Khokhloma is an old Russian folk craft. Khokhloma toys and dishes - a tradition that has become modernity

Khokhloma - old Russian folk craft, which arose in the 17th century in the Volga region (the village of Semino, Nizhny Novgorod province). This is perhaps the most famous type of Russian folk painting. It is a decorative painting on wooden utensils and furniture, made in red and black (rarely green) tones and gold on a golden background. It is surprising that when painting a tree, not gold, but silver tin powder is applied. Then the product is covered special composition and three to four times processed in an oven. Then this delightful honey-gold color appears, thanks to which light wooden the dishes look massive. Traditional Khokhloma ornament - juicy red strawberries and mountain ash, flowering branches. Birds, fish and all sorts of animals are less common.
Initially, the word Khokhloma meant the name of one of the trading villages. Here, craftsmen from the surrounding villages brought their products. It was the time of the revival of Russia, which came after the liberation from the devastating Tatar-Mongol yoke, the time of renovation of temples and churches. Folk crafts have become a new source of livelihood. The new craft united the centuries-old traditions of local residents and refugees, especially the Old Believers.
The folk craft has been constantly developing. Already at the end of the 19th century, Khokhloma was presented at every domestic and foreign fair. And after the unprecedented success at the International Exhibition in Paris, the export of Khokhloma has grown dramatically to various countries. Trading firms in Germany, England, France and India bought especially much. Even one of the German entrepreneurs took up the production of wooden spoons, which he passed off as Khokhloma. Since the beginning of the 20th century, folk crafts have experienced a crisis caused byWorld and civil wars. Because of this, many craftsmen lost orders and closed their workshops. V Soviet time Khokhloma received a second wind, a new generation of craftsmen appeared. And now Khokhloma is "returning" to us in Russia and the world.

Legend of "Khokhloma"

More recently, in the villages of the Gorky region, one could hear the legend of how Khokhloma came to the Volga land and where she got her fiery colors.

They say that a master icon painter lived in Moscow in ancient times. The king highly appreciated his skills and generously rewarded him for his efforts. The master loved his craft, but most of all he loved the free life, and therefore one day he secretly left the royal court and moved to the remote Kerzhen forests.

He cut down his hut and began to do the same business. He dreamed of such an art that would become dear to everyone, like a simple Russian song, and that the beauty of his native land would be reflected in it. And so the first Khokhloma cups appeared, decorated with lush flowers and thin twigs.

The fame of the great master spread throughout the earth. People came from everywhere to admire his skill. Many cut huts here and settled nearby.

Finally, the glory of the master reached the formidable sovereign, and he ordered a detachment of archers to find the fugitive and bring him. But faster than the archer's feet, popular rumor flew. The master found out about his trouble, gathered fellow villagers and revealed to them the secrets of his craft. And in the morning, when the royal messengers entered the village, everyone saw how the hut of the miracle artist was burning with a bright flame. The hut burned down, and no matter how they searched for the master himself, they were not found anywhere. Only its colors remained on the ground, which seemed to absorb both the heat of the flame and the blackness of the ashes.

The master has disappeared, but his skill has not disappeared, and Khokhloma colors still burn with a bright flame, reminding everyone of the happiness of freedom, and the heat of love for people, and the thirst for beauty. It can be seen that the master's brush was not simple - a brush made of sunlight.

Such is the legend. Like any legend, there is a lot of fiction in it, but its truth is that great skill and great art are preserved only when they are passed from hand to hand, from teacher to student.

Making "Golden Khokhloma"

Russia is a country of forests. Here, both huts and rich mansions were cut from wood. Logs burning hot in the oven and a splinter inserted into the light warmed and illuminated the hut. Sledges, sledges, firewood, a cart - a simple transport, canoes, boats, plows, boats and other river vessels - everything was made of wood.

The most ancient letters are birch bark letters written on pieces of birch bark, and the most familiar peasant shoes in the past are bast shoes woven from the inside of the linden bark - bast, wooden furniture, dishes, household utensils, children's toys - everything tells us about big role forests in the life of a Russian person.

Zavolzhie, rich in forests, was especially famous for its masters of woodworking. Since ancient times, light and durable dishes have been made here from aspen and linden.

The tree was chopped and hewn with axes, sawn into small logs - buckwheat, recessed parts of objects were hollowed out with an adze, and the rest was finished with a knife. At the spoon created hand tools, often not quite the right shape, on its surface you can see humps, dents, a faceted handle. All these are traces of the work of the carver, each of his spoons is the only one, none of them exactly repeats the other.

The dishes were turned and lathe. The machine was manual, water or driven by a horse. The dishes made on a lathe have a smooth and smooth surface, geometrically correct shape. each spoon turned by a turner exactly repeats the other in shape.

Simple bowls, cups, supplies can be carved by every trained turner. More complex forms - ladles - ducks, ladles - roosters are not carved by every master, but an artist is a craftsman, a person who feels the laws of building a fine, beautiful form.

Turned products with a delicate, slightly pinkish surface of the treated wood are called"linen".

Despite the fact that Khokhloma objects are made of wood, it is never visible, and the golden surface or patterns on the colored background of the products cast a soft metallic sheen.

Gold - noble beautiful material- Rarely found in nature. Already in very ancient times, gold was used to create jewelry and dishes. In Russia, it was served at rich royal meals and boyar feasts. In addition, dyed, most often red-colored dishes were painted with gold leaf or crafted gold.

Leaf is called very thin leaves of this metal, which are carefully glued to pre-marked places, and created - fine gold powder, diluted with a special solution. It was applied like paint with a brush. These techniques were known to icon painters and miniaturists - masters who decorated handwritten books with drawings and ornaments. Objects and icons gilded in this way were cheaper than those made entirely of gold.

Masters - icon painters invented another way of "cheap" gilding: they covered with drying oil - boiled linseed oil- leaves of silver and silver glued to the surface of the icon. The yellow film of dried drying oil on silver was very similar to gold. Peasant craftsmen began to cover with drying oil not silver, but tin - a silvery, quite common metal. And so the golden Khokhloma dishes appeared on the peasant table.

Golden, red and black - you can find such a combination of colors on many objects of Old Russian applied arts and works of folk artists. For "Khokhloma" these colors are especially important: red gives warmth and softness to artificial gold, and black enhances its radiance. In addition, the round surfaces of objects do not have sharp contours and scatter light.

Fishing technology

So, we now know the secret of Khokhloma gold. But, it turns out, before becoming gold, "Khokhloma" is both silver and clay.

The first of these mugs is called "linen". First, it is dried and then polished - all small roughnesses are removed with a special sandpaper or on a machine, and then from the realm of golden shavings it gets to the dyer. The dried and polished product must be prepared for painting. First, it is coated with linseed oil, and then with a special composition - vape or soil . Modern masters call the imposition of soil - vapes primer . Vapa is reddish - Brown because it contains clay. A mug smeared with vape looks like a clay mug - under a dense layer of soil, a tree is not visible at all.

The primed product was dried in an oven, then polished, and its surface became smooth and glossy. After that, the mug was smeared several times with drying oil - so that the soil was soaked and a sticky varnish film appeared on its surface. This film adheres easily. noon - powdered metal. In the old days, tin served as half-day, and now it is aluminum, a silvery, light and cheap material.

Rubbing the poluda is called tinned . The tinned mug looks like a silver mug: half-hearth covered the wood with an even layer, and it seems that the mug is cast from metal - it shines with a matte silver sheen.

And only now the brush of a master dyer can touch it. Artists work smartly and diligently. Their usual tools are thin brushes, which they often make themselves from squirrel tails,"bobbleheads" (a piece of sheep's wool wrapped around a stick, or a mushroom - a raincoat) and small jars of paints.

So, the silvery tinned theft is painted. The dyer has finished his work and has already laid the last stroke of paint. Well, what about gold? When will the product shimmering with a cold metallic sheen sparkle with a joyful golden color? This last sacrament is in charge of the lachila and the stove-maker. Previously, a painted product was covered with several layers of varnish - drying oil, and then hardened in an oven at a rather high temperature. And now hand-lacquered objects are hardened in an electric furnace at a temperature of 160 - 180 degrees.

Modern lacquers cover the product with synthetic yellow varnish from spray guns. Under a film of hardened varnish, everything that was silver in the painting becomes gold.

Khokhloma patterns

A familiar three-legged shaggy leaf, a touching star of a flower, a curved twig and, of course, it is a small drop of forest sweetness - a strawberry.

Khokhloma artists like to draw strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, black and red currants, mountain ash on the surfaces of their products. They call the berries affectionately, and even the same master will never write them the same way: he will slightly change the outline of the sheet, bend the twigs in a different way, scatter flowers and berries - and now the same motif will speak to us in a new way.

In this variety of ornamental motifs, the richness of the artist's creative imagination, and his skill, and his powers of observation are manifested.

Khokhloma images are decorative - they are in the very general view convey the beauty of life. These are ornaments - decorations of objects. And that is why artists create the impression of constant fluidity and changeability of life by changing their ornamental motif.

The pattern of flowers, herbs and berries is called vegetable ornament. But there are several types of this ornament in Khokhloma painting. The most beloved and ancient of them -"grass ornament", or just "weed" . These are elongated, slightly curved blades of grass, written in threes, fives or more - in a bush. "Grass" remotely resembles a sedge inhabitant of water meadows, coastal lakes and rivers. One of the types of this ornament is called"sedge" . But still, it resembles this living grass very remotely, or, as the artists say, the form of real grass in this ornament is generalized - the artist retained only its most general and main features.

Weed is usually written in red and black. Its main wide and long leaves are juicy, because a lot of paint is taken on the brush, and it lies tightly on the surface of the object. The tips of the leaves are written thinly, they curl, as if bending from the wind. Thin and frequent strokes - blades of grass on the sides of the main bush and beads - berries on long stems make this painting especially lively and elegant.

"Weed" - independent type murals, but it is an indispensable part of any Khokhloma floral ornament. Very often, among the bushes and twigs of black, red, green or yellow grass, the artist places berries, flowers, birds and fish. Such an ornament is also called "herbal", or the name of a berry or flower.

Like a fiery wheel, the most beautiful ornament "gingerbread" rolls along the bottom of the bowls.

Khokhloma murals adorn objects - bowls, ladles, vases, rounded bodies that seem to tell the artist where to bend the twig, where to scatter berries. We say: painting is subject to the form of the object.

For a long time in Russia, images were considered a wish for good, prosperity and happiness. flowering bushes and fruits. This wonderful tradition is preserved today by Khokhloma artists, decorating ordinary objects with elegant paintings. And with them, beauty and joy come to our house, which are generously given to us by craftsmen.

Khokhloma is an old Russian folk craft that was born in the 17th century in the district of Nizhny Novgorod. It is one of the most famous types of Russian folk painting. Khokhloma is a decorative painting of wooden utensils and furniture, made in black and red (and, occasionally, green) on a golden background. When painting a tree, not gold, but silver tin powder is applied to the tree. After that, the product is covered with a special composition and processed three or four times in an oven, which achieves a unique honey-gold color, giving a massive effect to light wooden utensils. Traditional Khokhloma ornaments are red juicy berries of mountain ash and strawberries, flowers and branches. Often there are birds, fish and other animals. Initially, the word Khokhloma meant the name of one of the trading villages, to which craftsmen from the surrounding area brought their products. Khokhloma products organically live in modern life and are favorite Russian souvenirs. They enjoy great success at domestic and foreign exhibitions, where they are deservedly awarded with high awards.Chapter 1. Khokhloma as a native Russian artThe art of Khokhloma was formed as a precious fusion of the artistic traditions of folk crafts and ornamental painting Ancient Russia. Its origins date back to the period of the 17th - 18th centuries, when settlers rushed to the forests of the Trans-Volga region, hiding from political and religious persecutions and taking part in the local craft of wooden turning utensils. Among them were experienced painters. From ancient crafts, Khokhloma inherited the classical forms of wooden turning products and clear rhythms of ornament. The pictorial mastery of Ancient Russia enriched her with drawings of plant motifs and techniques for their free execution with a brush. It also contributed to the formation of the original technique of "gold coloring" of products, which distinguished Khokhloma from other crafts. The basic principles of the Khokhloma technique of "gilding" wood are preserved to this day. Semifinished wooden products primed, and a thin layer of metallic aluminum powder is applied to it, on the shiny silvery surface of which painting is made. When the paints are dried, the products are varnished and subjected to "hardening" in the oven, during which the varnish film darkens, acquiring a yellowish-brown hue, and the silvery surface of the product, translucent under its layer, becomes similar to gold. Different types of Khokhloma ornament - riding "grass" writing, painting "under the background", "Kudrina" - go back in their origins to the art of Ancient Russia. The "grass" ornament is characterized by a combination of a pattern made in red and black with a golden surface of the background. His motifs are executed with light elongated strokes, the rhythmic arrangement of which makes them look like leaves and grass stems. A variety of riding "grass" painting is painting "under the leaf" with green, yellow or brown rounded leaves and red circles of berries. Painting "under the background" is characterized by a combination of golden silhouettes of the ornament with a painted background surface. When it is executed, the contour outlines of the drawing are first applied, and then the background surrounding them is painted over. Finishing the painting, the master “enlivens” the silhouette forms of leaves, flowers and fruits with strokes, enriches them with color cutting and makes light herbal “additions” around the stems on the background surface. The “Kudrin” drawing is a kind of painting “under the background”. It is also characterized by golden silhouettes surrounded by a colored background. Performing "Kudrina", the craftsmen apply a peculiar pattern on the surface of the products, in which the pattern of leaves, flowers and fruits is made up of rounded "curly" curls. The Khokhloma master never exactly repeats the pattern. His work is based on the constant improvisation of new variants of the ornament. In the work of the Khokhloma Artist team, adherence to traditions is combined with bold innovation. Each of the masters has individual perception ornament and originality of handwriting. The assortment of the factory includes a variety of products that have received practical use in modern life: sets for holiday table, tourist breakfast, painted spoons, boxes for needlework accessories and women's jewelry, powder boxes, glasses for brushes and pencils, vases, wall decorative plates and panels, painted furniture. artist of the RSFSR Olga Pavlovna Lushina. Our gallery includes the most interesting of her works in the field of "grass" ornament, painting "under the background" and "Kudrin".

Khokhloma is a colloquial term for painted items, a traditional Russian folk craft. Decorated most often wooden utensils. A golden background or a golden ornament, combined with rich saturated colors and ornate painting technology, made it possible to create a truly spectacular product.

The history of the fishery

The craft arose in the second half of the 17th century in the villages of the Volga region. Khokhloma is a major sales center, “gave” the corresponding name to the painting. Characteristic– gilding of wooden surfaces and generous decoration with various patterns. The free brush style made it possible to work in two key directions at once: background painting and riding composition.

There were many villages on the left bank of the Volga, where fishing flourished. Residents of the villages of Glibino, Khryashchi, Shabashi, Bezdely, Mokushino brought goods to Khokhloma for sale. The true homeland of Khokhloma is the Koverninsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod region.

Coloring "under gold" is often associated with the Old Believers of the Volga region. They persecuted the "old faith" and settled in more dense forests. There were many talented artists among them, who painted icons and decorated ancient books using fine brush drawings. The inhabitants of the Volga region succeeded in turning business and woodcarving. The fusion of the two traditions gave rise to the birth of the Khokhloma craft. He absorbed the rich presentation and pretentiousness of icon painters, as well as the traditional forms and impeccable lines of the Trans-Volga masters.

There are also some beautiful legends. One of them is about the icon painter Andrei Loskut, who at one time fled the capital because of the reforms of the patriarch. He found shelter in the dense forest and continued to paint icons “in the old fashioned way. However, the patriarch was informed about the whereabouts of the fugitive and that he teaches the “old” icon painting of the inhabitants of nearby villages. The rebel icon painter voluntarily burned himself at the stake, before that bequeathing to his students to preserve his skill.

According to another legend, an unknown master lived in the thicket of the forest, with whom he himself came up with such a luxurious letter on wood. From time to time, he presented the inhabitants of nearby villages with his creations. After some time, the fame of the marvelous master reached the king. He immediately sent his subordinates to the forest to bring the Khokhloma founder to the chambers. However, the master did not want to submit to the king. The talented stranger was never found. So y ordinary people and did not take away a simple trade.

Khokhloma painting colors

(painting on a white background)

Traditional Khokhloma creations are somewhat paradoxical: the masters managed to create really complex compositions with the help of a rather meager palette of colors. Wealth and interesting texture were formed due to the obligatory golden base. "Under gold" was either a background, or key elements ornament.

(painting on a black background)

Other central colors of the palette are black and red. It was possible to give completeness and versatility to the drawing through the use of white color and ocher.

(painting on an allom red background)

Murals on a turquoise, emerald, orange, scarlet background were much less common. The true goal of any Khokhloma master is to convey a lofty idea through perfectly matched colors, creating a complex and high-tech play of strokes.

Primary colors

To create paintings "under Khokhloma" use the following colors:

1. Black(#000000);
2. Red(#FF0000);
3. White(#FFFFFF);
4. Orange(#FF4F00);
5. Choice yellow(#FFBA00);
6. Green(#00FF00);
7. Brown(#964B00);
8. Emerald(#50C878);
9. Blue(#00BFFF).

Elements and motifs of Khokhloma painting

Distinguish between "top" and "background" writing. In the first case, the master forms a pattern on a golden background using black, red and white tones. It is on the example of Khokhloma drawings that one can very clearly consider the whole “soul” of the Russian people, a special presentation, a warm and slightly naive life philosophy of an entire people. These are his notorious “grass” and “spikelets”, love for still lifes, where the masters especially generously used bright juicy colors, the ability to create complex compositions through delicate strokes.

(branches and bushes)

grass painting represented by motifs "under the sedge". The oldest type of pattern is written in curls, strokes, small berries, spikelets on a silver-plated background. From individual blades of grass, skilled craftsmen could form the motif of a chicken or a cockerel, which, for example, sits on a branch among dense foliage;

(berries and leaves)

"berry" and "leaf" differs from the previous technique in larger "fat" strokes. Masters form oval leaves, round berries, stylizing compositions with massive plant forms. Particularly popular are patterns with grape bunches or leaves, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, large cherries. On placers of tulips, asters, buttercups, daisies, bluebells, the craftsmen managed to arrange currants, gooseberries and mountain ash;

(stitches and patterns)

"gingerbread" or "gingerbread" usually performed inside cups, dishes, bowls. These are geometric shapes that fit into a square or rhombus. In the center draw the "sun". The periphery of the ornament is enriched with miniature details.

(floral ornaments)

Horse writing is always created with thin, delicate strokes. The composition is light and airy, as if illuminated by a golden glow from within. As a rule, this is a fairly simple way of applying paints, which allows you to improvise to some extent, modify the composition at your own discretion in the midst of work.

With background writing, a canvas with contour lines is initially formed. Then the surrounding background is painted over with red and black paint. Background painting is a more complex and time-consuming process. There is no place for improvisation, and the original idea must be realized exactly as the master came up with at the very beginning.

Khokhloma painting technique

(In the workshop of artistic painting, Semenov, USSR)

Prepared wood products are dried and primed with vapa or liquid clay. Blanks dry for at least 7 hours. Then wooden surface carefully treated with drying oil. In total, the procedure must be repeated 3-4 times during the day.

The next step is tinning. Aluminum powder is rubbed into the wood. The procedure is carried out manually using a leather swab. After that, the products become shiny and ready for painting.

For drawing a picture, only thin brushes of different "calibers" are suitable. The finished drawing is left to dry for a while, and then opened with varnish. The final stage is hardening in an oven at a temperature of +160 degrees. It is then that a luxurious “golden” film is formed.

What is the difference between Khokhloma and Gorodets murals

The unique Khokhloma painting is difficult to confuse with other folk crafts. Masters use exclusively floral ornaments. The key feature of the painting is the golden background. Rich overflows are effectively set off by openwork riding patterns and massive large elements of a red and black palette in the background painting.

(Gorodets painting)

Unlike Khokhloma, Gorodets ornaments have no gold motifs at all. However, against the backdrop of the minimalist color palette of Khokhloma, the masters of Gorodets painting used a lot of colors, playing with shades, overflows, whitening. If situational drawings cannot be found in the painting under Khokhloma, then in the Gorodets craft it was the images of various celebrations, entertainment events and simply images of everyday life that were popular.

These paintings may seem similar only at first glance. Having carefully studied the features of the crafts, it becomes clear that they are fundamentally different from each other.

Khokhloma is an old Russian folk craft that arose in the 17th century in the Nizhny Novgorod province (the village of Semino, Zavolzhye) and to this day is the most famous view Russian folk painting. Art historians believe that the origins of the ornamentation of Khokhloma painting with its peculiar combination of colors (bright scarlet cinnabar, black and gold, curly branches with clusters of berries surrounded by "herbs") should be sought in the ancient Russian decorative culture of the 15th-16th centuries. It was in these centuries that similar color combinations are found in frescoes and icons, in the design of books. It is surprising that when painting a tree, not gold, but silver tin powder is applied. The product itself is coated with a special composition and processed three or four times in an oven. After that, this delightful honey-gold color appears, due to which light wooden utensils seems massive.

Traditional Khokhloma ornament - juicy red strawberries and mountain ash, flowering branches. Birds, fish and all sorts of animals are less common.

Initially, the word Khokhloma meant the name of one of the trading villages, where craftsmen from nearby villages brought their products. It was the time of the revival of Russia, which came after the liberation from the devastating Tatar-Mongol yoke, the time of renovation of temples and churches. Local forests gave shelter to peasants and Old Believers who fled from their owners. This land was poor, and folk crafts became a new source of livelihood. The new craft united the centuries-old traditions of local residents and refugees, especially the Old Believers.

The folk craft has been constantly developing. Already at the end of the 19th century, Khokhloma was presented at every domestic and foreign fair. And after the unprecedented success at the International Exhibition in Paris, the export of Khokhloma has grown dramatically to various countries. Trading firms in Germany, England, France and India bought especially much. Even one of the German entrepreneurs took up the production of wooden spoons, which he passed off as Khokhloma.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, folk crafts have experienced a crisis caused by the World War and the Civil War. Because of this, many craftsmen lost orders and closed their workshops. In Soviet times, Khokhloma received a second wind, a new generation of craftsmen appeared. And now Khokhloma is "returning" to us in Russia and the world.

Khokhloma is in the Russian visual code somewhere between a bear and a balalaika, Kaliningrad amber and Petersburg ballet. This is the most Russian, the most kitsch, the most understandable for outsiders, that we have created and learned to export.

It is very important that the center of Khokhloma production is still in the same place where this craft appeared four centuries ago: in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Kovernino, Zavolzhye, Semenov - in this triangle, lime blanks began to be covered with tin, then with drying oil, then, after firing, with scarlet and black flowers, berries and herbs.

Now the production of Khokhloma is not workshops, but a whole factory - ZAO Khokhloma Painting. Several workshops, a development center, two museums, a canteen and fifteen hundred employees, including more than 400 master artists. At the same time, the process is automated to a minimum: in the production of Khokhloma, there is a very large share of manual, individual work of the master, which cannot be simply replaced by a machine tool. Therefore, the factory is most like a commune of artists who are simply comfortable working together.

How the famous painting is made at the largest Khokhloma factory in Russia - read in our club.

The gates of the factory are already greeted with gold and Slavic script. In my opinion, a wonderful sign for the plant.

Khokhloma in the region began with spoons and spoons, for example, with the legendary (in the sense, mostly fictional) Spoon Seeds, which is represented on the territory of the plant by a delicate peach monument.

Later and more realistic history - the founding of the school artistic processing tree by artist Georgy Matveev. It is from him that the history of the “real” Khokhloma is considered.

The museum has a large exhibition about spoons. Here are the manufacturing steps. The thing on the left is called a buck, hence the expression “beat the bucks” - that is, to mess around, because you don’t need to cut chocks of great talent and attention.

The early racist spoons were like that. Compared to traditional Khokhloma, they are like rock paintings compared to paintings.

Here are modern designs for the Olympics.

Experimental shop at artistic production- How is that? Non-traditional leaf shapes? Inconsistent number of rowan berries? Blue and pink Khokhloma?

Turning and spoon shop. Samples of products that are currently being produced at the factory, and documentation on them.

All products from the photo above are made on a lathe.

Looks like my desk is on deadline big project, only I have printouts, certificates of completion, invoices, press releases, contracts and layouts around me. Very cool workplace.

The blanks are called underwear. Before turning a product from linen, it must lie down for two years.

Master Plyukhina has a day off today.

Small items are sanded in this drum.

Inside - such pieces of sandpaper.

Extractor for wood dust.

Woo! Hoods-and-and! Weird spider, huh?

Not everything can be made on a lathe. Carvers work on complex forms in the carving and ladle department of the shop.

Everything is like two hundred, three hundred, four hundred years ago.

Unless the work is carried out according to the drawing.

The main production is an art workshop. On the diagram technological process one can see how a wooden bowl pretends to be clay (after priming), then metal (after tin coating - tinning). The last step is to apply the label. It consists of three letters, CXP, ("Semenov, Khokhloma painting”), and indicates the authenticity of the product. And the golden color of tin, covered with drying oil (linseed oil), acquires after firing.

Explosive and fire hazardous paint preparation plant. New paints are issued to masters once a week, you always need to paint fresh.

Master at work. On a typical day, all the tables are, of course, occupied.

But today most artists have a day off.

As a rule, masters of painting are women. They say that men simply do not have enough perseverance. I'm probably a man: I would have freaked out after half an hour of such work. Pay attention to the fact that the master is working not on traditional black and red, but on green painting.

Such a painting is called “background of Lyudmila Zykina” and was invented in 2000 specifically as a gift to the singer.

According to traditional technology, the product is first signed and then fired to get a golden background. It is this technology that determines the limited choice of colors: only these pigments do not change during heat treatment. At least that was the case in the past.

Now the technology allows painting after firing. For example, these ladles are first fired and then painted.

And these beauties are already out of the oven.

It is a pity that you can not just buy a golden spoon, dish or duck, without painting. I think they are also very beautiful.

Products with pointed belts

What a workplace!

Many have mirrors on their tables: I think that this is not from vanity, but so that you do not have to constantly twist the product, comparing the ornament on different sides.

On the lampshade it is very convenient to remove excess paint, it seems.

Finished goods.

There are even Khokhloma beads, that's where the small work is!

I began to remember what kind of Khokhloma I have at home. I remembered, of course, the Khokhloma children's table and chair (everyone probably had these), but now they are gone. There is still a jewelry box and a pair of Khokhloma spoons. They are still used: there are recipes where it is specifically written “stir with a wooden spoon”, and this is where they are needed. There are a couple more dishes (they are called “panno” at the enterprise), but they are used, and not hung on the wall.

Do you have Khokhloma at home? Navi or kitsch kitsch? Would you buy it yourself?