The floors of the 12th century chambers of Andrei Bogolyubsky, prince of the land of Vladimir, Suzdal and Rostov, are entirely lined with colored tiled tiles with images of griffins, half-lions, half-eagles - symbols of princely power. The same tiles, dated to the XIV century, were found by archaeologists in Galich, Chernigov and Grodno.

The art of architectural glazed ceramics flourished in Russia before the Tatar invasion. It is not known what development the art of tiles in Russia would have received if it were not for the Horde yoke. According to historians, despite the positive moment of “collecting lands” and establishing a unified state in Russia, the Horde yoke destroyed technologies and complex crafts, such as cloisonne enamel, glass, polychrome ceramics, known to the ancient Russians long before these technologies appeared in Europe.

Soviet archaeologist, researcher Slavic culture and history Ancient Russia, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences B. A. Rybakov writes in his book “The Craft of Ancient Russia”: “Rus was thrown back several centuries, and in those centuries when the guild industry of the West was moving to the era of primitive accumulation, the Russian handicraft industry had to pass part of the historical path that had been done before Batu for the second time.”

Only in the cities that escaped the Horde crowd, crafts were preserved and developed, which spread after the liberation of Russia and in other Russian lands. One of these cities was Pskov.

Irrigation tiles. Pskov

In the mid-60s, during the restoration of the Cathedral of the Spaso-Mirozhsky Monastery in Pskov, restorers discovered in the attic of the cathedral tiles of glazed ceramics in red-green glaze, attributed by them to the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th centuries. The glaze on the dome of the Cathedral of the Mirozhsky Monastery burned like a green light in the rays of the sun. Decades later, reflections of this radiance flashed on the domes of other Pskov churches. The heads of many city temples were dressed with glazed tiles. Over the decades, the tiles have become smaller and neater, the glaze on them richer and thicker.

A real treasury of glazed ceramics is the Pskov-Pechora Monastery, where, among dozens of limestone boards, glazed gravestones, the famous Pskov ceramides, shine with a green sheen. Ceramides are large glazed ceramic slabs with complex patterned relief and inscriptions, usually the name of the buried and the date. Ceramides were made in the same way as the first books - using collapsible molds. The conclusion immediately suggests itself that the creators of ceramides were familiar with typographic techniques. It is believed that Cornelius, the abbot of the monastery, a great book reader and a very educated person, suggested the technology to the master tilers. The oldest ceramide dates back to 1530.

Pskov masters were known far beyond Pskov. Artels of Pskovites worked in many cities of the Muscovite kingdom. In 1477, Pskov craftsmen erected the Spiritual Church in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. The Spiritual Church has a special decoration: at the base of its zakomar there is a decorative belt made of relief terracotta slabs. The Church of the Deposition of the Robe in the Moscow Kremlin, built in 1485, is decorated with the same slabs.

Irrigation tiles. Moscow

Interesting finds were discovered by restorers during work in the Intercession Cathedral (St. Basil's Cathedral). On the central tent, under a layer of later paintings, colored tiles, laid in the walls at the time of the construction of the cathedral, originally erected whitewashed. Of light clay, covered with yellowish, brown or green vitreous glaze, in the form of stars - these colored tiles looked like gems on the white wall of the temple - a reception in Russia previously unprecedented. A similar tiled decor was on the Church of Sergius at the Epiphany Monastery, destroyed in 1807.
In fact, these were the first colored glazed tiles after the Pskov ones.

Polychrome tiles

Unique colored tiles can be seen at the Assumption Cathedral in Dmitrov: huge tiled bas-reliefs, about three meters high, sparkle with colored glazes on the north and south sides of the cathedral. The absolutely unique bas-relief with George the Victorious has a diameter of 2.93 m and consists of 32 tiles with a relief up to 7 cm deep. Relief colored tiles of this size were something completely new for Russia. No one has ever done anything like this before.

But a real revolution in tiling art was the construction of the New Jerusalem Monastery by Patriarch Nikon, in which the principles of the Italian Renaissance were first applied: order, rosettes, ionics, leaves, etc. But the most important thing is that the foreign masters brought by Nikon introduced a new palette of glazes in Russian tile art: for the first time deaf vitreous enamels began to be used and blue and white pigments were introduced into use. The tiles of the New Jerusalem Monastery amazed with their multicolor.

Tens of thousands of polychrome tiles adorned the majestic monastery on the banks of the Istra. The construction of the New Jerusalem Cathedral helped Russian architects to understand the role of multi-colored tiles in decorating buildings. Approximately 60 different types of relief were needed by craftsmen to create grandiose panels, friezes, and iconostases. They found patterns and drawings for them on the pages of printed books and on fabrics. Peacock eye pattern, so often used in the future on the tiles of many Moscow churches, was taken from Italian velvets of the late 16th century. Many of the tiles were made by Nikon's masters according to the laws of Western European architecture of the 16th-17th centuries.

It should be noted that a great influence on the Russian architecture XVII centuries were rendered by Belarusian craftsmen who moved from the western lands to Moscow from the persecution of the Catholic Commonwealth. Being under the rule of the Polish gentry, the natives of Belarusian cities had the opportunity to get acquainted with Western European architecture and art. By 1654 Belarusians were already moving in thousands. According to the 1676 census, about ten percent of the population of Moscow were immigrants from the western lands, who brought their knowledge and professional skills to their new homeland. The amazing flourishing of Russian architecture under Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov was largely facilitated by the influx of fresh "spiritual blood" from the West.

In 1654, Prince Trubetskoy brought from Mstislavl the potter Stepan Ivanov, who later became famous under the name of Stepan Polubes. And already in 1658, Patriarch Nikon took him to the construction of the New Jerusalem Temple.
In general, the ceramics of Stepan Polubes is on a par with the works of Italian ceramists of the della Robbia family and Frenchman Bernard Palissy: its significance for world art is quite comparable to the scale of the great ceramists of the Renaissance.
Many works by Stepan Polubes have been preserved in Moscow. In addition to the tiles in the New Jerusalem Monastery, the huge high reliefs in the Church of the Assumption in the Goncharnaya Sloboda, the tiles in the Church of St. Gregory of Neocaesarea on Bolshaya Polyanka, the peacock eye friezes on the cathedral in Izmailovo and many other miraculously preserved examples of architectural ceramics of the prolific master are impressive.

In the last decade of the 17th century, Moscow, as if anticipating the imminent birth of a new capital on the Neva, sought to adorn itself with exquisite temples and residential buildings. St. Basil's Cathedral, which had recently been whitewashed, was colored. Pointed tents grew on the Kremlin towers. When constructing buildings, Russian architects tried to decorate them as magnificently as possible. Moscow architects of this period are concerned about the "sculptural" appearance of the building, the complexity of its silhouette.

One of the last monuments of the capital's tilers was the Krutitsky Teremok, completely lined with multi-colored tiles. Hundreds of tiles with bizarre floral ornaments made up a huge carpet with a unique pattern on the facade of the building. The window frames are also made of clay and covered with colored glaze. They are made in the tradition of fashionable woodcarving in the form of twisted vines. On sunny days, when green, yellow, white, blue and brown highlights flashed, the tower looked like a precious piece of jewelry.
The Krutitsy Terem became the last and most colorful monument of Boyar Russia.

Yaroslavl tiles

Perhaps there is no other city in Russia where architectural ceramics would find such a wide and widespread application. Yaroslavl was the second most important city after Moscow, and the wealth accumulated in Yaroslavl exceeded the size of the state treasury. There was a frank rivalry between Moscow and Yaroslavl, and the coincidence of the tastes of the masters and customers led to the fact that the features of folk art. The art of polychrome tiles reached its peak in Yaroslavl.

Yaroslavl craftsmen created their own color scheme and a recognizable typically Yaroslavl pattern. Almost all Yaroslavl tiles have a single compositional principle: a multi-colored rosette, painted different colors. There are six types of rosettes in total: four with eight large petals, one with six and one with twelve.

Yaroslavl potters were ahead of their time in the use of glazed bricks - only today this technique is used widely and everywhere. The Yaroslavl people covered the side of the brick with watering, applying a number of colored rhombuses to it. Ribbons of such elegant bricks border wide tiled cornices with relief floral ornaments. There is an opinion that the intricate patterns of tiled architraves came from precious oriental carpets, often found in Yaroslavl from Asia along the busy trade road - the Volga.

Northern tiles. Veliky Ustyug

Veliky Ustyug, located between Moscow and Arkhangelsk, was the largest trade center in which trade routes crossed west to Europe, east to Siberia and China, and south to Persia.
The rich merchants of Veliky Ustyug created their own production of tiles, in the image and likeness of the Stroganov tiles, brought by the Stroganov merchants for the construction of the Vvedensky Church. At the crossroads of trade routes, the artistic traditions of old Russia met, Western Europe and the East, which had a noticeable influence on the work of local artists and artisans.

Ustyug churches were decorated first of all with tiles. The temple of Simeon the Stylite, built in 1725 in the Baroque style, attracts attention. Numerous semi-columns and pilasters on the walls of the temple are crowned with green tiled capitals of the Corinthian order. The white rectangles of the pilasters enliven the red brick wall, and on a sunny day, the tiles create such a festive play of highlights that neither marble nor carved stone is capable of.

silver Age

The Renaissance of tiles in Russia coincided with the Art Nouveau period in art. Probably the main speaker Silver Age was the outstanding artist Mikhail Vrubel, who saw artificial colored stones in majolica and tiles, fascinating with their play of highlights and halftones. Vrubel interpreted the ancient material in a completely new way and, together with the chemist-technologist Pyotr Vaulin, restored the lustration technology, forgotten since the 16th century. He created several stoves in the house of Savva Ignatievich Mamontov, which were miraculously saved from destruction in 1964 by V. A. Nevsky, an enthusiast and employee of the Abramtsevo Museum.

At night, V. A. Nevsky guarded the house and stoves, and during the day he carefully dismantled them, numbering each tile, in order to take them to Abramtsevo and collect them there. As a result, today everyone can see the creations of Mikhail Vrubel. Creations about which A. M. Gorky wrote: “The majolica ovens of Savva Mamontov are wonderful. Majolica is the most artistic form of pottery.".

You can read more about Vrubel's majolica in our article. "Abramtsevo ceramic workshop". About another outstanding ceramist of the Silver Age - Petr Vaulin - you can read in our article " Peter Vaulin - the revival of Russian majolica".

The article uses the materials of the art historian Yu. M. Ovsyannikov from his book "Solar Tiles" and the album "Russian Tiles".

If you are interested in lining the stove with tiles, then it will be useful to learn as much useful information about this material as possible. Real tile is the most complex and expensive facing material to manufacture.
As far as history is concerned, stove tiles known from the 2nd millennium BC, these are actual references, but for sure, they appeared even earlier. Now the trend of reviving old traditions is relevant, therefore, tiles are again returning to the interiors of modern houses.

What are tiles?

The meaning of the word (etymology) is interpreted by many in different ways, but it came from the old word “to express”, i.e. to cut. In essence, tiles are baked clay tiles (ceramics), which differ from others in their configuration, namely, the presence of a ramp.

Rumpa, what is it and why is it needed?

Rump tile (see. Fig.) Is a box-shaped ledge on the reverse (rear) side of the tiled tile. Rump gives the tile strength and increases the heat capacity of the oven. In size, it is slightly smaller than the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe product.

It is this key feature that makes ceramic tiles the ideal facing material for home stoves and fireplaces.

The same hollow structure is also characteristic of tiled decorative elements for cladding walls, facades, fireplaces and stoves.

Advantages of tiles over tiles

• strength and rigidity. Achieved due to the thickness of the product - a tile is 2 times thicker than a ceramic tile;

• ability to withstand any temperature;

• resistance to temperature extremes;

• heat storage. A well-heated stove is able to give off heat during the day;

• environmental friendliness. It is achieved due to the fact that clay is used in the production, and also due to the fact that dust does not linger on the surface of the tiles (in particular, glazed ones). It does not burn and does not emit substances harmful to users;

• ease of care;

• fuel economy. The tiller chamber retains heat for a long time, thereby reducing fuel consumption and increasing the duration of heating;

• exclusion of the possibility of getting a burn on contact with the surface of the furnace. Due to the inner chamber, the temperature of the tiled stove (outer walls) is not high;

• low rate of moisture absorption;

• the heat generated by a tiled stove is comparable to the sun;

• long service life, proven by practice;

• historical value. Ancient tiles are well preserved in the estates of the Russian nobility. And today, many users strive to make housing in a traditional style.

Of course, the aesthetic properties of tiles are beyond competition. Due to the variety of their types, any design project can be translated into reality. A tiled stove will perfectly fit into any design - from classic to modern. Even laconic hi-tech could not resist the charm of stove tiles.

Tiled stove in the interior - photo

Types of tiles for stoves and fireplaces

1. By shape

The tile on the stove can only be laid whole, otherwise its unique heat storage properties will be reduced to zero. Therefore, from the point of view of the form for tiles, there are three main elements:

• flat (front). Are intended for facing of equal surfaces;

• angular. Accordingly, for facing corners;

• shaped. They allow to veneer protruding parts (for example, cornices) and highlight zones. Mainly used as decorative tiles.

The variety of tile shapes is not limited to standard elements, there are different options (as in the picture)

2. According to the structure of the front surface

Embossed;
- smooth.

The material was prepared for the site www.site

3. By type of surface

Glazed (glossy);

not glazed (matte, terracotta). This type is distinguished by a lower price compared to glazed products.

4. By the presence of a drawing:

With an image;

- without picture.

5. According to the style of the ornament

The theme of the drawings and the color scheme of the tiles convey the spirit of the country in which they were created.

They have a characteristic blue color scheme on a snow-white background. Of the motifs, sea and steppe landscapes, ships, mills, shepherdesses, etc. predominate.

. They are influenced by oriental arts. Complex ornaments reflect the way of life of the East. . They are distinguished by the clarity of the lines and the conciseness of the pattern. German-made tiles have the greatest dimensional stability and practically do not need additional processing before facing. . They amaze with a riot of colors and a variety of ornaments and patterns. Different regions have their own styles of creating patterns and reliefs on tiles. . One of the brightest representatives of Russian ceramics. Their difference is in a complex pattern and muted colors.

6. By size

It is worth noting that the size of the tiles for each manufacturer may vary. It has to do with production technology. However, tiled tiles correspond to the dimensions:

• tile thickness 45-50 mm;

• dimensions of a square tile (length-width) 200x200, 220x220, rectangular 205x130 mm.

These indicators are regulated by GOST 3742-47.

7. By the look of the rump

simple. Rump has an inclined cut;

with rim. The presence of a side makes fasteners more convenient (due to the presence of mounting holes in them) and reliable. There are rumps with a more complex configuration of the side and the presence of several cameras.

The most popular type of product among users today is considered to be a glazed tile with a printed pattern.

Tiled tile production technology

Conclusion

Decorating stoves with tiles in the house is a great way to combine practical with pleasant - heating and decorative decoration of the room.

Tiled art and architectural ceramics have existed in Russia for more than ten centuries. The earliest Russian tiles date back to the 10th century. The 17th century was the peak of tiled art in Russia.

Early stoves were decorated with terracotta and glazed tiles, often the stove was assembled from self-supporting tiles, and eventually the concept of “tiled stove” appeared, suggesting that tiles are the main building material of such a stove.

Many multi-colored and glazed tiles adorned Russian stoves. The Moscow Kremlin has a large collection of Russian tiled stoves. Very interesting tiled stoves are installed in the Novodevichy Convent, in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.

In general, many of them have survived in varying degrees of preservation, largely due to the selfless devotion of museum staff and restorers.

One of the largest collections of Russian tiled stoves is located in Kolomenskoye, where MGOMZ restorers carried out very high-quality reconstructions. These stoves have become a symbol and a colorful monument of Boyar Russia - an era that perished in the time of Peter the Great.

The Russian stove underwent cardinal changes at the beginning of the 18th century with the decree of Peter the Great, which prohibited the construction of kurny (stoked "black") fire-hazardous stoves, which was very timely, since fires caused great damage.

At the same time, the first regulation was issued for the construction of stoves in residential buildings and the industrial production of bricks, tiles and other stove elements.

In the same period, at the behest of Peter, the production of new “Dutch” tiles for Russia was launched - white “tiles” with cobalt painting. Peter's order sounded: "immediately make smooth white stove tiles in the Swedish manner, and blue grass over them."

OLD TILE STOVES IN EUROPE: CZECH REPUBLIC, POLAND, AUSTRIA, LITHUANIA, GERMANY

This article is devoted to European ancient tiled stoves, preserved in numerous castles scattered across the picturesque hills of Europe. The story will be about tiled stoves in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Austria and Lithuania. These stoves are not at all like the old Russian tiled stoves, although they have a lot in common. However, they are unusually beautiful and we want to show them to you on the pages of our site. Well, at the same time to tell a little about the estates themselves and the buildings where these furnaces are located.

The Zinkov Castle was built by the Drslavice family in 1192 as a fortress. Initially, the castle had two defensive towers and two residential buildings. The founder of the castle, Ulrich Zinkov, lived in it until the beginning of the 13th century. In the 13th century, he built a second Potensten castle nearby. During its history, the Zinkov Castle has changed hands many times.

The castle has a perfectly preserved tiled stove, in the Renaissance style, made in the technique of Italian majolica, and probably related to the period of rebuilding the house by the Klenovs in 1679. The tiled lining of the stove has absolutely amazing bas-reliefs with half-naked female sculptures, the richest relief tiles with floral ornaments, flowerpots and grotesques.

Ploskovice Castle in Bohemia is very interesting. The history of its foundation refers to the Hussite revolutionary movements of 1424-1440. Then there was the first mention of this estate in connection with the stop of Emperor Sigismund in Ploskovice, in order to create the headquarters of the crusader army in the Czech Republic there.

In its present form, the castle was founded by the architect Octaviano Brigioni in 1720 by order of the mistress of the local estate, Princess Anna Marie Francis of Tuscany. Approximately in 1730, this elegant baroque house was built. A tiled stove in the same style has been preserved in the building. Its safety, unfortunately, leaves much to be desired and it is not active, however, the amazingly thin monograms and sculpture are completely preserved, as well as the glaze on the surface of the ceramics.

Carefully preserved fragments of stove tiles from the house of A.V. Fedoseev, a master from the dynasty of iconostasis masters and icon painters (Museum of the History of Faith in Cherdyn)

But most of all I was impressed, of course, by ribbons made of old tiles that decorate the cathedrals in Solikamsk

Cathedral of the Epiphany

Holy Trinity Cathedral

I would like to learn more about the old tiles.
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The tile itself has been known in Russia since the 16th century. At first, terracotta (red) tiles were made. They have not yet been glazed, but they are interesting primarily for their variety of subject images, beauty and naive boldness of compositions.

Then ant tiles appeared in Pskov - covered with green transparent glaze - glaze. From there they came to Moscow in the first half of the 17th century. The green (gritted) tile gained full strength both in the lining of stoves and in the outer ceramic decoration of buildings only in the middle of the 17th century.
The tile is stored in the State Historical Museum in Moscow

Polychrome (multicolor) tiles in architectural ceramics made themselves known in Moscow in the middle of the 16th century, when tile products of unprecedented beauty and form appeared on some Moscow, as well as in nearby cities.

Multi-colored enameled tile with a relief image of a bird "looking around" in a patterned frame, from the Church of St. Sergius in Nizhny Novgorod.

Multicolored enameled tile with a relief image of the Sirin bird on the St. Sergius Church in Nizhny Novgorod

Four multicolored enameled tiles with a relief image of birds in patterned medallions on the St. Sergius Church in Nizhny Novgorod

Multicolored enameled tile with a relief bird-sirin on the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in Uglich.

In the second half of the 17th century, terracotta, engraved and multicolored items were simultaneously made.
In the 17th century, the production of red, embossed and multicolored relief tiles spread throughout the central part of the Russian state. The leading beginning in these years belonged to Moscow, the capital was followed by Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Kaluga. At the end of the 17th - the first half of the 18th centuries, tile production was organized in St. Petersburg, Alexander Sloboda, the Trinity-Sergius Monastery and in cities far from the capital: Balakhna, Solikamsk, Veliky Ustyug and Totma.
Each district and city had its own traditional pattern, its own favorite combinations of colors.
Balakhna, a settlement on the Volga near Nizhny Novgorod, was famous for its tiles. Colorful Balakhna tiles with reliefs of bizarre, often fairy-tale birds were a "hot commodity" at the annual Volga fairs.
Each of the depicted birds stands in the middle of the tile in a frame of curls cunningly woven together.

The drawing is distinguished by elastic, clear lines, accentuated color, the composition is harmonious and balanced.

Tiles made by Ural masters in the 17th century have their own characteristic features.

Northern tile production began at the end of the 16th century in Orel-Gorodok on the Kama (10 km from Usolye), one of the northern strongholds during the period of Russian penetration into the Urals and Siberia. After the transfer of Orel-Gorodok to the left, higher bank of the Kama in 1706, tile production moved to Solikamsk.
Clear elastic lines of the picture with a low relief, harmonious composition, clean green color with unexpected bursts of blue and yellow - all this is typical for tiles produced in the Urals.
The plot of the design of the tiles of the Church of the Epiphany and the Trinity Cathedral resembles "" Balakha tiles "".

A large bird with an open beak - "look around". She looked back - turned her head to a flying tiny bird, a messenger.

The tawny owl, according to legend, pecks out its breast to feed its chicks.

An image of a raven carrying a cob in its paw, resting its other paw on some bizarre flower.

Fairytale firebird - peacock with loose tail

a similar motif is also found in gingerbread boards ( Museum of Local Lore Usolie)

There is also an overseas curiosity - a turkey

Each of the birds stands in the center of the tile, framed by an intricate floral ornament. The pattern of the frame is thought out in such a way that when the tiles are laid out mixed up, all the curls are combined into a common composition. As conceived by the master, separate tiles, folded together, make up a continuous colorful ribbon - ""rapport"". Ribbons encircle the temple in two or three tiers, and in sunlight give the impression of elegance, festivity.

furnaces can tell us about the life and life of people from different periods. After all, ceramic decoration came to us from ancient times and has been preserved on many hearths due to its unique properties. And tiled stoves and fireplaces in ancient buildings served as an integral element of the heating system. Some of them were used for their intended purpose, while some acted as a decorative element to mask the heating pipes that distribute heat from the central firebox.

But often they all served as interior decoration, and in castles, palaces and estates of noble and wealthy people they were a sign of well-being. For this reason, the best craftsmen were involved in their decoration, the most expensive materials and the latest painting trends were used. But there are some Tiled Stoves that deserve special attention, they can tell us a little more than others.

History in stove tiles: photo of mural with historical value

The first tiled stove that I want to talk about is located in the Latvian Jaunmoku castle. The Neo-Gothic castle was built in 1901 as a hunting residence for the mayor of Riga, George Armistead. The building is an architectural monument and today it is the Forest Museum, so everyone can get acquainted with the stove tiles not only in the photo, but also see it with their own eyes.

The tiled stove, made by the Celms and Bems factory, is located on the second floor of the castle. It serves not only as an interior decoration, but also as a historical reminder. The tile decoration dedicated to the 700th anniversary of Riga consists of 130 ceramic tiles depicting about 50 different views of the old city and its environs. Pictures of streets and squares, architectural structures and Latvian nature are reminiscent of old photographs and very well convey not only historical facts but also the spirit of that time.

Photo: Tiled stove made in honor of the 700th anniversary of Riga

Photo: stove tiles depicting old Riga, 1901

Photo: Tiles on the oven of Jaunmoku Castle, Latvia

Another stove with historical overtones of tile painting is located in the Czech castle Orlik. The construction of the castle and the emergence of its unusual name is associated with a legend. The story tells of a cruel ataman who led a gang of robbers operating in the forests in the south of the Czech Republic. One day, returning from his trade, the ataman did not find his beloved son. A long search yielded no results, and the heartbroken father fell asleep not far from a rock on the banks of the Vltava River. In the morning, the ataman was awakened by a child's cry, which led him to the eagle's nest on the top of the rock. Having returned his son, the ataman decided once and for all to say goodbye to his life of robbers and built a defensive fortress together with his gang. And it was this fortress that was reconstructed in the 14th century into a beautiful Gothic stone castle.

In the middle of the 19th century, a tiled stove appeared, capturing the legend in its lining. Like the interior of Orlik Castle, the stove is made in neo-Gothic style. Ceramic tiles resemble a fairy-tale book with bright color pictures. And green tiles with embossed ornaments frame its pages like a colorful flyleaf. The text fragments of the painting amaze with the subtlety of the work of the ceramists of that time.

Folk wisdom in pictures on tiled stoves

In the period of the 17th-19th centuries, tiles for stoves and fireplaces with a plot painting became popular. Such images convey to us the features of the relationship and life of people of that time. Sometimes the tiles are real study guide, as in the case of the stove in the Yusupov Palace, which we met earlier. And some specimens even carry philosophical judgments and folk wisdom immortalized in ceramics by masters.

Tiles with written notes can be found on stoves in the Bishops' Chambers. This is a whole complex of buildings in the Suzdal Kremlin, which was intended for church supremacy. The buildings were erected during the XV-XVII centuries. At the end of the 17th-beginning of the 18th century, the separate buildings of the complex were united. In the same period, the Cross Chamber was built on the second floor for solemn events and receiving guests. The room is the most luxurious and magnificent hall.

Two baroque-type Dutch tiled stoves that heated the Cross Chamber appeared in the middle of the 18th century. Their ceramic finish is similar. The main elements are decorated with a plot painting with a small text accompaniment. Only the color of the painting pigment differs: blue and brown.

Photo: tiled stoves of the Cross Chamber, Suzdal

Photo: stove tiles, mid-18th century.

Similar tiles can be seen in the Kostroma Ipatiev Monastery. Such a stove adorns the Chambers of the Romanov boyars. Its appearance dates back to the 19th century and is associated with the restructuring of monastic cells into royal chambers under the guidance of architect Fyodor Fyodorovich Richter. Text fragments and plots of this ceramic decoration are closer to religious dogmas, and some of them even quote Holy Scripture. This is due to the fact that the painting was carried out by church masters.

Photo: stove tile, mid-19th century

For example, the stove tile in the photo reads "Mercy and Truth meet," which means "Mercy and Truth will meet." It is about the mercy and justice of the Lord on the Day of Judgment. At the top of the tile is a bag, symbolizing the actions and deeds of a person throughout life. And for every person there is a question whether the scales with a bag outweigh the bowl filled with water of divine mercy.

The picture on the tiled stove in the photo is titled "I'm drying up with you." Everyone knows the biblical symbolism, personifying universal evil in the form of a serpent. So here we see how evil destroys all life in its path. A person shrouded in evil dries up like a tree that has turned into a lifeless snag in the arms of a snake.

It is amazing how unusual and diverse the tiled decoration of stoves can be. Thanks to the painstaking work of masters in ceramics, pages of history, myths and legends, the wisdom of centuries, cultural values, traditions and even religious dogmas can freeze. The ceramic lining of the hearth can not only please the eye, but also be filled with content and depth.

The considered creations are not united neither by the time or place of their creation, nor by the origin or culture of their creators. They can be equated only by one expressive feature - an embedded part of the soul of the masters. These kilns are further proof that ceramics is an immortal art that can speak, convey thoughts and make you think.