Ukrainian painting. Folk painting and its symbolism. About the village of Petrikovka
Ukrainian hut
The Ukrainian hut had some differences from the Russian hut. It was a dwelling, which was called a hut and had outbuildings for household purposes.
Interior of a Ukrainian hut
Description of a Ukrainian hut of the 19th century
The outside of the huts was coated with clay. In the middle of the 19th century, Ukrainian huts were whitewashed over clay. Evidence that the Ukrainians coated all outbuildings, both outside and inside, with yellow and red clay, and then whitewashed it, was left by Russian people from the Samara province, where many settlers from Ukraine lived.
Interior of a Ukrainian hut
In Russian houses, clay was not often used to seal the grooves of logs. The same witnesses from near Samara say that the Ukrainians have pipes from the stove diverted to the side, towards the hay wall. Their chimneys smoke comes out right into the hallway. The hole in the pipe is plugged from the outside to retain heat. Once a week, Ukrainians grease the inside of the oven. The houses are covered either with straw on clay, or with straw alone. The houses are close to each other and to the outbuildings inside the estate. Houses are often heated with dung due to a lack of firewood.
Inside the hut
– smoothed earthen floor, small Dutch-type stove. Often the stove was adjacent to the Russian stove. The stove was certainly whitewashed with chalk and painted with a national pattern. In the center of the hut there is a table under a white tablecloth and wooden benches. The front corner is covered with wallpaper and decorated with a shrine. The icons on it are in flowers. The walls are decorated with paintings depicting the sovereign, the royal family, and national heroes. A mandatory accessory is a mirror decorated with a long embroidered towel and a chest - a hiding place. The ends of a pole rest against the walls, on which clothes hang. The beds are bunks attached to the blank wall of the house.
Traditions of Ukrainians
Ukrainian traditions include keeping towels given by their mother. An embroidered towel is one of the characteristic features of the life of this people. As a rule, a towel is a woven or broken towel used to decorate the “goddess”. Typically, a towel for these purposes is made with ornamental embroidery with double-headed eagles. Basically, towels with their image testify to their ethnic affiliation with the Little Russians, and the main evidence is the ornamental plot in the embroidery. These are rosette, red rose and black burdock.
And we bet you know almost nothing about Ukrainian national decorative painting? But some species are known far beyond the borders of our country. We invite you to expand your horizons and perhaps discover something new.
Kosovo painting
Born in the Ukrainian Carpathians, in the city of Kosiv, Ivano-Frankivsk region. The rapid development of the salt mining industry stimulated the emergence of various types of decorative crafts in this region. In particular, ceramics and decorative painting. On products in the style of folk primitivism you can find plant motifs; images of birds, animals and other traditional drawings. The characteristic colors for this type of painting are white, green and ocher.
Products with Kosovo painting can be purchased by visiting the tour, as well as other trips that go through souvenir markets in the city of Kosiv and Yaremche.
Petrikovskaya painting
She began her “path” as wall painting on the walls of houses in the village of Petrikovka, in the Dnepropetrovsk region. The basis of Petrykivka painting is a floral ornament in the Ukrainian Baroque style. Before its bankruptcy, a factory of the same name operated in the village, which unfortunately ceased to exist in 2004. But, despite this, in 2013 the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine included the Petrykivka painting in the list of objects of intangible cultural heritage of Ukraine. Today in Petrikovka you can visit the Petrikovka Folk Art Center and the museum, which contains about 2,500 objects of art. Master classes and excursions are held regularly.
If you want to purchase items with Petrykivka painting, go on a tour.
Oposhnyanskaya painting
Originally from the Poltava region. Oposhnyanskaya ceramics have been known since the 17th century. Oposhnyansky ornaments are particularly cheerful and bright. The design must have an enveloping line; the products are covered with engobe (a special clay layer). Berries, leaves, doodles (doodles), flowers, butterflies, hearts, branches and others are drawn on the surfaces of the products. Oposhnyanskaya painting was also included in the list of objects of intangible cultural heritage of Ukraine.
You can purchase ceramic products on the tour.
Bubnovskaya painting
It may be better known under the code name "Bubnovskaya ceramics". This type of decorative art was widespread in the Vinnytsia region, in the city of Gaysin. Compared to the above-mentioned artistic crafts, Bubnovskaya painting has a sad fate. After the death of its main “ideologists,” the Gerasimenko brothers, it gradually lost its popularity. And today not many people know about it. You can see an exhibition of Bubnovsky ceramics at the Museum-Estate of the Gerasimenko Brothers (Novoselovka village, Vinnytsia region). Among other types of painting, it is distinguished by exotic plant patterns and yellow-brown, white, blue and gray muted colors.
The difference between Podolsk buildings and, in particular, huts from the huts of central Ukraine is their greater decorativeness, not only in mass ratio, but also in the colors of the walls and the use of their area for complex graphic and colorful compositions - Ukrainian paintings.
On the outside, as already noted, the Podolsk hut is whitewashed only on two sides - the front and one side, while the other side and back are coated with red clay and only wide white stripes are drawn along their edges in the form of a frame. The same white stripe usually borders the small window in the back wall, and the front windows are lined with colored clay. The prayer is sharply separated from the walls of the hut by red clay plaster.
This strong and bold coloring of the hut, giving it an unusually expressive and decorative appearance, is often complemented by paintings that are extremely diverse in subject, technique and style and sometimes rise to the heights of great decorative and graphic skill.
On the outside of the wall, paintings are most often located under the roof, in the form of a frieze, sometimes going down to the living room in the corners of the hut; there are cornices around the hut above the barn. Windows and doors are framed with bold garland, and murals in the form of wreaths, bouquets or individual branches are placed in the spaces between the windows. Outbuildings - chicken houses, cellars, sheds - are also often painted.
Hut with painting in the village. Skazintsy
Here the painting is usually simpler, but sometimes you can find exclusively expressive forms. So, in the village Makova, Kamenets district managed to see a barn, on the gray surface of the walls of which, at their full height, conventionally geometricized branches of a giant flower were drawn with wide bold strokes. Judging by the boldness of the lines, the intuitive understanding of decorative tasks, and the sparseness of the drawing, which generally expressed his entire inner essence, this painting must be counted among the creations of genuine talent, who, moreover, had at his disposal only clay, chalk and soot to reveal it.
Stove with painting in the village. Izrailovka
Here the stove is richly painted, especially the “fireplace” and “rough”; there are many paintings all over the free field of the walls, sometimes in the form of separate compositions, sometimes in the form of friezes, and sometimes, like wallpaper, filling the entire wall; The slabs and beams are also painted. The ceiling is painted less often; here the painting is located in the form of a bouquet or wreath closer to the “pokutty” - the red corner. It is also relatively rare for the clay floor of a hut to be painted with a simple design, usually with intersecting lines. But the walls of the entryway are often and richly painted, the wide areas of which provide great freedom for bold ideas.
Wreath - painting on the wall of a hut in the village. Panevtsy
Ukrainian paintings can be found throughout Podolia. There are few of them in the north, but in the western and middle parts, especially in Transnistria, their presence in the house is a common occurrence. True, there are villages where painting is rare, but more often there are many of them, and in a number of villages there is not a single hut that is not decorated with painting to one degree or another. Each village has its own characteristics - in some the huts are covered with paintings inside and outside, in others - only on the outside; There are villages where you can find very few external paintings, and sometimes without any external hint of them, but where all the huts inside are completely covered with them.
Material and techniques of painting
The material and techniques of painting are extremely primitive. The background is a clay wall, either whitewashed or tinted with blue and cyan, soot - gray, green paint - green, or colored clay. This is done so that the walls do not get dirty so quickly and the painting lasts longer. Usually it is renewed for the patronal feast, Easter or Trinity Sunday and rarely lasts longer than a year. The materials are multi-colored clays, soot, blue, plant juices; at late times, mineral paints of various colors are in great use, which are bought in the city or at fairs from Jews. These paints are diluted in a very liquid flour paste or in water with milk and the design is applied with a feather, a flower or a homemade brush made from a “kitten tail”; Circles are marked using round utensils, such as a frying pan.
Turning to the everyday meaning of paintings, it should be noted that at present they have lost their ritual significance and connection with beliefs. There was undoubtedly such a connection in the past; Perhaps the custom of leaving the back wall of the hut unbleached arose and strengthened in connection with the belief that this would protect the owners from death, just as the custom of updating paintings for annual or patronal holidays undoubtedly indicates their ritual significance in the past. The presence in the painting of certain geometric (cross, star) and plant (hops, periwinkle, borage, grapes) elements, which have received a firmly established symbolic meaning in the popular consciousness, can serve as a guide in studying the history of the emergence and development of paintings and determining their internal meaning. At the present time, paintings are a purely aesthetic phenomenon. Neither the authors of the paintings nor anyone else in the modern village connects the presence of paintings or their individual elements in the hut with rituals and beliefs; there is no consciousness in their obligatory necessity, just as there are no certain requirements for the plot. The guiding factors in the choice of subjects and their interpretation are unjustified tradition, the individuality of the author and fashion.
Painting in the form of a frieze on the walls of a hut in the village. Settlement
The most common ornament is floral. The protozoan is found in the form of needles; the needles, outlined, turn into a leafy branch. A whole tree is almost never found, just as it is not found at all in Ukrainian ornaments. But in various modifications, garlands, branches, bouquets in flowerpots, individual flowers and wreaths are very common. Favorite subjects are garlands of maple, oak, hop, periwinkle, borage and, especially, grape leaves, which were so widely used by the church and passed from there into Ukrainian folk art. The nature of the ornament of the paintings was partially influenced by later Western styles, which had a strong impact on religious art and the everyday life of the upper strata of the population. Penetrating into the educated and wealthy environment and into the church, they became accessible to the masses and, in a simplified form and with simplified methods, were deposited here in new conditions.
Such a common plot as a bouquet or a branch in a flowerpot, performed by some girls, clearly reflects these influences: often the very arrangement of the picture, widely and magnificently using the entire background space, the curvature of the lines, the curved shapes of the flowerpot - all this is from the Baroque, which in architecture , in carving and painting, not only developed widely in Ukraine before the eyes of the people, but also took on its own shades and features here, which rightfully distinguished this style into a special Ukrainian Baroque.
It is much less common to see images of birds and animals in paintings. Usually these are chickens, roosters, peahens, jackdaws, horses - the animal world is close, understandable, realistic, and not wild animals or fantastic animals. Even the pelican and owl, once popular in folk paintings, did not find a place in the paintings. People look for subjects for their artistic creativity in the surrounding nature, they are inspired by it, it is the basis of their creativity. But the use of the material that the environment and nature gives the people, the ability to perceive an impression and express it using a technical method are different. They vary depending on the personality and technical skill of the individual author. In the paintings, in addition to purely geometric motifs, sometimes without a plot, we encounter an attempt to depict a branch or flower, but with the simplest straight lines, which only hardly reveal the true, perhaps unclear, creative idea to the author himself.
Bouquet in a flowerpot - painting by Ganna Babchenko on the wall of a hut in the village. Skazintsy
Walking along this path, from purely geometric ornament through geometrized plant forms, we will encounter a pure form of plant ornament, but even here we will often look in vain for certain plants. This is a clearly expressed plant, realistic enough to reveal the author's desire to give a plant, but too general to individualize it. This is the idea of a plant and a flower, their diagram, very close to the real one. And finally, the author’s idea is concretized and he either has the ability to express it, or accidentally finds a successful line, but the ornament acquires individual expressiveness and, of course, in graphically and stylized conventional forms and colors he receives not just a flower, but a rose, a bell, not a bird at all, but a rooster, not an abstract animal, but a horse. Here the convention of explicit realism varies depending on the author's abilities and technical skill.
Petrikovskaya painting
(Petrykivka)
Back in the middle of the 18th century, the Dnieper places were chosen for settlement by the Kosh Ataman of the Zaporozhian Army, Pyotr Kalnyshevsky, whose name remained to live forever in the name of one of the most beautiful villages of the Dnieper region - Petrikovka. The land of Petrikovka has raised more than one generation of folk art masters. Petrykivka fairs have long been famous throughout the Dnieper region, where the products of local “draftswomen” - craftswomen who painted houses and their interior decoration - were especially valued. The quick, skillful hands of sorceresses worked wonders, transforming a poor peasant monastery into a beautiful home.
The most diligent housewives in Petrikovka were called “chepurushkas”. Thanks to them, painting skills were passed on from generation to generation. However, there were only a few real masters of painting: and it was impossible to satisfy everyone who wanted to decorate their native walls. That's when the smartest of them began to draw floral patterns on paper. Paper “little ones,” as people called them, could be made at any free time of the year and even in bad winter weather. Over time, these simple pictures, gradually replacing wall paintings, become a favorite decoration in peasant life in the Dnieper region. To this day, in some houses in Petrikovka, Loboikivka, Kitaigorod and other nearby villages you can find “little ones” placed in the “red corner”, on the stove, window frames, and shelves for dishes.
The enchanting beauty of the Petrikovsky flower was discovered for contemporaries by the Ekaterinoslav historian and ethnographer D.I. Yavornitsky. He was one of the first to become a serious researcher and enthusiastic collector of the works of Petrykivka “draftswomen”.
The classic elements of Petrykivka painting are the plants surrounding the artist, the image of which, by the way, is not used in any of the existing types of painting. Ornamental motifs, where bright, rich colors predominate, attract attention not only with their color, but also with the amazing integrity of the creative idea. And the apparent simplicity of the drawing at first glance actually hides the long and painstaking work of the artist, who filigreely depicted the smallest details of the picture. Obviously, this is exactly how a miracle should be born, which is destined to be perceived not with the eyes, but with the soul and heart. The main motifs of the painting are wildflowers, viburnum branches, hollyhocks, peonies, and asters.
If you look into the origins of the craft, you can trace how its roots sprouted on the fertile soil of the art of the Zaporozhye Sich, how the basis of flower arrangements was laid, on the one hand, by the traditions of ornament, widely used by the Cossacks to decorate their life and weapons, and on the other, by peasant understanding and experiencing the beauty of the surrounding world.
Despite different approaches to depicting nature, the masters of Petrykivka decorative painting were united by their love for their land. Their works are a direct response to nature, which is rare in its richness and generosity. For a true creator, she is always a source of inspiration. In folk art, the connection between the artist and his native land is especially deep and direct. Therefore, from time immemorial, the originality of nature has been in folk art the source of limitless variations in forms and activities, designs of ornamental patterns, and color palette. This pagan worship of earthly wealth, notes the art of the Petrikovites, prompts them to create a unique decorative and artistic chronicle of the flora and fauna of the Dnieper region.
However, the Petrykivka ornament is not a direct reflection of natural motifs. The world created in the paintings is the fruit of the creative imagination of the folk artist. That is why he is so close to the heart, cheerful and festively beautiful.
As if by the wave of the hand of a master magician, amazing “rays” and “curls”, roses and ferns bloom on the paper, unprecedented firebirds and doves, owls and cuckoos fly in, goldfish swim from the fabulous ocean-sea. Ordinary colors begin to shimmer with strange stones.
Petrykivka residents extracted their rainbow colors from herbs, leaves, berries and flowers they knew from childhood, boiling them in a special way. The favorite red color was obtained from cherry juice, green from wheatgrass and nightshade leaves, and blue from snowdrop flowers. Various shades of yellow were produced by sunflower petals, onion peels and apple tree bark. The paints were diluted with egg yolk and milk, and fixed with cherry glue or beet sugar. Much later, factory dyes appeared, and only in the post-war period they began to use gouache and watercolor. Tools for painting were also of natural origin. Sticks from tree sprouts, stems of marsh grasses, homemade brushes from cat hair and the fingers of the master himself - this is a small set of artistic tools that folk craftsmen used to create a wide variety of floral ornament compositions that surprise us to this day.
Petrikovskaya painting traditionally performed on the whitewashed wall of a Ukrainian mud hut. Not only the facades of the house were painted, but often the interior walls of the premises, stoves, fireplaces were also decorated - all this created a single artistic ensemble.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the painting, beloved by the residents of Petrykivka, spread to household items - furniture, dishes, chests, chaises. The need for such decoration encouraged entire families to take up painting, offering their works at the bazaar. And since Petrikovka was a major shopping center at that time, the works of rural artists gained popularity in other regions of Ukraine.
At the end of the 19th century, Petrikovka easily mastered oil paints, which local craftsmen had not previously used. The art of painting developed, new color combinations appeared, and technology improved.
Later, when paper became available for sale, so-called “little ones” began to be drawn in Petrikovka. A leading role in this was played by a group of folk craftsmen who lived and worked in Kyiv. Under their influence, the fundamental principles of creativity of Petrykivka artists are formed. With the onset of the First World War, and then the civil war and especially collectivization, Petrykivka painting fell into decay. Perhaps this wonderful folk tradition would have been lost forever if it had not been for the ascetic, local teacher Alexander Stativa. Thanks to his efforts, a rural school of decorative drawing was opened in 1936, the teacher of which was the last Petrikovka Chepurushka, Tatyana Pata. This unique woman, who could neither read nor write, taught the subtleties of craftsmanship to a whole galaxy of artists. After the war, one of the school’s students, Fyodor Panko, created the creative association “Petrikovka” in the village, and then an experimental workshop for varnish painting, which enriched folk art with a new genre.
Petrykivka painting is truly one of the unique manifestations of Ukrainian artistic culture. An ancient culture, which is rooted in the depths of history, created over the centuries by the work and talent of our ancestors and contemporaries. A purely national culture, unclouded by extraneous impurities and influences, embodying the spiritual wealth and creative generosity of the Ukrainian people.
Technique of Petrikov painting
Masters of Petrikov painting use a variety of materials and devices - homemade brushes, pipettes, pacifiers, cotton swabs, toothpicks, squirrel brushes and simply the master’s fingers.
For work we will need: gouache, PVA glue, a simple pencil, brushes (it is better to use a cat brush, I will tell you how to make it below, and for those who do not have such an opportunity, you can use ordinary squirrel brushes No. 2, 3, 4), palette, water, pipette, palette knife.
Making a cat brush
You can make a cat brush yourself, because... they are not sold in the store. It is with this brush that exquisite, brightly colorful strokes are made.
To make a cat brush, we need cat hair, cut off very carefully from the cat’s belly area, or on the sides or at the base of the paws. The cat must have short or medium hair. It is from there, because only there is it the softness and thickness we need. You also need a stick - the body of the brush. A thread. PVA glue.
When all the “ingredients” are collected, let's start making the brush. We take a stick and sharpen it on one side.
We wrap a bunch of wool around the pointed end of the stick.
We rewind the thread tightly, several layers. We tie it tightly. Afterwards we carefully and very well soak it with PVA glue.
Make sure that the glue does not get on the wool. Let the brush dry for about a day.
Where to start painting
Before you start painting, you need to dilute the paint. Place a small amount of gouache on the palette with a palette knife, add PVA glue in a 2:1 ratio, stir everything with a palette knife and, diluting with water, bring it to the consistency of sour cream.
For the first training work, it is enough to dilute one paint. The brush is held like an ordinary pencil, while the hand should rest on the table so that the strokes are even and precise. The base on which you paint can be turned in different directions - this makes it more convenient to guide the brush and make the correct strokes.
Before drawing a flower, mark its outline (circle) and center with a pencil. Then we make strokes with a brush, without going beyond the contour. We make strokes from the contour to the center. For the leaves, we also outline the contour and center, and also draw strokes from the contour to the center.
On a squirrel brush No. 3 we draw paint. We begin to draw a stroke from a thin line, then, pressing the brush, we expand the stroke and again release the pressure, turning into a thin line.
Again, apply paint to the squirrel brush No. 3. We make a stroke immediately with strong pressure on the brush, and then, easing the pressure, smoothly reduce the stroke to a thin line. From such strokes chamomile petals and leaves are obtained.
On brush number 3, pick up paint. Starting the stroke with a thin line, press the brush with a smooth turn and, loosening the pressure, again move to the thin tip. Repeat the stroke, turning the brush in the other direction.
Such semicircular strokes are called “tsibulki” (translated from Ukrainian as “onions”), they can be used to draw leaves and their individual elements.
Working with a pipette
Pull the rubber part of the pipette onto the glass tip to such a level that it springs slightly, but does not bend. Dip the rubber part of the pipette into red paint and use a vertical movement to make an imprint on the paper. It turns out to be a round berry. By repeating this operation many times, we create a group of berries and thus depict a bunch of viburnum or rowan.
Dip the rubber part of the pipette into the paint, make an imprint and pull the pipette towards you - you get a flower petal.
We draw the outline of the flower with a pencil and use the method described above to paint its petals with a pipette.
Transitional stroke done with two colors.
We mix two colors on the palette - for example, red and yellow (as an option - green and yellow, ruby and yellow). We put yellow paint on the brush, then dip the tip in red and make a stroke. At the same time, the more we dip the brush into red paint, the less yellow color will remain in the stroke, and the more red color will remain in the stroke.
We change the paint on the brush - first put green paint on the brush, and dip the tip in yellow. At the same time, the more we dip the brush into yellow paint, the lighter (yellower) the stroke will be. In this way, green leaves with yellow tips are depicted.
The resulting flowers and leaves are decorated with a thin brush with darker paint, and small yellow dots representing the stamens are made with the back of the brush.
Take a squirrel brush No. 2 or a cat hair brush. We pick up paint, keeping the tip of the brush pointed. By moving from a thin line to a wide one using pressure, we get a drop-shaped stroke. Flowers and buds are usually created with such strokes.
In the compositions of Petrikovskaya painting, in addition to large, large flowers and leaves, small elements are also depicted - these are small flowers, daisies, buds, berries. Basically, for small elements, use a thin brush No. 1 or a cat hair brush.
Small compositions in the form of postcards are called “little ones”. Having completed all the previous exercises, you can begin the small fish.
With a pencil we outline the contours and centers of flowers and leaves. We clearly draw the flower stems and leaf petioles, and also outline where the small elements will be located.
The color scheme of Petrikov painting is very diverse, and therefore is always pleasing to the eye. And yet, the traditional color combination is green leaves and red shades of flowers, and auxiliary colors are yellow, burgundy and orange.
For large compositions, use a pencil to outline the general shape of the composition, be it rectangular, square, oval, round or diamond-shaped. Here, as in other forms of art, the rules and laws of composition are observed. All connections and stems in the painting should under no circumstances be sharply broken; the lines should smoothly transition into one another.
Wall painting as a tradition arose quite a long time ago, but the exact date, unfortunately, has not been determined. Of course, there are stories, almost epic, about houses with painted images of heavenly bodies; there are archaeologists’ excavations of premises in the Kyiv region of the 9th-12th centuries, in which the remains of frescoes are found. But this nevertheless does not allow us to accurately determine the time of the painting’s appearance.
This is folk art of the period of the 19th - early 20th centuries. was very common in the culture of Ukraine, as evidenced by various studies of the culture and life of various regions of the country. This type of creativity is mentioned quite often in literary sources describing peasant life.
There is a version that wall painting arose and developed as a reflection of Ukrainians’ awareness of the world around them, and this was depicted with magical or agrarian-everyday signs and symbols. Over time, their sacred meaning gradually disappeared from the drawings, and ornamental, decorative drawing of the same signs developed, but with a different content, rather aesthetic and decorative. And the magical, cult and ritual meaning fell out of use. And since the 19th century. wall painting begins to take shape only as an ornamental decoration and decor.
Painting was not one of the first types of art; it arose much later than other areas of decorative and applied art, such as embroidery, pysankar-making, carpet weaving, weaving or tile making. Therefore, it includes traditions and some elements characteristic of these species, and unites them through its reflection. Wall painting was sometimes a replacement for the usual methods of decorating a rural home, sometimes it was used together with them, thereby emphasizing the construction and architectural features of a particular structure.
No preliminary sketches were made for the future drawing; the painting process itself was not divided into stages and did not have a clear preparation scheme. It was carried out immediately, and sometimes it only resumed the previous drawing. This was done twice a year, and each time it was tied to a specific event - a new anointing, that is, before the holidays in spring and autumn. Painting was performed only by women.
Paints for this action were usually of natural origin. It could be soot, elderberries, quinoa juice, a decoction of onion peels, cherry or mulberry juice, sunflower petals, aniline paints and clays could be used. Sometimes plant sap was mixed with ground white clay, soot, crushed coal, or red clay was used. Sometimes they simply mixed different clays. Thus, craftswomen received a whole palette of colors, shades and the ability to mix them, creating new shades. Therefore, it was difficult to find paintings using only two or three colors. A binder had to be added to the paints, so egg yolk and sometimes milk were mixed in. Paint containing such impurities was more durable and did not change its color or “fad.”
Brushes for painting were made from cat hair and any brushes were used; if necessary, you could even use an ordinary rag. In order to correctly and clearly depict geometric shapes, different lines, they used dishes, laces as patterns, complex figures were made from potato tubers, a kind of variation of the stamp.
The painting began with the stove and chimney, after the stove it moved to the walls, went over the windows, and went to the corners. The stove was painted with schematic stylized images of birds - these could be peacocks, pheasants, or even griffins. There, on the stove they painted a tree of life with birds sitting on it, spirals, rotating disks, crosses and zigzags were depicted in circles, floral patterns and constellations were outlined. This symbolism has been familiar since primitive times. The walls were usually painted with the tree of life and birds, a symbolic jug - a bush grows from it as a basis. This jug was called a flowerpot. Marriage symbols were also often painted on the walls - they were birds of paradise and bunches of grapes.
Folk painting reflected the Ukrainians' folklore-like awareness of the world around them, depicted in signs and symbols. They carried a cosmological understanding of the universe. Thus, painting was directly connected with the forces of nature, spiritualized the building, the house, tied it to the world, to the earth, and imbued it with earthly power. So the symbolism carried folk knowledge, beliefs and ideas about oneself, the world, the meaning of life.
The borrowing of traditions and elements of previous types and trends of folk art in painting is clearly visible, given its derivativeness from earlier art trends and the very time of its origin.
For example, from weaving, painting borrowed a broken zigzag broken line, which was framed by two straight lines and crossed out by strokes between the breaks. A pattern called “braids” can be found on ancient pottery. In ancient manuscripts there is a lotus leaf that looks like chicken feet. Pisankarstvo gave the painting a spiral-shaped “vertun”. At first, the elements and parts of the painting were very similar to the nature of the ornaments in embroidery, carving, carpet weaving and the like. However, over time, painting developed into an increasingly independent type of creativity, acquired its own features and motives, formed its own system and patterns, and continued to develop according to its own laws.
The images of the wall paintings are based on the agrarian-cosmological idea that human life and nature are connected and intertwined. Even the very time of creating new paintings or renewing old ones is connected with this - after all, this happens on the eve of the Great Easter holiday, which since paganism has been a symbol of resurrection, the revitalization of nature, life, the beauty of its flowering and vitality.
Why did the stove become the main compositional center of the painting? Presumably, because it is there that fire lives, which is one of the elements of life creation. And there, under the stove, according to folk superstitions, lives the guardian of the house and hearth - the brownie. In addition, the cult of ancestors focused attention specifically on the stove: in the old days, the dead were buried under the hearth. And taking into account the fact that painting was done by women, who in essence were the keepers of traditions and beliefs, who themselves guarded the hearth of the house, then all cult traditions, rituals and ceremonies were carefully preserved and revered by them.
The stove was very often covered with geometric patterns, the tree of life - this was reminiscent of pre-Christian times, when the souls of the living and the dead were united through trees and plants.
So you can see that the main and most used element of the painting is the tree of life, the “flowerpot”. It can be an independent composition, or it can be part of a ribbon - an endless painting ornament. This type of ornament is the most common in this direction of folk art. He is depicted in embroidery, on carpets, ceramics, vytynankas, and painted chests. In addition to the products and culture of Ukraine, the “flowerpot” is also common in the art of Europe.
The tree of life in Ukrainian culture has folklore origin: the tree and birds are a symbol of the universe. The three-tiered nature of the world was conveyed by ideograms, which were found in the painting of chests, sleighs (backs), etc. The large solar sign in such ideograms symbolizes the luminary that gives life to everything around. Small solar signs also carry a symbolic meaning: flowerpots, birds - earthly life, fish and snakes - the other world.
Elements in the form of grape leaves and clusters on a “pot” make up a “wonderful tree”, which symbolizes the well-being of the family, sometimes reminiscent of the bride. Time passed, different socio-historical conditions took effect, and painting as an art gradually began to lose its deep sacred meaning, being replaced by manifestations of rich creative imagination.
New types of painting acquired other forms and qualities, and were transferred to other materials - for example, paper. The center of such “malevok” is considered to be the village of Petrikovka, located in the Dnepropetrovsk region. At first, “painting” was a substitute for certain details of wall painting in certain places of the house, but over time it dissociated itself and became a separate independent form of art. Petrikovskaya painting is close to the traditions of the art of pysankar-making. The central image in Petrykivka compositions stood out, which created the illusion that the design was curved outward, and this enhanced the perception of the composition as a round shape - like an egg.
Both pysanka and painting on paper indicate the origin of life, flowering, cyclical development and the cycle of life. The painting of this art movement, like wall painting, actively glorifies life in all its forms and manifestations. A bouquet, a flowerpot, a bush - all this symbolizes the tree of life. Petrykivka painting has its own peculiarities: for example, the arrangement of the central element - a flower, fruit or berry - is carried out in such a way that the image and perspective are attractive, with many details and details, the most expressive of them are especially emphasized.
The flower usually turns its head towards the viewer; it can be drawn in semi-profile with an inclination towards the front edge; it was possible to depict it in full profile. Characteristic features in the Petrikovsky drawing are also leaves turned towards the viewer, a clear and distinct delineation of contours with multi-colored features and lines - this makes the smallest details more noticeable on a white background. The paints used for painting are thick, each stroke is very distinct, it is visible separately from the neighboring one. In painting, everything is expressed through shape, color, line. The elements do not overlap each other, they exist separately and do not interfere with each other, the leaf does not hide the flower or stem, and the like. This is a reflection of the characteristics of folk life, in which there are no unnecessary details, clutter of things and chaos.
To this day, the traditions of folk painting and folk drawing are developing. The craftswomen of the village of Petrikovka are known throughout the world for their talented paintings and compositions. There is a term “naive painting” - and its representatives, Maria Primachenko, Ekaterina Bilokur and many other folk artists are now recognized throughout the world of art.