The history of the origin and development of woodcarving. Russian folk carving

Woodcarving is a broad concept that covers any kind of work that involves turning a piece of wood into an aesthetic object with the help of a special tool. Woodcarving is almost always aesthetic, and rarely has any functional value, although in some cases it can be functional, as in the case of handmade furniture, special fixtures or cladding. Wood carving has a history of thousands of years, and traces of this art can be found in almost every corner of our planet.

Compared to other types of art, such as stone sculptures, ancient examples of woodcarving are not as widely represented, because over time, wood deteriorates and decays much faster. Some interesting specimens appeared in ancient Egypt. These are, for example, beautiful decorative wooden panels with drawings and inscriptions carved on them, or the famous mummy sarcophagi found in various tombs. A particularly interesting example of carpentry, about 6,000 years old, was found in Egypt. This is a sarcophagus that was made of plane tree wood and decorated with bronze, ebony, rock crystal and quartz.

Christianity contributed to a new round in the development of wood carving, and samples of this time are well preserved to this day, and their bulk falls on the period of 500-1500 BC. Examples of carvings from this era often illustrate Christ and images of other saints. In those days, wooden decorative panels were made for churches with beautiful carvings telling about the life and death of Christ. Around the same time, in Japan, Buddhism was on the rise and wood carving developed. Specific cutting styles were developed, resulting in a wide variety of wooden Buddha sculptures.

One of the simplest forms of wood carving is planing, which consists in removing excess parts of a wooden object with a simple knife. Most often, softwoods are used for planing, because. a regular knife may not be able to cut through hardwood. As a rule, planing is a kind of hobby, hobby, but it can take more serious forms and produce beautiful objects art. Some planners produce very beautiful pieces of wood. Canes and various wooden toys and trinkets are especially good. The main difference between planing and other forms of wood carving is that it uses a regular knife, not a chisel or any other professional tool.

There are many different tools that can be used in wood carving, and craftsmen treat their chisels and chisels with great trepidation. Each type of tool has its own size and shape, allowing the woodworker to do his job with great precision. The mallet is used to increase the impact force of the cutting tool on hardwoods, and for rigid fixation of the workpiece being processed, special vise is installed on the workbench. The main set of tools includes: a chisel, which is a powerful blade with a straight edge, and is used to mark and level flat areas on a piece of wood; a semi-circular chisel, having the shape of a curved blade, and used to make rounding and cutting recesses; trihedral chisel, which is essentially a chisel for deeper cutting; V-shaped blade for contouring; and a knife for cutting wood, used in small works of a different nature.

Below are sections of artistic woodcarving of the Guide to Russian Crafts.

Wood

Wood is one of the materials that have received the greatest use for the manufacture of many items that are necessary for a person in his daily life.

Possessing universal qualities, this material allows you to make large-sized structures, such as a peasant house or a multi-domed temple in Kizhi, use its smallest pieces, roots and birch bark to create various household utensils, dishes, toys.

Carving as an early form of woodworking

As an earlier type of wood processing, carving was received, because it is closely connected with the process of forming the structure of any thing, whether it be a chest, a bench, a cradle for a child or a box.

Such and similar objects are not always decorated with carved ornaments, but in the very form of the product, its proportions, silhouette, the aesthetic properties of the thing appeared. for example, a dugout bowl or a ladle carved from a monolithic piece of wood in soybean plastic has already been an example of a sculptural solution made by means of carving. However, in most cases, an artistic object made of wood is decorated with carvings. Its types and techniques provide the master with a wide choice of means for decorating a utilitarian object.

Thread types

It does not have a strict classification, since different types of thread can be combined in the same product.

It is conditionally possible to distinguish the types of thread:

1. through thread(this includes propyl and slotted thread)
2. blind thread(all subspecies of embossed and flat notched threads)
3. sculptural carving
4. house carving(is separate direction, since it can combine all three of the above types)
5. chainsaw carving(performing mainly sculptural carving using only a chainsaw)

The conditional classification of thread types is as follows:

through thread

through thread is subdivided into proper through and consignment note, has two subspecies:

• slotted thread- (through sections are cut with chisels and chisels)
• Saw thread(actually the same, but such sections are cut with a saw or a jigsaw).

A slotted or sawn thread with a relief ornament is called openwork.

Flat serrated thread

Flat thread is characterized by the fact that its basis is a flat background, and the elements of the thread go deep into it, that is Lower level carved elements lies below the level of the background. There are several subspecies of such a thread:

• contour thread- the simplest, its only element is a groove. Such grooves-grooves create a pattern on a flat background. Depending on the chosen chisel, the groove can be semicircular or triangular. The semicircular one is cut with a semicircular chisel, and the triangular one is cut with a corner cutter, an angular chisel or a knife in two steps.
• bracketed (nail-like) carving- the main element is a bracket (outwardly it looks like a trace left by a fingernail when pressed on any soft material, hence the name nail-like) - a semicircular notch on a flat background. Such a notch is made with a semicircular chisel in two steps: first, the chisel is deepened into the tree perpendicular to the surface, and then at an angle at some distance from the first notch. The result is the so-called bracket. A set of such brackets of different sizes and directions creates a picture or its individual elements.
• geometric carving:
  • trihedral thread
  • two-sidedwashing thread
  • four-sided washout thread
• black-gloss carving- the background is a flat surface covered with black varnish or paint. As in contour carving, grooves are cut in the background, from which the pattern is built. Different groove depths and their different profiles give interesting game chiaroscuro and contrast of the black background and light cut grooves.

relief carving

relief carving characterized by the fact that the elements of the thread are above the background or on the same level with it. As a rule, all carved panels are made in this technique. There are several subspecies of such a thread:

• relief carving with a pillow background - can be compared with contour carving, but all the edges of the grooves oval, and sometimes with varying degrees of steepness (more sharply from the side of the drawing, gradually, gently sloping from the side of the background). Due to such littered contours, the background seems to be made of pillows, hence the name. The background is on the same level as the drawing. Relief carving with selected background - the same carving, but only the background is selected with chisels one level lower. The contours of the picture are also oval.
• Abramtsevo-Kudrinskaya carving (Kudrinskaya)- originated in the Abramtsevo estate near Moscow, in the village of Kudrino. Vasily Vornoskov is considered the author. The carving is distinguished by a characteristic "curly" ornament - curly garlands of petals and flowers. The same characteristic images of birds and animals are often used. As well as flat-relief, it happens with a pillow and a selected background.

sculptural carving

A distinctive feature is the presence of sculpture - images of individual figures (or groups of figures) of people, animals, birds or other objects. In fact, it is the most difficult type of carving, since it requires the carver to have a three-dimensional vision of the figure, a sense of perspective, and maintain proportions. It is considered a separate subspecies. Bogorodsk carving.

Chainsaw carving

Also, a kind of sculptural carving can be considered the art of carving with a chainsaw, which is becoming increasingly popular among both carvers and connoisseurs of beauty. The popularity is easy to explain.

Carving with a chainsaw is, first of all, an action, a performance, a show. Increasingly, festivals, competitions, demonstration performances of chainsaw carving masters began to be held on public events, presentations, exhibitions. Unlike other genres of wood carving, the viewer not only sees the end result of the master's painstaking and long work, but also visually participates in the process of creating a sculpture.

Milling machines

AT recent times the creation of sculptures on various copy-milling machines is also becoming increasingly popular, the most affordable of which is the Duplicarver.

Means range

Thus, the master has a wide range of means at his disposal: from the simplest lines and forms of geometric ornamentation to complex, subtle miniatures depicting human figures, architecture and landscape elements.

Certain carving techniques and motifs of images, the type and nature of the ornament over time became a hallmark of the art of individual centers and even entire regions. For example, in the Russian villages of the European North, it was typical to finish the roof of the house with a shard - an image of a horse's head, carved with an ax. In the rural dwellings of the peoples of the Caucasus, the top of the pillar-column holding the ceiling was decorated with thin flat-relief carvings.

The windows of rural and urban houses in many regions of Russia are still decorated with patterned architraves with sawn, laid on, volumetric threads. The unique architectural monuments of antiquity preserve amazing carvings of iconostasis, palace furniture, ritual and secular sculpture.

Considering that all these works were and are being carried out now with a simple tool (axe, saw, chisels and knives different types), it becomes clear that the craft here manifests itself at the level of truly artistic creativity.

History of carving in Russia

Name

In Russia, woodcarving was called carving. The drawing is a sign, the words were also used: vyzorochye, patterned.

early carving

Carving on a flat surface in the form of braids and straight lines, cloves, gorodets and Kyoto residents, grooves, stars, poppy seeds, fungi, bugs, etc. An example of this ancient carving is the royal place in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.

At the end of the XV century. A monk of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra Ambrose combined eastern, western and traditional Russian ornaments in his works and had a great influence on the development of carving in the 15th-16th centuries.

Byzantine style

Ancient images of grass patterns - in the Byzantine style. Not earlier than the 16th century. fryashchina (fryazhsky herbs) appears - herbal decorations borrowed in Italy.

German carving

In the second half of the XVII century. in Russia, German carving appeared, curly, with Gothic motifs. In 1660, the royal dining room, designed by the German architect Dekenpin, was decorated with this carving.

New tools and German names and terms appeared: gzymzumb, sherhebel, sharheben, foundichtebl, etc. Cornices, gzymzy, splengers, krakshtyns (brackets), transoms, captels, tsyrotnye herbs, fruits, etc. appeared in carvings and furniture.

Craftsmen began to make carvings according to German master's face books - that is, according to samples and drawings.

Resi were painted with bright colors, sometimes covered with gold leaf.

Woodcarving has its roots in ancient times. It is difficult to establish the time of manufacture of the first cult symbols - idols, stylized images of animals, heavenly bodies. Many of these products served as a kind of talismans, they believed in them, they were worshiped. Echoes of those times are still preserved today. Finely crafted wood carvings are in abundance on the market. They are especially popular in the tourism business.

Yes, and in household carvings are in great demand. If we touch on wooden housing construction, then here we can talk about the whole industry of wooden architecture, thanks to which each house acquires an individual architectural appearance. This is clearly seen if we touch on the history of wooden housing construction in the Russian North, the Urals, and Siberia. Some houses can serve as classic examples, masterpieces for all time. At the same time, such masterpieces were made using the simplest tools - an ax, a saw, a carpenter's chisel. Over time, tools for wood carvers improved and changed. There were machines that could embody the most complex patterns in wood. But just like before handmade carver is an incomparable craft, which has no analogue either in style or in the manner of execution.

Sometimes carved crafts reach such refinement that they are comparable to lace products. This is especially true for multi-layer slotted carving, especially if it includes relief fragments. Everything that we have said so far is directly related to house carving. This includes household items, carved furniture, interior decoration of the house and its external design. But the same deep roots have artistic carving, in particular, such a direction as sculptural carving. How not to remember the epic boats with the obligatory image of the head of a mythological bird or dragon, or even a whole statue, most often a female one. These were the same mascots of seafarers in their difficult and dangerous campaigns. Such rather large-sized mythical creatures were made from a single piece of a tree trunk. The head, as a rule, was composite. All of the above signs tell us about the products of sculptural carving.

It is believed that the biography of sculptural carving has a pronounced "marine" origin. It was only later that sculptural carving migrated to land. The question may arise why the most ancient products of gods and idols, which were also made from a single piece of a tree trunk on land, are not taken into account. But the fact is that such products could not be called in the full sense of the word sculptural carving because of the primitiveness of their execution. As time went by, ship products acquired more and more artistic forms, enriched with "overseas" innovations and became real works of art.

By the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, such a form as slotted carving becomes the predominant direction. It was she who made the exterior design of the house the most expressive and to some extent "airy". It was she who made it possible to achieve that degree of sophistication, which allows comparison with lace products, which we mentioned earlier. With regard to household items, the most practical turned out to be the turning of products (including kitchen ones), which are decorated with geometric, relief or contour carving. The primitive lathes used at first have now turned into compact high-performance products that enable the carver to obtain an excellent workpiece for its artistic design. Thus, the traditional Russian turning utensils not only did not become a thing of the past, but also revived in a more high quality and variety of styles.

The world of carving with all its directions, styles, technique of execution is tempting and diverse. Above all, it is an introduction to nature. Initiation in the sense that the carver is dealing with a tree, a unique material in its diversity, created by nature. The carver also draws themes and plots for embodiment in wood from observations of nature, whose fantasies are inexhaustible.

Anyone who is not indifferent to beauty and perfection, who would like to multiply achievements in this direction, to make their life, the life of their loved ones more beautiful, to pleasantly surprise others can enter this world.

"The Slavs were wild, they didn't know how to do anything..."

wood carving in Ancient Russia

The craft of woodcarving has been used in Russia since ancient times. True, only a few samples have survived to our time. This was due to their low cost and the fragility of the very material from which they are composed. From wood, craftsmen and ordinary people made figures of animals, birds, various amulets, which were passed down from generation to generation. The inhabitants of that time believed that the tree was the link between the sun and the common man.

But very often, wood products were of a purely practical nature or were cult items that were used by almost the entire family.

According to some written sources that have survived to this day, we can judge the culture of the time when they were made. After all, the ancient Slavs, who inhabited the territory of the modern European part of Russia, were engaged in the manufacture of these products. Since the craftsmen were mainly engaged in the manufacture of such items, the tree acquired, as it were, a second life.

Furniture, dishes, toys and other items were decorated with wooden carvings. Indeed, at that time the tree was a very popular material. Wood carving was widely used in the wooden architecture of that time, giving us many monuments of architectural art. Wood craftsmen in Ancient Russia had great knowledge in this area of ​​art, an excellent sense of beauty, a rich imagination and a sense of beauty. All this allowed them to create real works of art among wooden toys and architectural structures.

Artifacts found in Novgorod during archaeological excavations were weighty evidence. Of particular interest is a fragment of a wooden column, which belongs to the 11th century AD by modern scientists. It is decorated along its entire length with a pattern that does not repeat along its entire length.

By the way, such patterns prove the fact that the development of creativity was even earlier than this period at a fairly high level among the inhabitants of that era. Already by those items that were found much later than their use, modern scientists can judge the development of the culture of that time. It was they who contributed the missing part, which helped modern historians to recreate the general picture of the life of that era.

Wooden decoration can also be judged by the way wooden buildings were decorated four hundred years ago. This is reflected in numerous annals of those years. They vividly and vividly tell about the life of the people who lived at that time, their way of life, both cultural and religious. These architectural monuments of that time and household items contributed a lot of information to the history of our country.

History of woodcarving is many thousands of years old. Since the appearance of wooden architecture, which is one of the oldest methods of housing construction, it has been counting and history of carving on wood. The eternal human desire for beauty and decoration of their homes and household items has resulted in an amazing ability to make any piece of wood a unique work of art. Wood carvings were used to decorate door and window architraves, wooden spoons and other utensils, musical instruments and many more items. Using the wood carving method, craftsmen could make a fairly reliable and very ingenious wooden lock. Some of these crafts have survived to this day, they can be seen in local history and historical museums.

The history of the development of woodcarving is inextricably linked with the history of the development of culture and the worldview of society, which is why in each country woodcarving is completely different, there are different techniques and styles. The most ancient type of carving - geometric carving - has been used since time immemorial not only to decorate household utensils, but also to compose magical amulets and protective spells, since each element of the carving symbolized phenomena, objects or elements that a person wanted to protect himself from or to which, on the contrary , ran for help. Amulets were carved from wood - protective symbols that were supposed to bring good luck and protect from troubles. Such amulets were covered with special carvings and for many years became the guardians of the house.

In a later period, the decoration of the house and household items with wood carvings lost its mystical meaning and became purely decorative. In the 16th-18th centuries, woodcarving became a nationwide industry, large carving workshops and artels were created, many woodcarving masters adorned the palace ensembles of St. Petersburg and Moscow with their art. However, already in the 19th century, carving craftsmanship was thoroughly forgotten, since the development of carving craft was no longer supported by the state.

But the history of woodcarving did not end there - in our time, ancient craftsmanship is being revived, whole schools and groups of arts and crafts appear. Wood carving is becoming a popular form of folk art and gaining an increasing number of admirers.

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