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 Art Studio of San Diego Russian School

Art Lab

In Carmel Valley (San Diego)

 

STUDIO NEWS 

Students’ works participated in Sacramento at California Youth Arts Competition
The oil paintings of 9 students were in Bennington …
The oil paintings displayed in Omaha in the 19thcentury interior…

To read more click here!

Course “Russian Brush Paintings

for adults


Marianna-ceramics. Wooden frames painted in different Russian styles

 

Traditional Russian Ornaments

PERMOGORSK PAINTING

Permogorsk painting, one of the most famous of ancient Russian art forms, began in the northern regions of the country. Early artists perfected their beautiful and unique techniques in old icons and book illustrations.

The Permogorsk artist first painted the entire surface white, and then outlined his designs in black lines. Finally, he added the requisite colors to the design. Today the artist uses modern paints, but originally, artists created their own paints from raw egg. However, today’s artists use the same colors as in the ancient times. Red dominates the painting, and green and yellow compliment it.

On the right the ancient spinning wheel portrays a party of young people. A lion and a unicorn adorn the top of the rich house boasting a hipped roof. Inside, four young people socialize. The man plays the accordion while the three girls spin yarn. Each detail of a canvas is not accidental. Here it is possible “to read” the detailed story in which the artist decorates the real plot putting in the dream about the beautiful.

Traditionally in Russian paintings, the pattern covers the entire surface. Ornamental details such as leaves, berries, and flowers occupy any space not covered by the main subject. The Permogorsk paintings leave no blank space for personal meditation, which could not be seen in many other paintings as for example in Japanese designs.

Permogorsk masters especially liked to create scenes portraying the life of rural Russians: a festive dinner, a delightful tea party, a group riding horses, or women socializing as they gather around their spinning wheels.The artists deliberately depicted the bright side of country life, giving it a festive atmosphere to match the painters’ dream of a happy and beautiful life.

 

 

MEZEN PAINTINGS

This ornament, accomplished only with black and red paint, is called Mezen and was born many centuries ago on the shores of river Mezen, which flows into the Arctic Ocean on the North of Russia. The Mezen paintings have laconic and expressive stylized form and a restrained colour, where the black outline emphasizes the strained sounding of the brownish-red colour.

We can see stingy and relative graphic images of animals – horses or deer on thin legs and birds with wings that look like feathers. The animals and birds are stylized almost to the loss of their natural contours and apprehend as an ornament. By numerously repeating the drawing of the animal, the ancient masters reproduce movement.

Mezen paintings by its nature are the most ancient ones among the artistic handicraft and one of the most… mysterious. Its sources are lost in the remote ages, in the initial period of the Slavic tribes forming. The historians still ponder how this type of ornament at the same time may be so familiar to the drawings on the rock cliffs of primitive people, the Paleolithic cave paintings of France, and the ornamental decoration in style Dipilon, with which the Ancient Greeks embellished their amphora.

Mezen paintings have a bunch of symbols, each of which has its own deep meaning. The drawing relates more to an ancient letter, written in signs-hieroglyphs.

Two diamond-shaped triangles symbolize masculine and female origin, source of the life diversity. Rhombus is the symbol of the fertility and the grain; expresses the idea of home and prosperity. Spiral is symbol of the sun and heat accompanying and protecting the man. Several spirals are symbol of fire and fire elements.

Look at this ornament and you will notice, that even though the drawing is very abstract, this painting reminds… a drawing of a child. This is how our children like to draw! Maybe the childhood of a human and the humankind were similar?

My work “Spring and fall seasons” in Mezen style.

 

GORODETS PAINTING

Gorodets painting – it is a whole world of bright images, a national dream of festive, cheerful and affluent life, embodied by the arms of artists from Nizhniy Novgorod.

Goredets painting started developing in the midle 19th century near town Gorodets (Nizhny Novgorod Region, Russia). Spinning wheels, baskets and boxes for the storage of yarn, children’s chairs and some utensils were decorated with the painting. Gorodets spinning wheels were especially popular.

The craftsmen loved painting townspeople, horsemen, scenes of drinking tea in rich interiors decorated with columns and clocks, with high windows, beautiful curtains and magnificent stair-cases. They drew scenes of hunting, festivities, driving in the sledges, rendezvous of lovers, etc. And many many flower decorations.

 

You can ask questions or make order by my e-mail: mariannaartstudio@gmail.com

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