📖 Государственный Русский музей. Альманах, №177, 2007. Folk Art: Guidebook

Folk art is a very special cultural phenomenon. It embraces many aspects of folklore, including the decorative art that accompanies the life of a nation over the entire course of its history. While people come and go, the need to adorn and embellish everyday life and work with beautiful things remains. Objects employed in festivities and ceremonies celebrating important events in household or family life were particularly elegantly decorated. Births, marriages and funerals or such aspects of the agricultural calendar as sowing, cutting and harvesting - almost every locality had its own specific rituals and associated group of objects, lovingly treasured and passed down from generation to generation. Folk masters generally created works for themselves or for their fellow villagers. Working in domestic conditions, they produced wooden utensils, tools, toys, fabrics and embroideries. Other objects were created in special centres of arts and crafts, which arose near mines or...