Folk Russian popular print: history, description, technique and photo.

Lubok is a folk picture, a type of graphics, an image with a caption, characterized by the simplicity and accessibility of the images. Original view folk art. It was made using the techniques of woodcuts, copper engravings, lithographs and was supplemented with hand coloring.

From the middle of the 17th century, printed pictures called “Fryazhskie” (foreign) first appeared in Rus'. Then these pictures were called “amusing sheets”; in the second half of the 19th century they began to be called lubok.

The drawing was made on paper, then it was transferred to a smooth board and with special cutters they deepened the places that should remain white. The entire image consisted of walls. The work was difficult, one small mistake - and I had to start all over again. Then the board was clamped in a printing press, similar to a press, and black paint was applied to the walls with a special roller. A sheet of paper was carefully placed on top and pressed down. The print was ready. All that remains is to dry and paint. Lubki were made in different sizes. What colors were loved in Rus'? (Red, crimson, blue, green, yellow, sometimes black). They painted it so that the combination was sharp. The high quality of the drawing indicated that at first the popular prints were painted by professional artists, who were left without work under Peter I. And only then gingerbread board carvers and other city artisans joined. The engraver made the basis for the picture - a board - and gave it to the breeder. He bought boards ready for prints, and sent the prints for coloring (for example, near Moscow, in the village of Izmailovo, there lived lubok makers who made engravings on wood and copper. Women and children were engaged in coloring lubok prints.

How the paints were made: Sandalwood was boiled with the addition of alum, resulting in crimson paint. The emphasis was on bright red or cherry color. Lapis lazuli was used for blue paint. They made paints from leaves and tree bark. Each craftswoman painted in her own way. But everyone learned from each other, and used the best techniques in their work.

Lubki are very popular in Russia. Firstly, they retold history, geography, printed literary works, alphabet books, arithmetic textbooks, and holy scriptures. Any topic was covered in popular print with the utmost depth and breadth. For example, at four full sheets told about our Earth. Where and what peoples live. Lots of text and lots of pictures. Lubki were about individual cities, about different events. Caught For example, in the White Sea whale, and on large sheet a whale is drawn. Or how a man chooses a bride, or fashionable outfits, or "ABC". And all this was done with pictures. Sometimes many pictures were arranged in tiers. Sometimes there were texts on popular prints. Secondly, lubok served as decoration. Russian craftsmen gave the popular print a joyful character.

Lubok is the name comes from the word “bast” - bast, i.e. wood (inner part tree bark). The drawings were carved on wooden boards. These pictures were sold and distributed throughout the land of Russian ofeni (peddlers), who stored their goods in bast boxes. They treasured the popular prints very much. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” tells how a peasant’s hut was on fire, and the first thing he took away were pictures. There was never any grief or crying in the popular print. He only pleased and amused, and sometimes denounced, but he did it with great humor and dignity. Lubok instilled in people faith in themselves, in their strength. The peddlers of popular prints - ophens - were expected everywhere. They brought pictures with letters to the kids, pictures with fashionable clothes about love to the girls, and something political to the men. Ofenya will show such a picture and tell you what new has happened in the country.

Lubochnye pictures were accompanied by a short explanatory text. It was distinguished by its simplicity and accessibility of images, was written in a lively and figurative colloquial language and was often reproduced in poetic form. Popular prints also include hand-drawn lubok (hand-drawn wall sheets), but the main property of lubok - mass production, wide distribution - is achieved only with the help of printing.

The subjects of popular print books were varied. “Here you will find personified a dogma, a prayer, a hetya (legend), a moral teaching, a parable, a fairy tale, a proverb, a song, in a word, everything that suited the spirit, character and taste of our commoner, that was acquired by his concept, that constitutes the subject of knowledge, edification, exposure, consolation and curiosity of millions...", wrote one of the first lubok researchers I.M. Snegirev.

Initially, Russian lubok was primarily of a religious nature. Russian engravers borrowed subjects from Russian miniatures, as well as church icons. Thus, from the early printed icons, the sheet “Archangel Michael - Governor” has been preserved heavenly powers"(1668), 17th-century popular prints depicting scenes from icons of Suzdal, Chudov Monastery, Simonov Monastery in Moscow, etc. Often these pictures replaced expensive church paintings.

In the 18th century, secular subjects were the most numerous. The source for the grotesque of many of them was foreign engravings. For example, the famous popular print “The Fool Farnos and his Wife” is from a German model; “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess” is a pastoral scene in the Rococo style, from a drawing by F. Boucher, and the grotesque, fancifully fantastic figures of the popular print “Jesters and Buffoons” are based on etchings by J. Callot, etc.

Popular prints of folklore themes were widespread among the people, as well as “amusing and amusing paintings” - images of all kinds of amusements and spectacles, among which the most frequently published popular prints were “Petrushka’s Wedding”, “Bear with a Goat” and especially “Battle of Baba Yaga with a Crocodile” ". The famous popular print “How mice bury a cat” also goes back to national folklore. for a long time considered a parody of the funeral procession of Peter I, allegedly created at the beginning of the 18th century by schismatics who fiercely fought against Peter’s reforms. Today, scientists are inclined to think that the plot of this popular print appeared in pre-Petrine times, although the earliest print of this engraving that has reached us dates back to 1731. Known in several versions, including “seasonal” ones (winter burial on a sleigh and summer burial on a cart), this popular print was repeatedly reprinted with slight deviations in the title (“How the mice buried the cat,” “The mice dragged the cat to the graveyard,” etc. ), V various techniques(wood engraving, metal engraving, chromolithography) not only throughout the 18th century, but almost until the October Revolution.

Many popular prints were created on the topic of teaching and life of various social strata population of Russia: peasant, city dweller, official, merchant, etc. (“The husband weaves bast shoes, and the wife spins the thread”, “Know yourself, show in your house”); popular prints reflected events in domestic and international life ("The Eruption of Vesuvius in 1766", "The Capture of Ochakov", "The Victory of Field Marshal Count Saltykov at Frankfurt in 1759"), the military life of Russian soldiers, their political sentiments, etc. During the period of hostilities, the lubok often served as a newspaper, poster, or leaflet-proclamation. Thus, in 1812-1815, a series of popular prints-caricatures of Napoleon and the French army, created by N.I. Terebnev, a famous Russian sculptor and artist, was released. A widely known patriotic popular print called “The Battle Song of the Donets”, which became widespread during the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the text to which (“Hey, Mikado, it will be bad, we’ll break your dishes”) was written by V.L. Gilyarovsky.

Popular prints with portraits of tsars were very popular among the Russian people. In 1723, Peter I introduced strict censorship of facial images royal family, which, however, did not prevent the appearance on the book market of a popular print with a portrait of the imaginary Peter III - Emelyan Pugachev and the never-reigning Emperor Konstantin Pavlovich.

Beginning in the mid-18th century, popular prints were often sewn together or published in book form with big amount illustrations, which were later preserved only on the cover. One of the first Russian popular prints is considered to be the “Biography of the glorious fabulist Aesop,” published in 1712 and first printed in civilian type. Epics, fairy tales, dream books, adaptations of so-called knightly novels, etc. were published in the form of popular prints. The most frequently published popular books were those with fairy-tale content: “About Eruslan Lazarevich”, “Bova Korolevich”. Popular print publications on historical topics were in great demand: “The Jester Balakirev”, “Ermak, who conquered Siberia”, “How a soldier saved the life of Peter the Great”, etc., as well as popular print calendars.

Lubok pictures and books were, as a rule, anonymous, had no imprint and were engraved by self-taught folk craftsmen, but there were also professional writers of popular print books. The most famous of them was Matvey Komarov, the author of the famous “The Tale of the Adventures of the English Milord George and the Brandenburg Mark-Countess Frederica-Louise” (1782), which did not disappear from the book market for 150 years. Over time, a whole literature called popular print appeared, with its own authors, publishers, traditions, etc.

Over time, the technique of making popular prints improved: in the second half of the 18th century, copper engraving began to be used, and from the beginning of the 19th century, lithography, which significantly reduced the cost of popular prints. There have also been changes in the color of the popular print. So, if in XVII-XVIII centuries popular prints were hand-painted by individual craftsmen in eight to ten colors, but in the 19th century - usually only three or four (crimson, red, yellow and green). The coloring book itself mid-19th century takes on the character of factory production and becomes more rough, careless (“on the nose”). The readership purpose of lubok publications has changed: if in the 17th century lubok served all layers of Russian society with equal success, then already in the first quarter of the 18th century, the main sphere of its distribution became the growing urban population: merchants, traders, medium and small church officials, artisans. Lubok became peasant, truly widespread, already in the 19th century.

In the 18th-19th centuries, the main center for the production of popular prints was traditionally Moscow, where the first factories of the Akhmetyevs and M. Artemyevs arose. Gradually, the production of popular prints passed into the hands of small traders who had their own printing houses. In Moscow in the first half - mid-19th century, the main producers of popular prints were the dynasties of the Loginovs, Lavrentievs, A. Akhmetyev, G. Chuksin, A. Abramov, A. Streltsov and others, in St. Petersburg - publishers A.V. Kholmushin, A.A. .Kasatkin and others. In the village of Mstera, Vladimir region, popular prints were printed by archaeologist I.A. Golyshev, who did a lot to educate the people. Lubok publications of an educational nature were produced by numerous literacy committees, the publishing houses "Public Benefit" (founded in 1859), "Posrednik" (established in 1884), etc. Lubok prints of religious content, as well as paper samples and icons, were produced in the printing houses of the largest Russian monasteries, including Kiev-Pechersk, Solovetsky, etc.

In the 80s of the 19th century, I.D. Sytin became the monopolist of popular prints on the Russian book market, who for the first time began to produce popular prints by machine, significantly improved the content and quality of popular prints (chromolithography in five to seven colors), increased their circulation and reduced retail prices. prices. Through his efforts, the so-called new popular print was created, which in its design, design, and color scheme differed from traditional sheet publications. I.D. Sytin for the first time published a series of portraits of Russian writers (A.S. Pushkin, I.S. Nikitin, M.Yu. Lermontov, N.A. Nekrasov, A.V. Koltsov and others) and selections and adaptations of their works , published popular prints on military-patriotic and historical themes, on fairy-tale, everyday, satirical subjects, popular print books, calendars, dream books, fortune-telling books, calendar calendars, lithographed icons, etc., which were purchased in the thousands directly from factories and distributed throughout Russia And

On turn of XIX-XX centuries, lubok continued to be the main type of book product intended for the broad masses, and primarily for peasants and residents of the outskirts of Russia.

The role of lubok, but as a means of mass propaganda and agitation, especially increased during the years of the revolution. In this capacity it continued to exist until the early 30s. In conditions when the majority of the country's population was illiterate, the bright, imaginative and expressive art of lubok, understandable and close to millions, perfectly met the challenges of the time. In 1915, F.G. Shilov, a famous antiquarian of pre-revolutionary Russia, released a small edition of an album of popular prints entitled “Pictures - the war of the Russians with the Germans,” created by the artist N.P. Shakhovsky in imitation of the popular print of the 18th century. All pictures in the publication were reproduced in lithography and hand-colored; the text for them was written by V.I. Uspensky, a famous collector and publisher of numerous monuments of ancient Russian literature.

Many popular prints on the theme of the revolution were created by the artist A.E. Kulikov, including “Baptism of the Revolution”, “Hearing the Horrors of War”, “Woman in the Old Life”, “Who Has Forgotten the Duty to the Motherland?” and others. His works in this genre were published in 1917 by the Fine Arts section of the Moscow Council of Soldiers' Deputies, and in 1928 State Museum Revolution of the USSR, with a circulation of 25 thousand copies, published a series of postcards of six titles with popular prints and ditties by A.E. Kulikov.

Thus, popular prints represent a unique type of antique book. Among them there are genuine works of folk art that reflect the life, customs and aspirations of the Russian people. Each popular print today is an interesting monument and document of its era, bearing the signs and features of its time - this is the approach that should underlie the study of Russian popular prints. At the same time, censorship of lubok publications, which existed in Russia since the end of the 17th century and initially extended only to the “spiritual” lubok, and from the 19th century to all without exception, did not have a serious impact on its evolution.

The main reference book on Russian popular print is the major five-volume work of D. A. Rovinsky “Russians folk pictures"(St. Petersburg, 1881). The owner of the best collection of popular prints in Russia, a tireless researcher of all state and known to him private collections, D.A. Rovinsky collected together, carefully described and commented, indicating sources, 1800 popular prints.

Russian lubok is a graphic type of folk art that arose in the era of Peter the Great. Sheets with bright, funny pictures were printed in the hundreds of thousands and were extremely cheap. They never depicted grief or sadness; funny or educational stories with simple, understandable images were accompanied by laconic inscriptions and were a kind of comics of the 17th-19th centuries. In every hut similar pictures hung on the walls; they were greatly valued, and the ofeni, distributors of popular prints, were eagerly awaited everywhere.

Origin of the term

IN late XVI In the 1st century, prints from wooden boards were called German or Fryag amusing sheets by analogy with prints, the technique of which came to Russia from Western lands. Representatives of southern Europe, mainly Italians, have long been called Fryags in Rus'; all other Europeans were called Germans. Later, prints with more serious content and realistic images were called Fryazh sheets, and traditional Russian lubok was the art of folk graphics with simplified, brightly colored graphics and clearly succinct images.

There are two assumptions why funny sheets were called popular prints. Perhaps the first boards for impressions were made from bast - the lower layer of tree bark, most often linden. Boxes were made from the same material - containers for bulk products or household belongings. They were often painted with picturesque patterns with primitive images of people and animals. Over time, bast began to be called boards intended for working on them with a chisel.

Execution technique

Each stage of work on the Russian popular print had its own name and was carried out by different masters.

1. At first, the contour drawing was created on paper, and the flag bearers drew it on the prepared board with a pencil. This process was called signification.
2. Then the carvers got to work. Using sharp tools, they made indentations, leaving thin walls along the contour of the design. This delicate, painstaking work required special qualifications. The base boards, ready for impressions, were sold to the breeder. The first wood engravers, and then copper engravers, lived in Izmailovo, a village near Moscow.
3. The board was smeared dark paint and with a sheet of cheap gray paper placed on it was placed under the press. The thin walls of the board left a black outline pattern, and the cut-out areas kept the paper uncolored. Such sheets were called prostovki.
4. Paintings with outline prints were taken to colorists - village artel workers who were engaged in coloring simple paintings. This work was performed by women, often children. Each of them painted up to a thousand sheets a week. The artel workers made their own paints. The crimson color was obtained from boiled sandalwood with the addition of alum, the blue color came from lapis lazuli, and various transparent tones were extracted from processed plants and tree bark. In the 18th century, with the advent of lithography, the profession of colorists almost disappeared.

Due to wear and tear, the boards were often copied, this was called translation. Initially, the board was cut from linden, then pear and maple were used.

The appearance of funny pictures

The first printing press was called the Fryazhsky mill and was installed in the Court (Upper) printing house at the end of the 17th century. Then other printing houses appeared. Boards for printing were cut from copper. There is an assumption that Russian popular prints were first produced by professional printers, installing simple machines in their homes. Printing craftsmen lived in the area of ​​modern Stretenka and Lubyanka streets, and here, near the church walls, they sold funny Fryazh sheets, which immediately began to be in demand. It was in this area that by the beginning of the 18th century popular prints found their characteristic style. Soon other places of their distribution appeared, such as Vegetable Row, and then Spassky Bridge.

Funny pictures under Peter

Wanting to please the sovereign, draftsmen came up with amusing plots for amusing sheets. For example, the battle of Alexander the Great with the Indian king Porus, in which the Greek ancient commander was given a clear portrait resemblance to Peter I. Or the plot of a black and white print about Ilya of Murom and the Nightingale the Robber, where the Russian hero both in appearance and clothing corresponded to the image of the sovereign, and a robber in a Swedish military uniform portrayed Charles XII. Some subjects of the Russian popular print may have been ordered by Peter I himself, such as a sheet that reflects the reform instructions of the sovereign from 1705: a Russian merchant, dressed in European clothes, is preparing to shave his beard.

Printers also received orders from opponents of Peter’s reforms, although the content of the seditious popular prints was veiled with allegorical images. After the death of the tsar, a famous sheet circulated with a scene of a cat being buried by mice, which contained many hints that the cat was the late sovereign, and the happy mice were the lands conquered by Peter.

The heyday of popular print in the 18th century

Beginning in 1727, after the death of Empress Catherine I, print production in Russia declined sharply. Most printing houses, including the St. Petersburg one, have closed. And printers, left without work, reoriented themselves to the production of popular prints, using printing copper boards, which remained in abundance after the closure of enterprises. From this time on, the Russian folk popular print began to flourish.

By the middle of the century, lithographic machines appeared in Russia, which made it possible to multiply the number of copies many times over, obtain color printing, and a higher quality and more detailed image. The first factory with 20 machines belonged to the Moscow merchants Akhmetyev. Competition among popular prints increased, and the subjects became more and more diverse. The pictures were created for the main consumers - city dwellers, therefore they depicted city life and everyday life. Peasant themes appeared only in the next century.

Lubok production in the 19th century

Starting from the middle of the century, 13 large lithographic printing houses operated in Moscow, producing popular prints along with their main products. By the end of the century, I. Sytin’s enterprise was considered the most prominent in the field of production and distribution of these products, which annually produced about two million calendars, one and a half million sheets of biblical stories, 900 thousand pictures with secular subjects. Morozov's lithography produced about 1.4 million popular prints annually, Golyshev's factory produced close to 300 thousand, the circulation of other productions was smaller. The cheapest plain sheets were sold for half a kopeck, the most expensive pictures cost 25 kopecks.

Subjects

The popular prints of the 17th century were chronicles, oral and handwritten tales, and epics. By the middle of the 18th century, Russian hand-drawn popular prints with images of buffoons, jesters, noble life, and court fashion became popular. Many satirical sheets appeared. In the 30s and 40s, the most popular content of popular prints was the depiction of city folk festivities, festivals, entertainment, fist fights, and fairs. Some sheets contained several thematic pictures, for example, the popular print “Meeting and Farewell of Maslenitsa” consisted of 27 drawings depicting the fun of Muscovites in different districts of the city. Since the second half of the century, redrawings from German and French calendars and almanacs have spread.

Since the beginning of the 19th century, popular prints have shown literary subjects works of Goethe, Chateaubriand, Francois Rene, and other popular writers of that time. Since the 1820s, the Russian style has come into fashion, which in print was expressed in a rustic theme. At the expense of the peasants, the demand for popular prints also increased. Themes of spiritual-religious, military-patriotic content, portraits remained popular royal family, illustrations with quotes for fairy tales, songs, fables, sayings.

Lubok XX - XXI centuries

In the graphic design of advertising leaflets, posters, newspaper illustrations, and signs from the beginning of the last century, popular print style was often used. This is explained by the fact that pictures remained the most popular type of information products for illiterate rural and urban populations. The genre was later characterized by art critics as an element of Russian Art Nouveau.

Lubok influenced the formation of political and propaganda posters in the first quarter of the 20th century. At the end of the summer of 1914, the publishing society “Today's Lubok” was organized, whose task was to produce satirical posters and postcards. Accurate short texts were written by Vladimir Mayakovsky, who worked on the images together with artists Kazimir Malevich, Larionov, Chekrygin, Lentulov, Burlyukov and Gorsky. Until the 1930s, popular prints were often present in advertising posters and design. For a century, the style was used in Soviet caricature, illustrations for children's and satirical caricatures.

You can't call Russian popular print modern look popular visual arts. Such graphics are extremely rarely used for ironic posters, design of fairs or thematic exhibitions. Few illustrators and cartoonists work in this direction, but on the Internet their bright, witty works on the topic of the day attract the attention of netizens.

“Drawing in Russian popular print style”

In 2016, under this title, the Hobbitek publishing house published a book by Nina Velichko, addressed to everyone who is interested in folklore. fine arts. The work contains articles about entertainment and educational nature. Based on the works of old masters, the author teaches the features of popular prints, explains how to draw a picture in a frame step by step, depict people, trees, flowers, houses, draw stylized letters and other elements. Thanks to the fascinating material, it is not at all difficult to master the technique and properties of popular prints in order to independently create bright entertaining pictures.

In Moscow on Sretenka there is a museum of Russian popular print and naive art. The foundation of the exhibition is the rich collection of the director of this institution, Viktor Penzin. The exhibition of popular prints, from the 18th century to the present day, arouses considerable interest among visitors. It is no coincidence that the museum is located in the area of ​​​​Pechatnikov Lane and Lubyanka, where more than three centuries ago the same printing workers who were at the origins of the history of Russian popular print lived. The style of Fryazhsky funny pictures originated here, and sheets for sale were hung on the fence of the local church. Perhaps exhibitions, books and displays of pictures on the Internet will revive interest in Russian popular print, and it will again come into fashion, as has happened many times with other types of folk art.

Here you will find personified a dogma, a prayer, a getya (legend), a moral teaching, a parable, a fairy tale, a proverb, a song, in a word, everything that suits the spirit, disposition and taste of our common people. THEM. Snegirev

There are words whose meaning is lost or distorted irrevocably over time. In Pushkin’s time, the square was called a “rings,” a “sinyavka” was called not a drinking woman, but a teacher in a girls’ gymnasium, scores were settled not in a fight, but in a shop with the help of a mechanical device - an abacus. The word “lubok” has also changed its meaning – now it means a rough, tacky, vulgar craft. And once upon a time, hand-printed sheets of cliches carved on linden boards were folk literature.

Lubok "Battle of Baba Yaga with a crocodile"

Before the reforms of Peter the Great, books in Rus' remained an expensive hobby. The Book Chamber in Moscow published Gospels, lives of saints, military manuals, medical and historical treatises, and spiritual literature. The cost of one book reached 5–6 rubles (for comparison: a duck cost 3 kopecks, and a pound of honey cost 41 kopecks). Educated person in his life he could read 50–100 books, but as a rule he limited himself to the Psalter and Domostroy. However, there were more literate people than rich people - “Azbuka” cost one kopeck and sold no worse than hare pies. The first issue (2,900 pieces) sold out within a year - and no wonder. The ability to read and write provided a person with a piece of bread; merchants and officials from numerous orders were literate. It was they who turned out to be consumers of an exotic product - colorfully painted “Fryazh sheets” that came to Russia from neighboring Poland.

The first “nianhua” - printed pictures with religious or moral content appeared in the 8th century in China - with their help, the teachings of the Buddha were conveyed to the illiterate people. The manufacturing technology has not changed much over the centuries - a design was cut out on a board, wooden, stone or metal, a black print was made from it, which was then more or less carefully painted by hand with bright colors.

In the 15th century, with ubiquitous traders, lubok reached Europe and in a matter of decades gained enormous popularity. “Disgraceful pictures” with obscene captions and scenes from the Bible with instructive texts were in equally good demand. Preachers and rebels of all stripes immediately appreciated the broad possibilities of popular propaganda, printing caricatures of the Pope and his minions, calls for rebellion and short theses of new teachings.

Lubok turned out to be ideal for the mass production of icons and pictures of spiritual content, accessible even to poor people. Russian printers and craftsmen willingly adopted new technologies. The oldest printed popular print from the 17th century found is “Archangel Michael - Governor of the Heavenly Powers.” Copies of famous Vladimir and Suzdal icons and parable images were popular. Here he prays, Ham sows wheat, Japheth has power, Death rules over everyone.».

Lubok "Archangel Michael - Governor of the Heavenly Forces"

The passion for colorful pictures quickly became widespread - they were eagerly bought up by merchants, boyars, officials, and townspeople. Young Peter I had more than 100 popular prints, from which clerk Zotov taught the future autocrat to read. Following spiritual popular prints, secular ones quickly appeared. At best - Ilya Muromtsy, defeating enemies, heroes Eruslan Lazarevich and wise birds Alkonost. At worst, there are adaptations of Parsley's jokes and obscene pictures - the jester Farnos defends himself from mosquitoes by emitting gases, Paramoshka (one of the frequent heroes of popular prints) rides over Moscow on an object that is absolutely not intended for flying, and so on.

By the middle of the 17th century, European borrowings either disappeared from plots and graphics or were adapted to local realities. Russian popular print has found its artistic language, recognizable style, compositional uniformity. Art historians of the 19th century called it primitive - but Paleolithic rock paintings are just as primitive. The artist of the popular print did not set himself the task of accurately reproducing proportions or achieving portrait resemblance. He needed to create a graphic cry, an emotional message that everyone could understand. So that, looking at the picture, the viewer immediately laughs or bursts into tears, begins to pray, repent or wonder “who lives well in Rus'.” Yuri Lotman compared the Russian popular print with the space of a theater, a public nativity scene - it is not without reason that artists used not only the subjects of Petrushka, but also rich, imaginative heavenly verse. " This bird of paradise, Alkonost, resides near paradise, and once hangs out on the Euphrates River, but when it emits a certain voice, then it does not even feel itself, but who... proclaims joy to them».

Very quickly, the popular popular print became topical, responding to political, military and religious events with the speed of the media, shining the “searchlight of perestroika” on the problems of society. Vivid pictures with malicious captions they exposed drunkards and admirers gambling, tobacco smokers and lovers of dressing up, old husbands taking young wives, they mocked the boyars who were forced to cut their beards, and with the help of allegories, they mocked the Tsar-Father himself. And nimble peddlers carrying bast boxes over their shoulders delivered funny pictures to the most remote corners of Russia.

In 1674, Patriarch Joachim prohibited the purchase of “sheets of heretics, Luthers and Calvins” and the making of paper prints of revered icons. This did not cripple the popular print trade; on the contrary, not only printed, but also drawn popular prints with spiritual and frankly destructive content began to appear. The schismatics, following the example of the Lutherans, conveyed their ideas to their fellow believers, including with the help of popular pictures. Nameless artists embodied people's dreams and picked up “fashion trends,” as modern journalists would put it. They managed, using the most meager visual means, to embody the poetry of Russian epics and fairy tales, longing for the mythical “city of Jerusalem,” the hopelessness of death and hope for eternal life.

Tsar Peter I, a practical man, could not ignore such a means of influencing his subjects. In 1721, a decree was issued prohibiting the sale of popular prints that were not printed in state printing houses. In the amusing pictures, elegant ladies in dresses with flip-flops and gentlemen in powdered wigs and European-style camisoles immediately appeared. Paper portraits of crowned heads began to enjoy enormous popularity... however, they were made so carelessly that in 1744 depicting the imperial family on popular prints was also banned.

By the middle of the 18th century, the high society of Russian society finally became completely literate. Available books, newspapers and almanacs appeared, the habit of reading - even the dream book of the Lenormand maiden or "The Russian Invalid" - appealed to aging ladies and retired officers. From palaces and mansions, lubok finally moved to merchant storehouses, craft workshops and peasant huts, becoming entertainment for the common people. The technique of making pictures has improved; instead of using rough wooden boards, craftsmen have learned to make prints from finely cut copper engravings.

Moral popular prints, adaptations of ancient manuscripts, and reprints of particularly topical or sensational newspaper articles about catching a whale in the White Sea or the arrival of a Persian elephant in St. Petersburg became popular. During the War of 1812, the Russian-Turkish and Russian-Japanese wars, evil caricatures of the invaders sold like hot cakes. The demand for popular prints is best demonstrated by numbers: in 1893, 4,491,300 copies were printed in Russia.

At the beginning of the 20th century, lubok from folk art finally became original, designed for poorly educated and illiterate villagers. Booksellers made millions from sugary pictures in a pseudo-folk style, simplified adaptations of popular fiction and Russian epics (there was no mention of copyright for texts at that time). Peasant artels earned decent money by coloring pictures “on the noses.” Lubok became profitable business– and practically lost its originality folk culture. It is no wonder that the venerable artists from the Academy wrinkled their aristocratic noses in disgust at one glance at the battle of Eruslan Lazarevich with Tsar Polkan or the funeral of a cat (the most enduring popular print plot).

It seemed that colorful pictures were immortal, but the revolution and the subsequent elimination of illiteracy killed popular prints without resorting to censorship. Party literature took the place of spiritual and amusing literature, and pictures cut out from magazines took the place of icons and portraits of kings. Traces of graphic boldness, loud and bright popular satire can be seen in the posters of the 20s and the work of Soviet caricaturists, in illustrations for Afanasyev’s fairy tales and Russian epics. The mice buried the cat... but his death was imaginary.

Modern popular print is Rublev’s angel on a box of chocolates, a kokoshnik and a miniskirt at a fashion show, an army of “Valentines” instead of a moment of love, “Orthodox” conspiracies against damage and the evil eye. Mass culture, designed for an uneducated, inattentive consumer seeking bright emotions, simplified to the limit, blatant vulgarity.

Russian fine print(luboks, popular prints, popular sheets, amusing sheets, simple books) - inexpensive pictures with captions (mostly graphic) intended for mass distribution, a type of graphic art.

It got its name from the bast (the upper hard wood of the linden tree), which was used in the 17th century. as an engraving base for boards when printing such pictures. In the 18th century bast replaced copper boards in the 19th and 20th centuries. These pictures were already produced using the printing method, but their name “popular prints” was retained for them. This type of simple and crude art for mass consumption became widespread in Russia in the 17th and early 20th centuries, even giving rise to popular popular literature. Such literature fulfilled its social function, introducing reading to the poorest and least educated segments of the population.

Formerly works of folk art, initially made exclusively by non-professionals, lubok influenced the emergence of works of professional graphics of the early 20th century, which were distinguished by a special visual language and borrowed folklore techniques and images.

The artistic features of popular prints are syncretism, boldness in the choice of techniques (up to the grotesque and deliberate deformation of the depicted), highlighting thematically the main thing with a larger image (this is similar to children's drawings). From popular prints, which were for ordinary townspeople and rural residents of the 17th - early 20th centuries. modern home posters, colorful desk calendars, posters, comics, and many works of modern mass culture (even the art of cinema) trace their history back to newspapers, television, icons, and primers.

As a genre that combines graphics and literary elements, lubok were not a purely Russian phenomenon.

The oldest pictures of this kind existed in China, Turkey, Japan, and India. In China they were initially performed by hand, and from the 8th century. engraved on wood, distinguished at the same time by their bright colors and catchiness.

In the Russian state, the first popular prints (which existed as works of anonymous authors) were published at the beginning of the 17th century. in the printing house of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. The craftsmen manually cut both the picture and the text on a smoothly planed, polished linden board, leaving the text and the lines of the drawing convex. Next, using a special leather pillow - matzo - black paint was applied to the drawing from a mixture of burnt hay, soot and boiled linseed oil. A sheet of damp paper was placed on top of the board and the whole thing was pressed together into the press of the printing press. The resulting print was then hand-colored in one or more colors (this type of work, often entrusted to women, was in some areas called "nose painting" - coloring with contours in mind).

The earliest popular print found in the East Slavic region is considered to be the icon of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary 1614-1624, the first Moscow popular print now preserved in collections from the late 17th century.

In Moscow, the distribution of popular prints began from the royal court. In 1635, for the 7-year-old Tsarevich Alexei Mikhailovich, so-called “printed sheets” were purchased in the Vegetable Row on Red Square, after which the fashion for them came to the boyar mansions, and from there to the middle and lower strata of the townspeople, where the popular print gained recognition and popularity around the 1660s.

Among the main genres of popular prints, at first there was only the religious one.

Among the artists who worked on the production of engraving bases for these popular prints were the famous masters of the Kiev-Lvov typographic school of the 17th century. - Pamva Berynda, Leonty Zemka, Vasily Koren, Hieromonk Elijah. Prints of their works were hand-colored in four colors: red, purple, yellow, green. Thematically, all the popular prints they created had a religious content, but biblical heroes were often depicted on them in Russian folk clothing (like Cain plowing the land on Vasily Koren’s popular print).

Gradually, among popular prints, in addition to religious subjects (scenes from the lives of saints and the Gospel), illustrations for Russian fairy tales, epics, translated knightly novels (about Bova Korolevich, Eruslan Lazarevich), and historical tales (about the founding of Moscow, the Battle of Kulikovo) appeared.

Thanks to such printed “amusing sheets”, details of peasant labor and life of pre-Petrine times are now being reconstructed (“Old Agathon weaves bast shoes, and his wife Arina spins threads”), scenes of plowing, harvesting, logging, baking pancakes, rituals of the family cycle - births, weddings , funeral. Thanks to them, the history of everyday Russian life was filled with real images of household utensils and the furnishings of huts.

Ethnographers still use these sources, restoring lost scripts for folk festivals, round dances, fair events, details and tools of rituals (for example, fortune telling). Some images of Russian popular prints of the 17th century. came into use for a long time, including the image of the “ladder of life”, on which each decade corresponds to a certain “step” (“The first step of this life is played in a carefree game...”). But why is popular print called “amusing”? Here's why. Very often, popular prints depicted such funny things that you could hardly stand still. Lubki depicting fair festivals, farcical performances and their barkers, who in hurried voices beckoned people to attend the performance:

“My wife is beautiful. There is a blush under the nose, snot all over the cheek; It’s like a ride along Nevsky, only dirt flies from under your feet. Her name is Sophia, who spent three years drying on the stove. I took it off the stove, it bowed to me and fell apart in three pieces. What should I do? I took a washcloth, sewed it, and lived with it for three more years. He went to Sennaya, bought another wife for a penny, and with a cat. The cat is penniless, but the wife is a profit, whatever you give, she will eat.”

“But, shy guys, this is Parasha.
Only mine, not yours.
I wanted to marry her.
Yes, I remembered, this is not suitable with a living wife.
Parasha would be good for everyone, but it hurts her cheeks.
That’s why there aren’t enough bricks in St. Petersburg.”

A funny popular cartoon about the girl Rodionova:
“Maiden Rodionova, who arrived in Moscow from St. Petersburg and was awarded the favorable attention of the St. Petersburg public. She is 18 years old, her height is 1 arshin 10 vershoks, her head is quite large, her nose is wide. She uses her lips and tongue to embroider different patterns and embroider beaded bracelets. He also eats food without the help of strangers. Her legs serve instead of hands; she uses them to take plates of food and bring them to her lips. In all likelihood, the Moscow public will not leave her happy with the same attention that was given to the girl Yulia Postratsa, especially since seeing Rodionova and her art is much more interesting than seeing only the ugliness of the girl Yulia Postratsa.”

Russian lubok ceased to exist at the end of the 19th century. It was then that old colored sheets began to be stored and cherished as relics of a bygone past. At the same time, the study and collection of popular prints begins. Large collection the popular print was collected from the famous compiler " Explanatory dictionary living Great Russian language" by Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl. The artists Repin, Vasnetsov, Kustodiev, Kandinsky, Konchalovsky, Dobuzhinsky, Lentulov were interested in lubko.

The artistic motifs of the popular print influenced folk decorative creativity XX century. The connection with the aesthetics of popular prints can be seen in some works by artists Fedoskino and Palekh. Some lubok traditions were used in the creation animated films on themes of folk tales.

The first person to seriously study and collect popular prints was Dmitry Aleksandrovich Rovinsky. His collection included every single Russian popular print that was produced by the end of the 19th century, and that’s almost 8 thousand copies.

Dmitry Aleksandrovich Rovinsky - art historian, collector and lawyer by profession - was born in Moscow. I purchased the first copies for my collection in my youth. But at first he was interested in collecting Western engravings; Rovinsky had one of the most complete collections of Rembrandt engravings in Russia. He traveled all over Europe in search of these engravings. But later, under the influence of his relative, historian and collector, M.P. Pogodin, Rovinsky begins to collect everything domestic, and primarily Russian folk pictures. In addition to popular prints, D. A. Rovinsky collected old illustrated primers, cosmographies and satirical sheets. Rovinsky spent all his money on collecting his collection. He lived very modestly, surrounded by countless folders with engravings and books on art. Every year Rovinsky went on trips to the most remote places of Russia, from where he brought new sheets for his collection of popular prints. D. A. Rovinsky wrote and published at his own expense “A detailed dictionary of Russian engraved portraits” in 4 volumes, published in 1872, “Russian folk pictures” in 5 volumes - 1881. “Materials for Russian iconography” and “ Complete collection engravings by Rembrandt" in 4 volumes in 1890.

Thanks to his research in the field of art, Rovinsky was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Arts. Rovinsky established prizes for best essays in artistic archeology and for the best painting, followed by its reproduction in an engraving. He gave his dacha to Moscow University, and from the income he received, he established regular prizes for the best illustrated scientific essay for public reading.

Rovinsky bequeathed his entire collection of Rembrandt engravings, which is over 600 sheets, to the Hermitage, Russian and folk pictures to the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum, about 50 thousand Western European engravings to the Imperial Public Library.

In contact with

Originally a type of folk art. It was made using the techniques of woodcuts, copper engravings, lithographs and was supplemented with hand coloring.

Lubok is characterized by simplicity of technique, laconicism visual arts(rough stroke, bright coloring). Often the popular print contains a detailed narrative with explanatory inscriptions and additional (explanatory, complementary) images to the main one.

Story

The most ancient popular prints are known in China. Until the 8th century, they were drawn by hand. Starting from the 8th century, the first popular prints made in woodcut are known. Lubok appeared in Europe in the 15th century. Early European popular prints are characterized by the woodcut technique. Copper engraving and lithography are added later.

Due to its intelligibility and focus on the “broad masses,” the popular print was used as a means of propaganda (for example, “flying leaflets” during the Peasant War and the Reformation in Germany, popular prints during the French Revolution).

In Germany, factories for the production of pictures were located in Cologne, Munich, Neuruppin; in France - in the city of Troyes. In Europe, books and pictures with obscene content are widespread, for example, “Tableau de l'amur conjual” (Picture of Married Love). “Seductive and immoral pictures” were imported to Russia from France and Holland.

Russian lubok of the 18th century is distinguished by its consistent composition.

Eastern lubok (China, India) is distinguished by its bright colors.

At the end of the 19th century, lubok was revived in the form of comics.

In Russia

Story

In Russia in the 16th century - early 17th century, prints were sold that were called “Fryazhsky sheets” or “German amusing sheets”.

At the end of the 17th century, a Fryazhsky printing mill was installed in the Upper (Court) printing house for printing Fryazhian sheets. In 1680, craftsman Afanasy Zverev cut “all sorts of Fryazhian cuttings” on copper boards for the Tsar.

German amusing sheets were sold in Vegetable Row, and later on Spassky Bridge.

Censorship and bans

Moscow Patriarch Joachim in 1674 forbade “the purchase of sheets that were printed by German heretics, Luthers and Calvins, in their damned opinion.” The faces of revered saints were to be written on a board, and printed images were intended for “beauty.”

A decree of March 20, 1721 prohibited the sale “on Spassky Bridge and in other places of Moscow of works composed different ranks by people... prints (sheets) printed arbitrarily, except by the printing house.” The Izugraphic Chamber was created in Moscow.

The Chamber issued permission to print popular prints “unwillingly, except for the printing house.” Over time, this decree was no longer enforced. A large number of low-quality images of Saints have appeared.

Therefore, by decree of October 18, 1744, it was ordered to “preliminarily submit the drawings to the diocesan bishops for approval.”

The decree of January 21, 1723 demanded that “Imperial persons should be skillfully painted with evidence of good skill by painters with all danger and diligent care.” Therefore, in popular prints there are no images of reigning persons.

In 1822, police censorship was introduced for the printing of popular prints. Some popular prints were banned and the boards were destroyed. In 1826, by censorship regulations, all prints (and not just popular prints) were subject to review by censorship.

Subjects of the paintings

Initially, the subjects for popular prints were handwritten tales, life books, “fatherly writings,” oral tales, articles from translated newspapers (for example, “Chimes”), etc.

The plots and drawings were borrowed from foreign Almanacs and Calendars. IN early XIX centuries, plots are borrowed from the novels and stories of Goethe, Radcliffe, Cotten, Chateaubriand and other writers.

At the end of the 19th century, pictures on themes from the Holy Scriptures and portraits of the imperial family predominated, followed by genre pictures, most often of a moral and instructive nature (about the disastrous consequences of gluttony, drunkenness, and greed).

Front editions of “Eruslan Lazarevich” and other fairy tales, images in faces folk songs(“The boyars were traveling from Nova Gorod”, “The wife beat her husband”), women’s heads with absurd inscriptions, images of cities ( Jerusalem - the navel of the earth).

Production of splints

Engravers were called “Fryazhian carving masters” (in contrast to Russian “ordinary” woodcarvers). In Moscow at the end of the 16th century, the first engraver was supposedly Andronik Timofeev Nevezha.

Signing was called drawing and painting. Around the 16th (or 17th) century, marking was divided into marking and engraving. The flag bearer drew the design, and the engraver cut it out on a board or metal.

Copying boards was called translation. The boards were initially linden, then maple, pear and palm.

The lubok was made in the following way: the artist made a pencil drawing on a linden board (lubo), then using a knife to make indentations using this drawing in those places that should remain white. A board smeared with paint under a press left black outlines of the picture on the paper.

Printed in this way on cheap gray paper were called simple paintings. The simpletons were taken to special artels. In the 19th century, in villages near Moscow and Vladimir, there were special artels that were engaged in coloring popular prints. Women and children were busy painting popular prints.

Later, a more advanced way to produce popular prints appeared, and engravers appeared. Using a thin cutter on copper plates, they engraved the design with hatching, with all the small details, which was impossible to do on a linden board.

One of the first Russian figure factories appeared in Moscow in the middle of the 18th century. The factory belonged to the merchants Akhmetyev. There were 20 machines at the factory.

Prostovikov, that is, the cheapest pictures, costing ½ kopeck a piece, were printed and colored in the Moscow district about 4 million annually. Highest price popular prints cost 25 kopecks.

Popularity

Lubki fell in love with everyone in Russia right away, without exception. They could be found in the royal chambers, in the slaves' hut, at the inn, in monasteries.

There are documents showing that Patriarch Nikon had two hundred and seventy of them, most of them, however, still from Fryazh. And they had already bought a lot of domestic ones for Tsarevich Peter; there were about a hundred of them in his rooms. There are two reasons for such a rapid and widespread popularity of seemingly simple pictures.

Firstly, lubok replaced books inaccessible to the common man: textbooks, starting with the alphabet and arithmetic and ending with cosmography (astronomy), fiction - in lubok, a series of sequential pictures, as in the stamps of hagiographic icons, with extensive captions, epics and stories were retold or published .

Adventure translated novels about Bova Korolevich and Eruslan Lazarevich, fairy tales, songs, proverbs. There were lubki, like newsletters and newspapers, reporting on the most important state events, wars, and life in other countries.

There were interpreters of the Holy Scriptures, depicting the largest monasteries and cities. There were popular therapeutic books about all sorts of things folk beliefs and signs. There were the worst satyrs.

Photo gallery

Helpful information

Splint
popular print
popular print sheet
funny sheet
simpleton

origin of name

The name comes from specially cut boards called lube (deck). On them back in the 15th century. wrote plans, drawings, drawings. Then the so-called “Fryazh sheets” appeared, and later small paper pictures began to be called simply lubok (popular folk picture).

In Russia

In Russia, folk pictures became widespread in the 17th-20th centuries. They were cheap (even low-income people could buy them) and often served as decoration. Popular sheets performed the social and entertainment role of a newspaper or primer. They are the prototype of modern calendars, posters, comics and placards. In the 17th century, painted bast boxes became widespread.

Types of splints

• Spiritual and religious - In the Byzantine style. Icon type images. Lives of saints, parables, moral teachings, songs, etc.
• Philosophical.
• Legal - depictions of trials and legal actions. The following subjects were often encountered: “Shemyakin trial” and “Ruff Ershovich Shchetinnikov”.
• Historical - “Touching stories” from chronicles. Image of historical events, battles, cities. Topographic maps.
• Fairy tales - magical tales, heroic tales, “Tales of Daring People”, everyday tales.
• Holidays - images of saints.
• Cavalry - popular prints with images of horsemen.
• Joker - funny popular prints, satires, caricatures, fables.

Coloring method

The artel workers accepted orders from popular publishers to color hundreds of thousands of copies. One person painted up to one thousand popular prints per week - they paid one ruble for such work. The profession was called florist. The profession disappeared after the advent of lithographic machines.

Advantages of a printed picture

The first to realize the benefits of a printed image in Moscow were the same regulars of the Spassky Bridge, or Spassky Sacrum, as this place was more often called then. The book trade flourished there even before lubok - the main trade in Russia was in this area. But only the books that sold were mostly handwritten and very often of the most poisonous nature, such as the satirical “Sava’s Priest - Great Glory” and “Service to the Tavern.” The writers themselves and their friends - artists from the same common people - drew pictures and illustrations for these books, or sewed them into the pages, or sold them separately. But how much can you draw by hand?!

Manufacturing

It was these writers and artists who drew attention to popular prints, which foreigners brought, first as a gift to the Moscow Tsar and boyars, and then for wide sale. It turned out that making them is not so difficult, and many thousands of pictures can be printed from one board, and even with text cut out in the same way next to the drawing. One of the foreigners or Belarusians, apparently, built the first machine in Moscow and brought ready-made boards for a sample.

I.D. Sytin

In the second half of the 19th century, one of the largest producers and distributors of printed popular prints was I. D. Sytin. In 1882, the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition took place in Moscow, at which Sytin’s products were awarded a silver medal. I. D. Sytin collected boards from which popular prints were printed for about 20 years. The collection, worth several tens of thousands of rubles, was destroyed during a fire in Sytin's printing house during the 1905 Revolution.

Formation of style

The still young Russian popular print, of course, borrowed a lot from other arts, and primarily from book miniatures, and therefore, artistically, it soon became a kind of alloy, a synthesis of all the best that Russian art had developed over the previous centuries of its existence.

But just to what extent did the popular printmakers sharpen and exaggerate all the forms, to what extent did they intensify the contrast and heat up the colors, heat up to such an extent that each leaf literally burns, splashes with cheerful multicolors.

In our time

In the modern world, the lubok style has not been forgotten. It is widely used in illustrations, theater decorations, paintings and interior decoration. Dishes, posters, and calendars are produced.

IN modern fashion the popular print was also reflected. As part of the 22nd “Textile Salon” in Ivanovo, the collection of Egor Zaitsev, “iVANOVO. Splint".