Storied Russian Miniatures Dwindling in Face of Icon Revival
A student at the Higher School of Folk Art in the village of Kholui, Russia, where a local industry of artmaking has flourished.CreditCreditJames Hill for The New York Times
PALEKH, Russia — Once upon a time, the small, picturesque Russian village of Palekh gained fame far and wide for producing religious icons.
Then one day, a revolution came and its adherents, growling, “There is no god,” banned such art.
Hundreds of artists eventually learned to adorn lacquer boxes instead, painting scenes from Russian fairy tales or romanticized versions of country life.
These delicate miniatures made the village famous anew, especially after foreign collectors plunked down tens of thousands of dollars buying an art form considered uniquely Russian.
Market day in Palekh.CreditJames Hill for The New York Times
Then the fickle wheel of history rotated once more.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the renaissance of the Russian Orthodox Church revived icon painting. It is miniature art now facing extinction.
The youngest generation of artists shows little interest, he said. “Everyone speaks of commerce — what is the point of developing lacquer miniatures when good money is being paid for icons, for frescoes?”
Workers preparing boxes for painting at the Russian Lacquer Miniature company workshop in Kholui.CreditJames Hill for The New York Times
Stunning antique icons and miniatures fill the collection of the State Museum of Palekh Art. The boxes are adorned with characters from Russian fairy tales — princes and princesses, the legendary firebird and Baba Yaga, a sorceress — replacing the Virgin Mary and the saints. The four seasons were a favorite theme, with countless troikas dashing across snowy fields.Each papier-mâché box, blackened with mud from the Teza River, is a blaze of meticulous detail. To paint faces, for example, the artists commonly used a brush made of just one hair from a squirrel’s tail.
The egg tempera paint gave the boxes a polished glow, enhanced by rubbing them with bone. In addition, the Palekh tradition of edging in gold every person, animal and sometimes every leaf made the details pop out of the black background.
Top: a Soviet-era Palekh board painted in 1975 and entitled “Holiday of Russian Winter in Palekh.” Bottom: detail from a Soviet-era Palekh plate, painted in 1955, entitled “Flourish, land of the Kolhoz!”CreditJames Hill for The New York Times
On a box depicting a wheat harvest, for example, each blade seems to be swaying in the wind, while the elongated figures of three peasant women dance over the field like ballerinas. The dazzling mix of colors and scenes on some larger pieces can appear garish.
While the stories of Alexander Pushkin and traditional folk tales were a constant, some boxes reflected the times. Portraits of Lenin gave way to Stalin and then Moscow scenes from the 1950s and 1960s, complete with Metro stations and the Stalin towers.Occasional 1990s boxes featured gangsters in track suits.
Before the miniatures, Palekh icon painting dates to the early 16th Century.
The region, some 220 miles east of Moscow, served as an important trade hub, attracting a community of Old Believers, who hewed to a more traditional form of Russian Orthodoxy. They commissioned so many religious icons that it spawned a local industry, taking root in the nearby villages of Kholui and Mstera as well.
By The New York Times
