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Rus: Palekh An Art-Craft

© Dr. Donald R. Houston

There are several schools of lacquered-box painting in the Rus. The most famous is that of Palekh so we will discuss it first.

The village of Palekh is located some 250 miles from Moscow in the Ivanovo region. Palekh artists are universally regarded as the most highly trained of the Russian miniature painters. The discipline & masterful technique of the ancient art of icon painting is readily seen in works of the various artists. In the village of Palekh are many churches as well as a few nicer-than-average homes, however there are many homes that still lack plumbing or electricity. From a population of 2,000+, some 200-300 men & women actively paint. It is believed that only about 40-60 artists actually live up to the high standards of the pre-Soviet era. In order to legitimately sign a box, a Palekh artist must have graduated from the 4-year course of study at the local institute which only graduates 5 students per year. This institute receives applications from artists all over the Rus, i.e., Russia, Ukraine & many other former Soviet Union countries.

The village of Palekh stretches out broadly amongst the woods & fields in a truly picturesque corner of the Ivanovo region. In the 15th. Century it was a part of the Vladimir Susdal lands & was one of the first ancient centers of the icon art. In the 17th. & 18th. Centuries Palekh's craftsmen rose to become the most famous in all of icon art. They developed a unique style identifiably distinguished by the fine line tempera drawing saturated with gold of their own. These works were valued for the depth of the images, the subtlety of color placement, their intricate & minute attention to detail as much as for their fairy-tale-like ornamental design.

After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, when the icon business went into the deepest of declines, Palekh masters tried their hands at decorating wooden toys, dishes, kitchen utensils, porcelain & glass. As it turned out, the most interesting way was the painting of paper-mache boxes that became the black-lacquered works of art by such notable artists as E. Golikov, E. Vakurov, A. Kotukhin & E. Bakanov. It was these masters along with some of their fellow villagers established a shop of the ancient art in which a new kind of folk art, Palekh ancient lacquers, was born the in 1924. By the end of 1920`s there was a wide assortment of Palekh art objects.

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