New Art Form Emerges In Russian Village

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31942, 20 March 1969, Page 11

New Art Form Emerges In Russian Village

(N.Z.P,A.-Reuter) PALEKH ’(North-east Russia)

Palekh, a former centre of Russian ikon painting, has developed a new and profitable artmaking lacquered box miniatures.

Palekh, a small, semiindustrialised village of 4000 people, which lies 220 miles north-east of Moscow, exports its black finely illustrated boxes and plaques to many parts of the world.

Visitors to the village are surprised to learn that the craft is a post-revolution development, designed to provide employment for the old ikon painters of the village. Ivan Golikov, one of the painters, returned to the village in 1908, after fighting in the Tsarist army in World War I, and then with the Bolsheviks. Gblikov gathered around him a nucleus of his former colleagues, and they began looming for a new art form.

In 1924, a “studio of old paintings” was formed, as the new Palekh art began to emerge in its modern shape, and the older men began to teach boy and girl pupils. Unique School

Today Palekh has a flourishing school, where young Russians learn the art of miniature painting from the surviving masters of the first studio, and from the artists of the middle generation who studied under Golikov and his colleagues in the 1920 s and 19305.

The school, with 80 students on a five-year course, is claimed by local officials to be the only one in the world teaching the art of miniature painting.

Palekh has 160 artists today, many of whom work in the building which also houses the school. Others work at home and bring their products to the centre for evaluation by Palekh’s Art Council.

For 400 years, Palekh was one of the most famous centres of ikon painting in Russia. Historians believe the craft was founded in the thirteenth century, by artists fleeing from the Mongol invasion.

When the Mongols took the twin cities of Vladimir and Suzdal—the centres of northern Russian civilisation—the artists fled to the forests, then covering the area, to form their settlement. The name Palekh is derived from an old Russian word meaning a clearing in a forest. Distinctive Style

Palekh developed its own style of ikon painting, characterised by minute detail. Many examples of this art can be seen today, beautifully preserved in the village’s Church of the Holy Cross, a museum. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, ikon painting was dying out with the advance of mass production, and many of the old painters left to seek work elsewhere. The Union of Soviet Artists helps maintain the school and the studio. Last year the monthly average wage of union members in Palekh was

220 roubles (8U5220) while non-members earned 135 roubles (SUSI3S). But top artists, like Tamara Zubkova, one of Golikov’s early pupils, can earn 400 roubles (SUS4OO) or more. Subject Matter

The boxes and plaques used by the Palekh artists are made of papiermache, and are covered with black lacquer. They illustrate scenes from Russia’s folk epic, the “Byliny,” poems by the nineteenth century writer Alexander Pushkin, and modern village scenes. But at present there is little to inspire the artists in the village itself. Palekh is no longer a picturesque Russian village, and not quite a full industrial settlement.

The old-world atmosphere which inspired the artists has almost completely disappeared. Local officials of Intourist, the state travel agency, say the problem is recognised, and great changes are being planned to restore to Palekh some of its past, and to turn it into a major tourist centre.