple and understandable scenes from worldly life were added to spiritual plots: such pictures were readily bought up.
In the 17th century, popular prints were called "fryazhskie", or German, amusing sheets; many pictures repeated scenes that were popular in Europe. Initially, in Moscow, they were used to decorate the interiors of courtiers and nobles, and then the townspeople began to buy sheets. Soon, oversight was established over the production of pictures.
The representatives of the church made sure that there was no heresy in the religious prints, and the officials - that the image of the royal persons came out good-looking. But the prescriptions and decrees were carried out reluctantly: sheets of very free content were often sold at fairs.
Already at the beginning of the 18th century, popular prints fell out of fashion among the nobility, and the bourgeoisie, artisans and merchants were still willingly buying them up. In 1721, the government took up folk art: the free sale of pictures, as a powerful means of propaganda, was banned. They could be reproduced only in printing houses and only with special permission.
In the 19th century, peasants fell in love with popular prints: pictures adorned the walls of almost every village hut. Noble and professional artists considered this genre to be low-quality folk art, but at the same time, print runs of popular prints were in the thousands.
Popular pictures for lovers and researchers of Russian antiquity are of great interest: they vividly reflect the spirit of the people, serve as a precious tool for the study of his life and customs, give an idea of what he did in terms of art, acquaint with his beliefs, views and prejudices , with everything that occupied and amused him, in which his wit was reflected.
Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron
In the most remote corners of the country and in small villages, wandering traders - peddlers, or, as they were also called, ofeni, traded in pictures. Together with haberdashery and other goods, they sold popular prints and calendars, which they bought in bulk from Moscow workshops.
Pictures were originally printed from lime boards. According to one of the versions, it was from the linden tree, which in the old days was called bast, that the word “lubok” appeared. They were made in several stages: first, a self-taught artist put a drawing on a board, then cut it out with special tools and then covered the material with paint. The indentations during printing remained white; under the press, only the painted over protruding areas passed to the paper. The first prints were black and white and were printed on inexpensive gray material.
But already in the 17th century, printing workshops appeared. A century later, Emperor Peter I founded an engraving chamber in Moscow, where the best artists who studied in Europe worked. Copper plates replaced wooden boards: a drawing was also applied to the metal, scratched with special tools, covered with paint and made prints. The updated technology made it possible to achieve thin and smooth lines and add small details to the splint.
Printed blanks were taken to artels in villages near Moscow, where women and children painted them for a small fee, using only four colors. Often the work was done carelessly, but buyers appreciated the bright pictures for their humor, not for the quality of work. In the 19th century, factories appeared in which sheets were printed in large quantities. A new technology made production cheaper - printing from a flat stone surface. Popular demand for prints was high: by the end of the 19th century, publishers were producing hundreds of thousands of copies, which brought them a good income.
Popular topics: from moralizing to retelling by Pushkin
Pictures for peasants became a source of news and knowledge: they were cheap and replaced newspapers. Their meaning was clear even to the illiterate, although the pictures were accompanied by edifying or humorous text.
Morality, religiosity, family values. Wealthy merchants bought moralizing and educational sheets about virtues and family life, and popular prints about dissolute children who left for the city and squandered money there were popular among the peasants. The pictures condemned drunkenness, riotous life, adultery, praised the traditional values and heroism of Russian soldiers.
Peasants and townspeople willingly bought prints on religious themes, biblical legends, lives of saints, calendars of church holidays and copies of icons. Craftsmen copied church frescoes and drawings from books - such pictures served as a cheap version of expensive icons. In popular prints based on the Gospel parables, the layman was reminded of the norms of morality and sins that lie in wait at every step. Pictures with captions were popular: from what illness or misfortune which of the saints should pray for, as well as popular prints with texts of prayers and calendars with the main religious holidays.
Politics and history. With the help of pictures, the peasants received information about events in the country and major military battles. For example, the popular prints depicted the victorious battles of the Russian-Turkish wars of the 18th century. The texts for the sheets were taken from the newspaper Moskovskiye Vedomosti, but the authors of the pictures rewrote them to make the language understandable for illiterate readers, and also supplemented with legends and legends, often exaggerating the combat losses of enemy troops to fantastic proportions.
Often the authors distorted both the text and the plot of a literary work, freely interpreted the characters of the heroes and their actions. Educated readers treated popular prints as low-quality art, but pictures continued to come out in large numbers and brought in impressive revenues for publishers.
They saw in splints a complete lack of perspective, coloring, similar to painting or smearing, vulgarity and rudeness in expressions, lofty and majestic, turned into exaggerated and monstrous, funny and funny into low-comic and joking, but did not notice the meaning and spirit in the content itself , ideas in images.
Historian, researcher of Russian popular prints Ivan Snegirev. From the book "Popular pictures of the Russian people in the Moscow world"
Luboks were popular in Russia until the beginning of the 20th century. In 1918, when the printing business became state-owned, they ceased to be published. However, the genre manifested itself in one way or another in the work of the avant-garde artists. Many artists of the 1920s used the artistic style and folklore techniques of popular prints, which manifested itself, for example, in the famous posters "ROSTA Windows".
ubok - a folk picture, a kind of graphics, an image with a signature, distinguished by its simplicity and accessibility of images. Originally a kind of folk art. It was carried out in the technique of woodcut, copper engraving, lithography, and was supplemented by freehand coloring.
Farnos is a red nose. 17th century
From the middle of the 17th century in Russia for the first time there appeared printed pictures, called "fryazhskie" (foreign). Then these pictures were called "funny sheets", in the second half of the 19th century they began to be called luboks. The manufacturing method was invented in China in the 8th century. The drawing was made on paper, then it was transferred to a smooth board and with special cutters they deepened the places that should remain white. The entire image consisted of walls. The work was difficult, one small mistake - and I had to start all over again. Then the board was clamped in a printing press, similar to a press, and black paint was applied to the walls with a special roller. A sheet of paper was carefully placed on top and pressed. The print was ready. It remains to dry and paint with paints. Luboks were made in different sizes. From China, splint technology passed to Western Europe in the 15th century. And in the middle of the 17th century to Russia. Foreigners brought splints to give them. And one of the foreigners made a machine for the display. Luboks are very popular in Russia. Firstly, they retell history, geography, printed literary works, alphabets, textbooks on arithmetic, sacred scripture. And all this was done with pictures. Sometimes many pictures were arranged in tiers. Sometimes there were texts on popular prints. Secondly, splints served as decoration. Russian masters gave the splint a joyful character.
"Mice bury a cat", 1760
XVII-XVIII centuries - this is the era of the reforms of Peter I, which not everyone liked. Secular popular print was an outspoken weapon of political struggle. Opponents of the reforms of Peter I print luboks, which depict a cat with red goggled eyes, as they painted a portrait of Peter I. "Kazan cat". Lubok "Mice bury a cat" appeared after the death of the emperor. Laughter was fundamentally new in the popular print. This distinguishes it from the official art of the 18th century. The main task of the splint is to decorate the house. There were also satirical popular prints. Peter I issued decrees banning satirical popular prints. But it was only after the death of the emperor that the popular print lost its political edge. It has acquired a fabulous and decorative character. There were heroes, actors of the booth, jesters, real and fantastic animals, birds. The heroes of the pictures are fairy tale characters: jesters Savoska and Paramoshka, Thomas and Erem, Ivan Tsarevich, Bova the Prince, Ilya Muromets. Lubok became more colorful, because it decorated the huts of peasants. Pictures were colored freely. The color was scattered with decorative spots. First, the color is red, the brightest and most dense (gouache or tempera). Other paints are more transparent.
What colors did they like in Russia?
(Red, crimson, blue, green, yellow, sometimes black). Painted so that the combination was sharp. The high quality of the drawing meant that at the beginning the popular prints were drawn by professional artists who, under Peter I, were left without work. And then gingerbread board carvers and other city artisans joined in. Plots of wall paintings and tiles (and what is a tile?) "Moved" into engraving when folk architectural creativity was suspended, and the love for wall paintings and wooden carvings had not yet dried up. There was a whole series of portraits, or rather images of epic and literary characters: Ilya Muromets, Alyosha Popovich, Nightingale the Robber, the faces of brave knights and their princes. Such portraits were popular among the people. And the reason was their artistic qualities. Drawn brightly, festively, Nice faces, slender figures, in beautiful clothes. In lubok portraits, deeply popular aesthetic ideals were embodied, an understanding of the dignity and beauty of a person was embodied. Lubok brought up the artistic taste of people. And borrowed all the best from other arts.
Kazan cat, Astrakhan mind, Siberian mind (XVIII century)
How were splints made?
The engraver made the basis for the picture - a board and gave it to the breeder. He bought boards ready for prints, and sent the prints for coloring. In the village of Izmailovo near Moscow, popular printers lived, making woodcuts and copper engravings. Women and children were painting prints.
How were the paints made, from what materials?
Sandalwood was boiled with the addition of alum, and raspberry dye was obtained. The emphasis was on a bright red or cherry color. Used lapis lazuli for blue paint. They boiled paints from the leaves and bark of trees.
Each craftswoman painted in her own way. But everyone learned from each other, and used the best techniques in their work. Any topic was covered in a popular print with the utmost depth and breadth. For example, four full sheets of paper told about our Earth. Where, what peoples live. Lots of text and lots of pictures. Lubki were about individual cities, about different events. For example, a whale was caught in the White Sea, and a whale is drawn on a large sheet. Or how a man chooses a bride, or fashionable outfits, or "ABC".
Lubok - this name probably comes from the Lubyanka Square, where bast products were bargained for. At the corner of Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, the Church of the Assumption of the Printers has been preserved. In the old days, printers, printers, lived around the church. Nearby - another church "Trinity in sheets". Amusing and vivid pictures were sold near its fence on holidays.
Or maybe this name comes from the word "bast" - bast, that is. wood. The drawings were carved on wooden boards. These pictures were sold and distributed throughout the land of the Russian oseni (peddlers), who kept their goods in bast boxes. They treasured splints very much. Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Russia" tells how a peasant's hut was on fire, and the first thing he took out was pictures. There was never grief or crying in the splint. He only delighted and amused, and sometimes denounced, but he did it with great humor and dignity. Lubok instilled in people confidence in themselves, in their strength. The peddlers of popular prints were expected everywhere. They carried pictures with letters to children, pictures of fashionable clothes, about love to girls, and something political to men. She will show you such a picture, but she will tell you what has happened in the country. It was for these pictures that both the officers and the publishers got it.
In the 19th century, Moscow was the main supplier of popular prints. Here are the officers of other cities and wrote to the authorities in Moscow about political popular prints.
I.D.Sytin was one of the largest and well-known Russian manufacturers and distributors of printed lubok.
The first popular prints of Sytin were called:
Peter the Great raises the cup of health for his teachers;
how Suvorov plays grandmother with village children;
how our ancestors the Slavs were baptized in the Dnieper and overthrew the idol of Perun.
Sytin began to attract professional artists to make prints. Folk songs and poems by famous poets were used for signatures to popular prints. In 1882, an art exhibition was held in Moscow, where Sytin's prints received a diploma and a bronze medal of the exhibition.
For about 20 years ID Sytin has been collecting boards from which prints were printed. A collection worth several tens of thousands of rubles was destroyed during a fire at Sytin's printing house during the 1905 Revolution.
In the old days, there was a lot of grief in the life of an ordinary person. However, the art of the people is extremely cheerful. The life of folk art has much in common with the life of nature. Like nature, it selects only the best and polishes it for centuries, creating a truly perfect technology, form, ornament and color.
I offer you lubok pictures of the modern artist and teacher Marina Rusanova. The artist was very successful with a series of pictures in the lubok style on the theme of Russian folk proverbs. G. Courbet once said:
The true artists are those who start where their predecessors left off.
Good luck to Marina in this type of graphics and success in her work for cinematography.
