Handicraft industry is the manufacture of unique products with original ideas that are used in everyday life and created by the hands of a craftsman.
What does manual work mean for a person?
For the master, this is an opportunity to bring to life the unique creation that he saw in his dreams. This is a painstaking and thorough decoration of every detail, so that in the end you get perfection.
For the buyer, this is an opportunity to purchase an individual product that is filled with love and will make life brighter, expressing the identity of the person who purchased the handmade item.
Handicraft History
Handicraft work appeared along with the emergence of man on earth. The items that were made were always in demand, but the person, as far as possible, tried to add an aesthetic component to their functionality. On the basis of this, unwritten rules were first developed, which were transmitted from master to student. The best was fixed. So the canon developed in some area. Traditions were passed down from generation to generation, secrets and recipes were kept. Crafts existed both in the village and in the town, when all families made objects of the same purpose, using approximately the same techniques, but introducing their own personal thoughts on how best to decorate or change the form within the tradition. Often, products had the function of amulets, because our ancestors sincerely believed in supernatural powers. They charged things with their good energy, putting their souls into their creations. There is nothing to replace it in mass production.
Crafts of ancient Russia
Before the Mongol-Tatar invasion, blacksmiths made iron and steel weapons, axes, chisels, sickles, locks, keys in urban settlements. Jewelers minted non-ferrous metals, made gold, silver, copper and bronze jewelry. Weavers, potters, and masons worked in their workshops. Artisans processed leather and furs, wood. So artisanal craft developed in the pre-Mongol period. But after the invasion of Batu, everything was destroyed, and many artisans were stolen, and for a century the development of crafts stopped. However, slowly and with the loss of skills and secrets, crafts began to recover, as life required.
Types of crafts
These are types of folk art in which the national tradition is clearly visible. They can be divided into:
- murals on ceramics, metal, papier-mâché, wood;
- fabric products, that is, various types of bobbin lace, down and painted shawls;
- clay and wood toys;
- metal products - casting and filigree.
In such areas, handicraft industry in Russia developed. Now these forms of creativity can be considered in more detail.
Gzhel
Twenty-seven villages near Moscow were the owners of natural material - pottery clay. And the production of ceramics began, as archaeologists say, about seven centuries ago. It became more complicated and went from simple unglazed products to coating them with white glaze, and then drawing a picture with blue cobalt oxide. For this, squirrel brushes of various diameters were used. Several shades of paint are applied to one side of the brush. This allows you to create darker, saturated color areas and light shadows. This is the skill taught in the same place in Gzhel. A ceramic artist cannot exactly repeat the pattern, and a unique painting is obtained, on which curls and ornaments are only similar.
Zhostovo
This is a village near Moscow, where for almost two hundred years painted tin trays with garden and wildflowers on a black or color background.
The artist receives a sketch designed by the designer and begins work from the center, filling it with large roses that glow wonderfully. Masters have their secrets.
Fedoskino
This village is not far from Moscow, where caskets and boxes made of papier-mâché are painted.
Miniature oil paints wonderfully glow. This effect is obtained because
gold leaf and mother of pearl are applied to the surface before drawing.
Khokhloma
History says that two skills were combined here - turning turning cups, caskets, spoons, brothers, and Old Believer icon-painting skills. Aluminum powder is rubbed several times with linseed oil and then manually, without repeating anything, painted with oil paints, then covered with several layers of varnish and dried in an oven. So do the golden Khokhloma.
Ceramics
Pottery folk crafts are widely represented by clay toys. They are made in many parts of our country. The village of Dymkovo in the Kirov region is especially famous for such fishing.
In the Arkhangelsk region, the production of toys in Kargopol has always been a family affair. The most popular figure was Polkan - a fabulous creature similar to a dog and a person with epaulettes. In the village of Filimonovo, Tula region, girls made clay whistles, collecting money for a dowry, and men made dishes. Toys without watering (terracotta in its pure form) have been made since ancient times in the Starooskolsky district of the Belgorod region. All toys are handmade products. It is impossible not to mention the candlesticks, jugs, fermenters, mantel clock frames that create the glory of Skopin in the Ryazan region.
Lace
In Russia, Vologda, Yelets and Mtsensk lace is valued, which has always been woven on bobbins. These are all handmade products.
Kasli casting
In the Urals, in the town of Kasli, amazing figures are cast from cast iron. Once they could be bought in stores.
Now this unique product, which will last forever, with careful study of the details, has disappeared from the shelves, and it can probably be found only in online stores.
Small batch production
Or else it can be called the term "artisanal production." Nowadays, designer clothes are made in this way, for example. Craftsmanship is also the work of jewelers, furniture makers. This type of activity involves the separation of operations. For example, when making Zhostovo trays, someone makes trays of various shapes themselves, someone covers them with varnish, someone paints. The same thing happens in Gzhel, Khokhloma, Skopin, which are mentioned above.
Russia is extremely rich in talents, an original approach and high quality handmade products.