* RYE *

The grain was an identity and a sign of a settled lifestyle that ennobled the restless spirit of the nomad. This tiny seed, hiding in its little belly the mighty and incomprehensible power of germination, has inspired poets and set the tone for the most influential philosophies. Is it not amazing? It must die, literally be buried in the ground, so its life has continued even more extensively and luxuriously. The ability of rye grain to give a few stalks (tillering) resistance to moisture and cold weather made it a favourite and necessary grain in the Russian North-West. Rye is, above all, used for bread, and there is among thousands of others a saying: "Eat cakes, take care of bread."
 Each work related to the grain, starting with planting and grinding, was almost a ritual. Generosity and disrespect of people are most clearly revealed regarding the bread. Without bread, all the labour and peasant household life becomes dull.

 Late in the autumn, after threshing happens, a careful allocation of grain is for the seeds; a bad one is for fodder and flour. A lot destined for milling right away is dried in the barn or the oven and taken to the mill.
 How pleasant it is to go to the mill. To make this trip willingly agree elderly, teenagers and children. Overnight at a water mill is remembered for a lifetime. The mill was in the peasant way of life, a place for communication, the focus of news, disputes, tales, and historical anecdotes to conclude a long and sometimes dangerous grain route. Milled, flowing from the tray, flour was warm, almost hot. You can feel with your palm skin the fruits of your labour. Even the peasant horse, returning home with a larger volume wagon after the mill merrily, snorted, catching a good mood of the owner. Flour poured into a wooden chest or was left, as they say nowadays," in a dry and dark place."
 Henceforth it was under the authority of the lady of the house. There were rye, wheat, barley, and oat flour sections in the chest. The chest stood in the basement, and it always had a wooden flour scoop. Intending to bake bread, the house lady thought first thing about a leaven, which remained from the previous bake and "lived" in a bowl all the time, covered with the old linen tablecloth. So nobody has been able to bake real rye bread from unleavened dough.

    Flour was brought into the house in a wicker basket of birch bark. The hostess was making dough in the evening with slightly heated river water. The homely rhythmic tapping of the whorls on the edge bowl, like a purring cat, or the noise of the samovar, or the creaking of the cradle, complement the feeling of family comfort and solidity. (There were times when the trough and the whorl for a year and more were no longer needed.)

      Also, today in many homes, we could hear the creaking of the cradle once in a life or not hear at all.

       The trough was tied with a cloth and placed in a warm place. Sometimes it was the hearth, and sometimes directly on the stove. The hostess would anxiously awake at night, watch if it "walks,» and stir in the morning. The dough rose while the fire was in the oven, and the hostess began rolling over. She took the bread dough with a wooden spatula, put her in a flour sprinkled round wooden bowl (also called bread bowl), and tossed the dough in the air. It rotated on the fly from side to side. Round, covered with flour dollop tumbled to clean linen cloth. The stove was swept clean with a pine broom, should be warmed up enough, but not too hot. Loaves were put from the linen upside down onto the large wooden shovel and quickly, one after the other, thrust into the heat. Six to eight loaves were sitting in the hearth of the closed oven as long as needed.


 A surprising, not like anything, the smell of baked dough appears in the house and on the street. For this smell came once a guy called Kolyaka, deciding to tease a baker lady (true story): «Auntie, what are you doing? Bake or what? - Bake. - We also bake over there". A word for word, the guy, talked about a mountain with a woman.
 When the conversation is about, seemed to dry up, he tossed a new theme: - And now a cow of my godmother wanted to calve early, but changed her mind. - Do not lie! It's not a human; it is a cow." Standing in the middle of the house, the woman began to talk about her cow and then switched to something else, then to the third story. She loved to talk. She stopped bubbling only when a blue smoke went around the house. She clasped her hands. - "Goblin, you are a goblin, Kolka; I have seven loaves in the oven!"
 She got rushed to save them. The loaves were black as the iron kettles. The trace of Kolka was already cold... Burned bread is not better than under-baked, but at least half-baked rolls were good for the cattle. So a loaf of bread was always on the table, along with the bread knife and the salt shaker.


 Children could take a piece of bread at any time; the adults had to comply with the meals schedule. The bread was always cut at the table by the master. Beggars would get a piece of bread of average size, and when the table was empty, it was said: "God will provide."

      Ironically, sometimes the bread was baked from the rye's satellite weed - fireweed, it saved people from starvation. At the time of the disaster, the symbol of which was the rye croutons, to the trough could be added anything: dried potatoes, bone meal, sawdust, crushed straw. A failure, that is, either non-risen or over-leavened bread, lies on the lady of the house as a disgrace, and she always lamented.

 A loaf of non-risen bread would settle down, and the lower crust was hard and dense. Over-leavened bread would cause heartburn. On the other hand, nothing was tastier than salted rye bread (the dough was usually not salted) with clean water after hard labour. And it was watered down with milk and yogurt. The cracker cake was made from crushed rye crackers in lean times." Tyurya," or "mura," pureed rye bread dish had some respect, unless, of course, there was something else to eat. A recipe for «tyurya» is the simplest: boiling water poured into a cup, place crumbled bread, then onions, adding flax seed oil and salt.


 Kvas was also made from bread crusts or crackers, but it was not the primary method of kvas preparation.

 "Mother Rye feeds all around." Not only fed but gave drink as well, we have the right to add. Before the war, beer in the North was the main festive drink among peasants. It was made from rye. Anfisa Ivanovna told me about this: "The nineteenth of December and the old style of the sixth was the feast of St. Nikola, the patron of our parish. We have to schedule the wedding to St. Nichola to be the same expense. It is 1926, there were no formal weddings, but if there were a church during Lent, the priest still would not marry.


 The holiday was awaited by all, from little ones to the elderly. Even the beggars were longing for holidays. So many people would visit; homemakers baked pies, especially for the poor. Mash was left, not first-round liquor, though, but a second-round distillation for greeting strangers.

      Rye for beer was chosen only very good, quickly fermented; people made pooling of three or four houses, an average of 50 pounds for 40 gallons barrel. Who had rye not so good, had to bring some more. The women will be ordered to bring fresh river water to stay at room temperature and scatter the grain there. This was the winter way of making beer.
 And in the summer, it was put directly into bags and the bags into the river, with stones on them, so they do not float. Rye grain swells in the stream longer than in the barrels, about three days; at home, the grain swells much faster. So the bags should be turned; rye is stirred with a spatula in barrels. The swollen grain is taken out and levelled down in a thin layer on a white floor. The grain sprouts in four or five days, sometimes in a week, it is sprayed with water but is not turned. When the shoots become large and grow together as a seedling, they will be thrashed, rubbed, splashed with water using a new broom and put back in bags. The bags with rye will be put and malt for four or five days on the floor.


 When a whiff of malt appears, the bags are pulled to the barn to dry. You cannot dry a lot of malt in the oven; it can go sour. And if you give it away to people to dry in their homes, it will become different; some will not dry it thoroughly, some will make it over dry. Malt is kiln dried in a half-day; particular firewood for this is chosen. Brew makers now and then stir malt, but do not dry it completely; they say: it will dry later. Shove malt from the barn, sift it, and it has to be ground with small millstones ..."


 The preparation of malt required twelve or thirteen days; boiling wort took one and a half days, a beer in the cold "walked around" up to two days. Consequently, the whole process of making beer lasted at least two weeks and sixteen or seventeen days in the winter. In the early days of Philip's Fast, guys from the Sohotskaya parish began to visit each other to figure out how many guests they would host and how much rye they would use. Each village had one or two meticulous brewers. Others knew how to brew, but not all dare: too great responsibility for the collective malt. There were times when all the brew, hundreds of pounds of choice of rye grain went up in smoke, instead, was going into the garbage to feed the cattle, and half the village remained for a holiday without beer and wort.


 Once, two men in Timonikha village ventured to brew separately. They spoiled everything. A local poet, without hesitation, immediately came up with a long song about them. Thus, to brew beer unanimously was trusted by the most experienced people. Anyone whose life was even slightly touched with the pre-war Northern Russian village, probably forever keep in the memory feeling of the cold night, crack frost logs, the smell of fire, red sparks and blue starry sky. brewing in the lane does not let people sleep; many people even get up in the middle of the night, hurriedly dressed and ran to look. Before dawn, when it becomes darker, on the snow and the walls of houses flashed past large shadows, the fire-pit set up very close to the building already thaw ice crust in the snow.


 Large barn chocks burn in the round hole of snow, the saw-horse stands over the fire pit, on the saw-horse hangs a large cast-iron boiler. The boiler gives up the powerful steam; under it, there are heated red-hot boulders and stones in flames. Nobody is allowed to enter into the darkness of the open gates, but it is possible to slip quietly and see the enormous kettle. The kettle sits on two massive logs; beneath it is a big wooden block. The pot is covered with clean bedding and coats. The dim light of homemade lanterns illuminates concerned, solemnly-important elders. - "Shoo."


 Kids like bullets fly out into the street. Meanwhile, in silence, with a strange sort of importance, people prepare clean containers treated with boiling water: tubs, buckets. They also treat with boiling water wooden tongs for getting out stones, large and small ladles. In the mid of the barrel bottom, there is a small square hole, tightly shut up with a long stick. The barrel was first heated with boiling water, and after that, chilled water was let out. Then poured all course-ground, as if crushed malt, suppressed it, gradually filled with clean, hot water. Then began the actual brewing - the most critical and crucial moment. The brewers could expect a disgraceful danger of not getting out of malt. If malt was over dried, wort could not settle, and everything was ruined. The first portion of water, the second... Hot stones with a hiss were immersed into the barrel. Sometimes they are stacked in a purse with handles woven of twisted birch twigs. Loaded with hot stones, this purse was lowered into the barrel; it hangs there on the crossbar, warming the content.


 Meanwhile, the latticed chamber is made of thin strips of spruce; its height is equal to the size of the barrel. Straw cut according to the chamber length filled the gaps between the planks, was sewed with thread, the lower ends of the twisted outward fan-like fashion. This kind of filter is carefully placed over the probe. When the wort is brewed and finally settled down, the chief brewer solemnly declared: "We let it out now." Crossed themselves, threw insulation aside and started gently shaking the probe. And this is the first jet of hot, fragrant mash that hits the wooden through. First, they try it from the spoon, all in a row, starting with the elderly. Then it hastily poured into the wooden bucket and cooled. Later after the first wort, it began to boil the second round. In the morning, the first thing women, the elderly and children were treated with was wort.


 It was the tastiest, healthy, most honourable non-alcoholic drink. Anfisa Ivanovna says that after dividing the wort: "Who gets a bucket, some get two buckets," into a great remainder put hops with the proportion of two pounds per 32 pounds of rye. First, the wort is boiled with hops. Then it is cooled, poured into barrels, and prepared "chalk" (a substitute for yeast) of the same hops and wort. Then it ran into the shake all the content and waiting to ferment in the cold.


 Anfisa Ivanovna continued: "It is desirable to ferment when it is quite cold, but if it can don't "walk," then a hot stone dipped briefly to slightly warm. Usually, it doesn't ferment completely; it would be put away into containers just before the end. Hop-pomace was too divided, dried in the summer, freezing in winter. Women made them "chalk" (yeast) for pies. And to speed up fermentation, people would dance around it to make it a festive drink.


 Sometimes, beer comes out too weak, it gives off hops too firm, and visiting guys would not drink. Too watery, they would say.

 The brewer hates this: "But I have brewed it thoroughly! And you brewed for St. Nicolas brew that smells malt." Good beer holds a handkerchief and looks beautiful, and the drink is tasty and effervescent and thickly. And about the good wort say: "You can almost bite it. Out 64 pounds of rye would come out along with the second-round of malt five or six buckets of wort.


 Approximately two-thirds were used for beer, one-third for festive drinking for teenagers, children and the elderly. (The women and older bachelors in holidays were allowed to drink beer.) With the cup of wort were greeted relatives, welcomed guests. Beggars and strangers during the feast were welcomed at the door with glasses and mugs of wort. An everyday drink was considered kvas, brewed in boiled river water from the pelts, that is, from the burned malt.


 Thus, bread and malt are the two major "engines," without which is unthinkable peasant life, were driven by the Mother Rye. From the rye flour were baked «klatches» (padlock-shaped pretzels) forms when there was no bread and kids were hungry. The dough is very thickly kneaded on the water, stretched into a long roll, bent from it the rolls, rolled balls and thrust into the oven. The hostess was making the same dough with the rolling pin-dense cakes. If you hang this moist cake on the end of the grasp and put it into the fiery oven, it almost immediately blows up from both sides. You created a delicious crusty bubble.


 In the morning, in haste, women often cooked cereal-brewed kasha using the ability of rye flour to malt, become soft, sticky. This thick porridge was eaten with milk, yogurt and grilled in the oven crème- fraise.


 With large thin rye crepes, made fifteen or twenty, were prepared potato "rogulki." Diluted with milk, crushed potatoes evenly spread on the pancakes, folded and pinched the edge, then doused with sour cream, sprinkled with flour and thrust into the hot oven. The hostess tried to bake them for all tastes. Someone in the family liked rolls thin and soft; others liked them dry, the third preferred thicker. ..

 Similar "rogulki" often were baked using cottage cheese (for some reason called "thick"), a tenderized reminiscent of Salamat cereals from pea and barley mix.

 Often the crepes were folded with the stuffing, and it steamed inside, singling out the juice. In this way were baked, for example, "sicheniki." Finely chopped rutabaga, turnip at the worst, the hostess puts it into the crepes, bakes and tightly closes the oven for an hour to have them thoroughly steamed. Anointed with butter for beauty, they are delicious. Similarly, they were baked in crepes, cut potatoes and boiled peas.


 The diligent cooks had such items in a shape of an exact copy of the crescent, while by the incapable ones, they resembled fish. If they have not kept in hand, collapsed, the hostess lost much in the eyes of the household. But she mainly worried when the pies came out bad.

* TEMPLE *

After the terrible devastation of the Polish-Lithuanian rule in the first quarter of the XVII century, Russia was dominated by chaos and lawlessness. The state body was disintegrated and took a formless image, becoming ugly.
 One of the first efforts of the young Mikhail Romanov to return to the state and government was his order for the census. Besides other information about population, those census books also show that the wooden churches in the early XVII century were two types: dome and rectangle-based.
 In all probability, in the XVII century and earlier in Russia, many wooden churches were built using both right and obtuse angles. The wooden churches of the North breathed, gave light, and led the conversation with a man on owning their own ground, together with houses, threshing floors, bathhouses. They seemed the only natural along with the village, which has been completed and crowned by it.
 No wonder the concept of composition is inherent in such eternal types of human activities, like literature, music and architecture. Compositional perfection cannot be achieved only by knowledge of mathematical laws; we must have more special flair, a sense of rhythm, imagination, in short, the talent of the builder.
Proportionality ... The sense of beauty - it must be repeated repeatedly - does not depend on the greatness of the structure. The enormous size and emphasized the smallness of (the shod flea, the city in a matchbox, etc.), although appealing to the sense of beauty, remains outside of aesthetics. In their pure form, they impress us with something else, without regard to the artistic way. Similarly, a talent-less singer or a talent-less band compensates for the lack of performing talent and skill of a microphone, amplifiers, speakers, naively assuming that the louder, the more beautiful and exciting.
A sense of architectural proportionality is probably preceded by an unerring ability to set the height, width, length, amount of volumes, and lines and planes, in particular, only a right relationship with each other. Until now, we hope that this will not happen in the future; no most powerful computer cannot replace the architect's intuition.
Is the church of the Intercession on the Nerl-river big? Suzdal city was built only in one-, two-, three-story buildings.
It is noteworthy that when it comes to the size, many of the masterpieces of stone architecture (at least in Kirillov or in Pereslavl) are much smaller, for example, the wooden church of the Assumption or now destroyed Anhimov many-headed temple. Yes, and the principal monuments of the Kizhi museum-reserve suggest that Russian carpenters were not afraid of heights. But, of course, a significant height will not impede the talented architect, but he will not be embarrassed by the small size.
Museums are dead and silent; exhibits rarely speak and do not speak to all the people. However, an excellent museum of architecture in the Small Korella nearby Archangelsk still gives some idea of the Russian villages, which lie thousands of boundless North in the days of the Novgorod Republic.
 In their ancient boundaries, the villages surrounded by the native landscape tell the soul more than the wealthiest museum. And you still need to have some imagination to see the overall architectural appearance of the Northern village, even of the pre-war period. The image formed not only with the construction of houses, chapels, mills and churches but of other architecturally significant sites.
Threshing floors were built separately but stood nearby with slightly higher barns surrounding each village, stretching one, two (and sometimes three) parallel rows. The rows were not always straight; they repeated the bends of rivers to adjust to the terrain. Haylofts ran far into the fields close to the forest, barns were built closer to the houses. Bathhouses, standing side to side to each other, clung close to the water, on the slopes of the hills, descending to the shores of rivers or lakes.
In the village center, especially when they started to set up collective farms, men built a wooden scale for weighing loaded carts. The weights were carefully balanced boulders. Large covered carved crosses were set up at the roadside and on the crossroads.
It is difficult to imagine the village's architecture without the well's cranes, cellars, nurseries, hedges with bends and seams, and bridges and lavas of various sizes.
Large covered carved crosses were placed on the roads and at crossroads. The hop yards at the houses and circular swings decorated the street, and haystacks at summer meadows and straw stacks in fields in fall changed the surrounding view.
In the total dominance of wooden architecture, the stone architecture and the associated stone art held in people's lives, apparently, a few unique places. Among carpenters ' teams, a crew of mason architects looked something like a stone church among the wooden houses. All the male population mastered carpentry skills, but masonry studied comparatively few. This is not inferred that the stone architecture in Russia was at a disadvantage.
However, under a good, regularly maintained roof, the wooden building lives up to two hundred years and more. Rotting came from earth because the ancient builders cut short with ventilated foundations. Wood, as already stated, can not coexist with the soil, so the land and the building would be connected with the stone, which feels the same way in the ground and on its surface. Standing on these rocks, a house or a church hung in the air, sailing into the wind. The better was the roof, the longer it lasted for such a voyage. Boarding also improved the durability of the building, but with a very different, not suitable old carpentry architectural style.
Traditions of stone and wooden construction in Russia are mutually intertwined. The presence of beautiful pre-Mongolian monuments of stone architecture speaks for itself.
Even after the Mongol-Tatar yoke stone building could not come from nothing, from scratch. Apparently, the Russian national genius in the period of military and economic subjugation kept the main "gene pool" of original artistry in architectural art. Otherwise, we would not see churches in Belozersk, Kargopol and Vologda - these fantastic, like sale ships creations of unknown architects. There would probably not be Totemski churches with their unique style, no strong Solovetsky island ensemble, nor lyrically serene Ferapontovski ensembles …

THE FOLK CARVINGS ***

A late Uliana Babkina from Kargopol used to say about her clay toys: "Take it, take it, the Lord allows I will bake them some more." "Baking" her beautiful creations, she had no idea that she had made something special. As a pervasive and integral part of everyday life, beauty was not put in the rank of exclusivity.
 Uliana Babkina believed that a toy can be made and painted by anybody; there just had to be a desire and a good clay. To some extent, this is true. But grandmother, in her traditional-folk modesty, ignored the degree of talent, not noticing that one would do well, secondly do better, and the third encompasses both of them.
A peasant household environment allowed to identify more artistically inclined in childhood, although talent was not constantly developed and strengthened in subsequent periods of life. The first sculptural experience could be building a snowman. A born modeller secretly from the adults sculpted "people" from breadcrumbs, only after chewing them, to throw out or misuse bread considered the greatest sin.
In the spring, when barely showed up under the sun golden-yellow eyes of the colts-foot flowers, children extracted clay from the clay pits left by clay miners. They sculptured birds, human figures, houses.
Nobody knows what looked like a wooden sculpture of a pagan god Perun. But, according to the chroniclers, the ancient people of Kyiv were thrown into the Dnieper river during the baptism, beaten with iron bars and pushed from shore.
 Artistic sculptural tradition, rooted in the thick of paganism, appears to have been interrupted. In the bosom of the Orthodox religion, the art of sculpture was almost wholly superseded by painting. But the need for 3D skills has lived in many ways: in the clay and wooden child's toy, consumer and religious wooden sculpture, in small objects made of metal, seal tooth (i.e. ivory).
Wood was the best material, bringing an ordinary artisan on the same level as the artist. It links folk art to make a smooth, fuzzy transition from one trade to another.
 For example, making gingerbread and print boards, for a good master possessing the artistic ability, does not cost much to create sculptures on religious themes. Graphics of wood carvings, floral and geometric ornament of wooden architectural decorations themselves were, to some extent, 3D art. From ubiquitous wood carving to the high stone relief is just one step. The usual "chicken" holding on the roof the flow, had a purely constructive role, was at the same time an architectural detail. But it also harboured, although a very generalized, but still a sculptural image. Utensils made from birch burls in birds also have sculptural art elements, visible even with the inexperienced eye.
The planar woodcarving and bone carving in good hands transformed into the spatial, three-dimensional, evident in the numerous carved altar doors, revetments, so-called "meagre" candles, etc.
However, the carving masters, for some reason, did not rush to become sculptors; the Altar Gates with three-dimensional shapes are very rare.
 A sculptural image is a worthy rival of a colourful toy in the vast world of children's toys. These inseparable friends and rivals could not do without each other, especially in clay toys. A sculptured and fired Polkan (dog name) is yet not the Polkan; it becomes the Polkan only in the painted form.    
  Symbol, simplicity and conciseness in traditional clay toys are equally present in sculpture and painting. Painting and sculpture are fused together and are impossible to separate. It is inherent in the entire Russian clay toy. Style as artistic features evolved in different places in different ways. It would be a mistake to think that, except for Vyatka Dymkovo settlements (which now, incidentally, has deservedly become world-famous), clay toys never made anywhere else. They were made wherever there was pottery.
The wooden toy was a traditional part of folk life. Along with bast, utensils, spoons, spindle production, wood masters developed the toy industry. Also, in every house with at least one child, you can be sure to get into a wooden horse with a flax tail or a toy carriage. We loved to cut out birds and bears, and bears are often involved in the combination toy. Bear-sawyer, bear-smith and now are not uncommon in the gift sections of department stores.
Sculptural images, non-religious or toy themes, are very rare, but sometimes some naughty carpenter carved a wooden dummy and gave him a name. Sometimes beekeeper made a hollow in the form of an old man and woman. When from the mouth of a peasant or the ear of wooden women, bees flew - it was pretty funny.
The favourite figures of sculptors of religious subjects, in addition to Christ, were St. Paraskeva-Friday, and St. Nicholas, of course, St. George killing the Serpent. Christ is often depicted as not on the Cross but in a dark prison cell.

*BORN UNIQUE ABOUT THE ARTISTIC IMAGE

An aching spirit is healed by hymns,
The mysterious harmony power
A grave mistake atones
And tames rebellious passion.
~ E. Boratynsky

- How is life? - Ask people when they meet each other.
- All right.
The answer is correct if indeed everything is all right. A good life is permeated by mood, tone, rhythm, consistency in diversity. This kind of life has an inherent organic interrelationship of all phenomena, the natural outflow of one to another. Conversely, and just opposite, a bad is a discord, chaos, mess, failure, absurdity, futility.
 They say that it goes through the deck of stumps, tipsy-curvy about that kind of life. A wrong way of life is accompanied by all the haste and lack of consistency; the result is a bad quality that impacts the beauty of life.
This immediately brings a rather dangerous for rationalism and consumerism conclusion: a lot of the same - it means ugly, unattractive. A few things, but with the feelings and in different ways, means, beautiful and unique. And we talk here is not about just work, but also about everyday life, about the style of life in general.
 Harmony and beauty when they are present at work, let's avoid the crushing gravity of labour. But, of course, it is difficult and beyond your abilities when you do not know how to work beautifully, when somebody is dumb or when there is not enough imagination and patience. But is it not the same, for example, in everyday life or in public life? It's all precisely the same.
Beauty in the world is a diversity of otherness. The idea that mankind is supposedly a crowd of the ordinary and the same people who are led by exceptional individual and vivid personalities; such view is contrary to the rule of beauty and aesthetics.
No, there are no absolutely identical, in other words, thoroughly mediocre people! On the contrary, everyone is born into the world with the stamp of talent. The need for creativity is as natural as the need to drink or eat; it is hidden in each of us, even under the most incredibly tricky conditions. Each person in his own talent, in other words, is peculiar.
 Fortunately, people who are absolutely evil internally and externally do not exist. The need for creativity inherent to each of us can be seen from the fact that in childhood, even in infancy, the child needs games. Every child wants to play, which is to live creatively.
 Why, over the years, has creativity gradually disappeared from our lives? Why the creative principle is not maintained and developed in each of us?
 Roughly speaking, either we have not chosen our profession properly (not found themselves, our personality, our talent), or have not learned to live and work (not developed skill). The second is often dependent on the first, but the first is not always independent from the second.
 It is impossible to know what kind of gift nature gave to you without learning how to work. If the spiritual potential is weak, identity is erased, levelled, loses individual, inherent traits. To the rising of spirit, the creative emancipation of the individual, any spiritual, family, social or global discord, any disorder, are detrimental. For example, one case when there are no shoes to walk to school (and even there is no school itself), and quite another when you are forced to study music notation.
 Of course, the second case is preferable, but the disorder is a disorder. And so, we see that the social orientation is not always faultless and that trends can be harmful in such cases as finding yourself.
 Why, in fact, is only the creative life of an actor or artist? For you can be an artist in any trade. A halo of exclusivity of one or another profession, hierarchical division of labour and life on such principles as "honourable or low," "interesting - not interesting," perpetuates social indifference and identity, promoting the idea of the inaccessibility of creativity for all and for each. But such behaviour is entirely appropriate for the person as a supporter of the individualistic philosophy, as a bureaucrat-dogmatist, who is ready today to arrange people in order of size for the common good.
The qualitative diversity of parts is often better than anything else for the strength of the whole. But, of course, the antagonism of the elements generally destroys the whole, which can also be called diversity, as cited by supporters of levelling. But diversity and hostility are different things.
Outside of the dispute between "antagonists" and "levellers," so to speak, quite separately stands the artistic image.
Probably none of us doubt the unity of the whole in Moscow Protection Church (better known as The Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed). But how are different are its components! Every part, every detail lives by itself, does not repeat itself and is not like another part.
It still wants to be explainable ... It is avoiding us... it, like the rainbow, moves away from us exactly as soon as we approach it. It is as the swift, which can not fly from the ground and which must always need height. A child's toy loses its delightful sense when a child, moved by curiosity, takes it apart to see what is inside. So no matter how talented the is artist, if he relies only on inspiration, ignoring the artistic tradition, he will still be fruitless. But what is a culture without the inspiration of the artist?
The artistic image is elusive, although it always lives next to us. It immediately disappears; as soon as you begin to study and decompose it into parts, it never repeats itself.
Born a unique ...
Comparing different classical art forms, you can find some eternal qualities of the artistic image. For example, the rhythm.
As was already mentioned, the magic power of rhythm allows for singing - beautifully and easily – for stutterers who cannot say words without effort and stress. Moreover, quarrelling with a neighbour, i.e. sinning, many women cannot free themselves from the rhythm of the imagery, which further strengthens the emotional dissonance since the image is always more willing to serve good than evil.
There are instances of infantile cries with the beginnings of artistry: a cry of a weeping child suddenly begins to be wedded with a semblance of rhythm and melody ...
Music and literature need rhythm, as do painting and sculpture, dance and architecture. Rhythm, as we see, is a requisite of life in general ...
Another sign of the artistic image can be called composition (in Russian - proportionality) present in all types of creativity. Proportionality. Do you feel in this word some kinship with the rhythm? To be educated means to appear, be born, and identify yourself.
  Education is a process of learning to acquire knowledge, but the word initially meant formation, formed, means to become someone and get own face. Recall an eternal "all be sorted out" of Stephen Oblonsky, equivalent to the fact that everything sooner or later comes back to normal. The ugliness is about not having the face, something abstract, disgusting. Here we come again to the definition of "art" and the mystery of the artistic image as it was, still remains ...
After all of the above said, can we conclude that the academic study of creation can never rise on a par with the artistic perception of the product. Great art is great because it is accessible for everyone, at least for the majority. It is unnecessary to be a renowned expert in reading "War and Peace" or watch and listen to "Swan Lake." A mediocre artist sometimes masks a lack of talent with complexity and inaccessibility of the form. This does not mean that the works of great artists are never complicated and confusing. The difference between the complexity of mediocre and complexity of the genius is that in the first case, the complexity of marking time in one place is static; in the second - it is moving, self-revealing, discovering all the new features of a great artist's work.
The perception of the artistic image is essentially and qualitatively the same as that of its creation. The difference here is probably only in the magnitude ...
Undoubtedly, that perception of art is a creative process in any case. This circumstance is fraught with great danger of cultural dependency.
Is hidden cowardice or plain laziness under the guise of modesty ("who are we really?"). A person only uses established artistic values, not even trying to create something of their own.
 Let it be not brilliant, but one's own! Notorious maximalism (either becoming a Michelangelo or not engaging in creative work) has never contributed to the welfare of public culture. Ignoring your own talent (whatever it may be of value) because there are people more capable of you, turning off your own creative impulses is immoral as it is unethical to engage in self-promotion, noisy exaggerating their own, often feeble abilities.
"Self-humiliation is worse than pride," - says the proverb. To find your own individuality is a moral obligation of everyone. But how to treat more talented people without losing your face. The real artist expects from others, not servility but respect. He does not have a sense of superiority. The higher the talent, the less arrogance and pride of its owner. There is a direct relationship between the magnitude of talent, the strength of the artistic image, and the level of morality. Shame, conscience, modesty, spiritual and physical purity, love for people, excellent knowledge of the difference between good and evil are all moral properties reflected in the artistic image. The creative image can not be created by a shameless, unscrupulous artist, a man with dirty hands and thoughts, hatred for people, a man not knowing the difference between good and evil.
 And in general, is it possible to have true creativity in the troubled or evil state of mind? Hardly ... a wicked man is more inclined to destroy than to create and should not confuse the creator's inspiration with the inspiration of Herostratus ...
An actual artistic image is always new, bashful, like a bride, chaste and pure. Its freshness is not tarnished. The artist seems to us too shy, after all, and creativity itself requires solitude and mystery. Carrying on and giving birth of the image can not occur publicly for all to see. Publicly known to all should be the artist's creation, but not himself. That's why probably the brilliant creations of the ancient Russian artists are not signed? Some old artists and architects chose to remain nameless. There should be a meaning in this fact and not an accidental circumstance.
On this, perhaps, and it's most appropriate to finish our occasionally chaotic, more often fragmented reflections on the Northern folk aesthetics ...

A LIFE-LONG JOURNEY DRAMATIZED CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS

In the heart of any nation lies a thirst for great perfection, an aspiration to embody the ideal. One of its proofs is the existence of art in all times and among all nations.


However, producing great and minor artists, none of the nations renounced any artistic activities, not subcontracted them entirely to the geniuses, satisfying the thirst for beauty only with masterpieces. It is rare to see the summit without the other mountains and ridges. Still, it is impossible to have an ingenious artist without the emergence of many of his less gifted colleagues. Masterpieces of art could not be created for no reason, from nothing. They appear only on a sufficiently prepared ground enriched by everyday folk art.


Separating the masterpieces from the people's lives is impossible. No matter how we try, they will still be only a manifestation of the rarest and most successful satisfaction of a national thirst for the ideal in beauty. But the dream is impossible to achieve - a skeptic will slyly remind. Yes, the dream is impossible, but why not try to reach it?


 And then, in this aspiration, we learn what is right, what is not good, and what does not get us anywhere?


Of course, not every peasant was able to build the Dom church, as not every girl could make silk embroidery. But, by no means in every home, there were order and cleanliness, and not every village had enough bread until the new harvest.


However, there was a great aspiration to the beauty of life in the nation's heart. And where there's a will, there's a way - a realization which measure of accomplishment would not be apparent without the ideals of beauty and order. Therefore, it is difficult to take apart folk art from the whole entity of a peasant's way of life.


Established folk art was tightly intertwined with the labour, household and religious traditions. The desire for beauty is illustrated, in particular, in dramatized customs and rituals, from which the whole annual life cycle of a person, and consequently, of the entire village and the ethnic group consisted.


Until now, domestic and some work traditions have had ritual nature. A ritual is always an act, and an act is already a drama. Drama, according to Aristotle, always has the beginning, the middle and the end. They cannot be reversed without destroying their very essence.


Many folk customs and rituals gravitate to such metaphoric similarities. For example, the rumour always strives to have a plot that feeds incredible gossip exaggerations. Usually, a folk ritual could be called a mini-drama. But here, perhaps, our abilities to borrow from the high culture would stop. So, "tragedy" and "comedy" are no longer suited to this or that custom. However, it is very appealing, for example, to refer to a funeral to the genre of tragedy and the Yuletides to the style of comedy.

* WORKDAYS AND HOLIDAYS SCHEDULE *

 "Sleep is the foundation of everything" - say lazy people, justifying their own carelessness. "Sleep is a brother of the death "- thinks a too zealous worker after he makes himself wake up too early. The folk custom did not encourage either one.

 First went to sleep, children. Bring and unfold for them on the floor wide, stuffed with straw mattresses, skin coat or down quilts, pillows from the frost into the house. After some horse-playing, kids climb in some linen pants and shirts under the blankets. On the edge of them added one of the elders. If in the house for any reason is cold, the bed is made on the bunk, there's really adults lie on both sides so that none of the children wouldn't drop off in sleep.

The proverb "Drunks and the little ones God is watching" is not always justified, but falls from the stove or from the bunk for sleepy children often ended without any injuries.

 On the stove, behind the oven and on the bunk slept elderly. Husband and wife - on the bed, behind the cupboard, adult bachelors were content sometimes with just benches. The gates were not locked until the return of young people from social events, the last person was obliged to lock up, but sometimes it was not required since the lady of the house got up very early.

An infant was asleep in the cradle; screamers were rocked the whole night in turn by mother or grandmother. Thus, no matter how big the family, all slept in one hut in winter. However, there was also something good and necessary; the family got together and rallied. Adults and children are learned about each other, identified fraught with quarrels ambiguity. Members of the family as if overgrown with the virus of estrangement, gaining over winter the strength of kindness and tolerance.

Summer place of sleeping dispersed throughout the house. The girls moved into their tiny rooms and home workshops. For adults and children were Also, people slept in the barn and closets, and in late summer - in the attic.
 It is hard to describe, and even a small fraction of all the sounds, smells, and sensations that accompany dreams of summer sleep outdoors, whether it is a sensitive sleep of an old man, strong of tired person, or soundly of youngsters! A sigh of cows, the smell of sweat and milk, creep into the dreams of sleeping under the canopy. A man hears the cries of crake in the meadow and chirping of the dove family under a roof, muffled bells in a distant pasture, and a mosquito near the ear.

When the elderberry blossoms in the maiden attic gets in a sweet scent, drowning out the smell of clothes and the chest. The aroma of dry hay and dewy hop blows in the morning at the barns, in closets and hay barns. All of these sounds, smells and sensations are continually changing depending on the weather, time of day, and the nature of the field and household work.

The rooster in the house is the main alarm clock, despite the cock stupidity. Not having a rooster means the same as getting up on a neighbour's alarm clock in modern times. First roosters sang at midnight; they were heard by some keen to sounds old men and women. This singing confirmed the night was calm; everything was okay. The second singing forced housewives to get up and check the dough, and the third roosters singing finally made them get up for real. The devout old people rose earlier than the housewives. They made the Morning Prayer before the icon, trying not to wake the children, and went out of the house.

Thus, already mentioned Michael G. from the village Timonikha all his life got up shortly after the second cock singing. He lit the kerosene lantern in winter and chopped down pine needles in the yard, quite loudly chanting psalms. In the summer, it is bright and without a lamp, and there is a lot more any kind of work than in winter.

 After the prayer, women first looked at the dough; for a rare day, they did not put "to walk "bread or cakes. Pancakes and oatmeal were also set to ferment in the evening.

The hostess opens the vent and fires up the stove. Cracks and the smell of a kindled torch are woven into a dream of sleeping children; it made men wake up. A young woman did not immediately master the art of kindle of the stove. Ability, however, stood there in the background; the first was the quality of firewood and kindling. Logs of equal length, thickness and dryness required a half times less than heterogeneous, unevenly dried. Mastery of a burning kindle by an experienced hostess was just a virtuoso. Holding a burning splinter of wood in her mouth, she contrived to carry two full buckets in the barn and the yard, on the stairs and into the pen. The splinter stuck in the wall crevice was burning until the women fed cattle.

In the dark autumn nights and in the cruel, cold night, people would walk from one village to another with a glowing beam of a torch. It was burning actively, evenly and illuminating the way for a long time and protecting from the cold and the beast. While the stove heats up, the man manages to harness a horse and go for the hay, if not far. The hostess warmed yesterday's soup for breakfast; now, it is called soup du jour. A peasant custom to serve soup or borscht for breakfast and dinner is partially preserved in the Russian Navy.

In summer, long before breakfast, people began to mow, plow fallow. The hostess sends children to carry food for the workers or, after changing the clothes, she brings it by herself.

Carpenters during long daylight days also started to work before breakfast. But to imagine peasants squat or making the sideways movement for fitness is impossible. Moves for the sake of exercise, even for the current working peasant look, if not blasphemous, then ridiculous.

While the oven was started, the hostess had time to warm by the fire several large iron pots for the cattle (brewed tops, cabbage leaves, added oil-cake, and bran). She was rolling the dough into loaves or cakes, rolling into the fire-extinguisher place hot coals.

The awakened family, after washing, were wiping with the towel, which was changed during the week. For drying the hands, it was hung a special hand towel. Canvas cloth on the table was even in the most impoverished homes. After crossing herself, the hostess threw the tablecloth on the table and put one big communal dish with the cabbage soup. Each had their place at the table. The master cut bread, put salt in the soup, tame excessively, and encouraged too contemplative. To drop and not lift a piece of bread was considered a sin; to leave him half-eaten, leave the table ahead of time is also not supposed to. Strict order in eating can be waived only during the field harvest. The system of eating correlated with industriousness and order in general. Nobody had the authority to cancel lunch or breakfast. Even during a bread-less time, I mean the usual famine, the family observed the time between breakfast, lunch, before-dinner and dinner. The tablecloth could be unfolded for just a potato dish.

 A good eater rarely has not been a good worker. But he never ate hurriedly and in reserve. Greed was not forgiven even to children. A typical working day after breakfast was attractive because work was to be done. Work before lunch excited the most inveterate idlers, which cannot be confused with slow starters. Sometimes, someone with short legs was lazier than a slow one that delayed the beginning of work in every way but then was reluctant to leave it. Then, there had to be summoned for dinner.

Even during the harvest, lunch was made relatively long, two or even three hours; in wintertime, it was the end of the workday. In summer, workers enjoyed the short afternoon nap in most families, gaining back strength and courage. It was delightful sleeping in the hayloft on the fresh hay during haymaking time. People would curl up somewhere in the barn or in the hayloft at the field and sleep until the horses were fed. At lunch, the whole family got at the table, but in the old days in the North, peasants often gathered at a team lunch, called the feast. Refectories were built close to the wooden churches. During these dinners was, melted accumulated for some time estrangement. At them were solved important military and socio-economic affairs. The soundness of such decisions depended on under which roof they were adopted.

In the short winter days, people were twilighting. Twilighting meant sitting quietly or lying down before dinner and, even after, not lighting the lamp. "Pauzhna" is a relatively light meal between lunch and dinner, later replaced with a five 'o clock teatime. Dinner is arranged just before bedtime. According to the Russian folk, the custom to sleep on an empty stomach is not accepted.

People just come in from the fields; in the winter evenings, even old people went for gatherings…They ended the day with a prayer. Young as they returned from the games, meetings and other festivities, rarely thought of the icon, lit by a tiny flame of the lamp. The religiosity of the youth manifested itself in different qualities and actions.

IZUGRAPHS ***

Somebody christened the nature of the Russian North as "opaque," "not bright" and modest. Yet, nowhere in the country is such brightness and expression of contrasting colours and is polyphonic, as in North-Western Russia.



The beauty of these places is presented not only by various landscapes, combining the low mountains, hills, valleys, folds, lakes and rivers, framed by forests, meadows, shrubs. It is determined by variation by now and then of successive scenic moods. It sometimes changes just a matter of seconds, not to mention the changes associated with the four seasons.



A forest lake from a deep-blue hue can be instantly transformed into a silver-lilac just because a light comic breeze blows out of the forest. Likewise, a field of rye and birch forest, river and meadow grass change their colour depending on the strength and direction of the wind. But apart from the wind, there is the sun and the sky, the time of day and night, the new moon and the full moon, heat and cold.



Innumerable combinations of all changes immediately reflected on the landscape, the originality of the smells, sounds, or then absolute silence that happens in the early morning of a white windless night or a winter icy windless night. To ignore an endlessly changing landscape, you have to be deaf and blind or morbidly fascinated by something else.



Recall short, almost black and white winter days, followed by seemingly one graphic: white fields, dark woods and hedges, gray houses and buildings. Even in such time, snow has its shades; what to say about the sun on a frosty morning and sunset! There are no names for the colours of many states of the sunset or morning sky. To say that the dawn is crimson (or purple, or lilac) means almost nothing to say: it changes every minute, its colours and hues on the horizon line and above, and the border between the dawn and the sky does not exist. And what name to call a colour of the winter crust blinding with sunshine, in the shade of bluish-glowing in-depth and silver, as it melts under the direct rays? The frosty sun produces the same richness of colour tones, like during warm spring and summer or autumn. But even in dense clouds, especially before the beginning of spring, the winter landscape is heterogeneous, the snow is bluish. With a faint yellow, the forest gave a smoky lavender, the slightly bluish with brown over the near willow, bluish alder tree, with a bright green of pines and subtle coloration of ash trees. This pre-spring condition is associated with peacefully quiet, a smell of snow, tree's flesh, hay, stove smoke.



And who among the most brilliant painters have depicted at least a few states of night deep-purple sky with massive clusters of stars, leaving in perspective infinity?



 Spring and summer sky changes its colour as ruthlessly fast, does not stint on their shades and intensity, its generosity to paint is truly unlimited. And how varied is the green colour of the North-West!



The greenery of flax, for example, varies with its growth, flowering and ripening; the green grass also varies greatly. Meadows, blooming in spring with white, pink, blue, pale after mowing, suddenly become a spring-bright green. Winter wheat stays green until late fall, even before the winter. Always change the green colours of the forest and the colour of the water surface in lakes and rivers. Water is either bright, steel, sometimes blue, something blue to ink density; then suddenly, especially in the silence of the first autumn frosts, it is greenish.



There is no need to talk about autumn landscapes; their beauty and multiplicity are well known.


How could all this not resonate in the soul of people, not be imprinted in their works and creations? Nature was, of course, the first and foremost mentor to a person in their eternal quest for beauty.



Art was born in the depths of people's everyday life. It is a quiet fashion that grew and ripened, sometimes transparent even for the artist. Without a strong soil layer, also a talented farmer gets wilted flowers that bloom briefly and lightly. This common everyday layer formed during the centuries, fertilized with thousands of diverse, interconnected and interchangeable customs and skills.



The life of a person under normal circumstances always is creative. But, on the other hand, a plowman or a carpenter's work is original because purely mechanical, repetitive, learned once and for all movements used only by people with limited social and physical skills.



Many people think that physical labour cannot be creative; that inspiration goes only to those who have the pen, bow or slide-rule in their hands. But moreover, original work denied physical effort, that is purely intellectual (even if a person runs daily on the tennis court or swimming pool), is hardly sufficiently creative. The subtle, harmonious combination of intellectual and physical effort in labour often was violated in the past, in peasant life, and frequently a shift occurred in the direction of natural gravity. But a breach to the other side is no better, if not worse ...



Before starting to cut down a tree, a lumberjack will think over where it is bent upon, which side has the thick needles, and what other trees are nearby. The first blow of the axe lets the lumberjack feel the hardness or softness, dryness or humidity of wood. Feeling the rhizomes or swamp unsteadiness under the feet, shining sun, wind force and even the distance to the village and thousands of other little things make the lumberjack a creative person.



The Russian stove had never been built of brick but from raw clay. Clay was churned, daubed. Mouldings, ledges, depressions, ledges were sculptured by hand and therefore had an oval shape. Labour of the stove-mason combines some, albeit remote, features of the sculptor and architect (modelling, composition, proportionality, plan and knowledge of the material.)



Understanding the Pskov city architecture suggests a surprising similarity of the stove building or of ordinary skill with the skill-building Pskov churches. Oval, soft, rustic forms of these small churches are indeed akin to somewhat of the Russian stove, its warmth and coziness, its daily necessity.



 How does the work of a mason or wood-cutter become similar to sculptor or architect work? The great mystery of creation, creativity, inspiration does not give up to a rational conclusion. The artist exists possible in any person, but no one knows where and when he wakes up (and if he will wake up at all).
The impetus for this revival can be any small thing, such as spring egg, coloured with broth from the onion skins. A brown-ocher or reddish-brown colour gives a pair of Easter eggs decorative brightness. And when they lie in the snow-white plate but still together with others, different tone, then, thinking about it, the child immediately runs home from a festive street.



A white linen shirt miraculously transformed if it was dunk into the infusion of alder bark. Maybe in such moments, the mind awakens from sleep?



Nature and life tightly surround everyone, even those without artistic inclinations. And they, having no taste, dress tastefully (in obedience to tradition), have no ear for music, participate in the singing (with all), not possessing the artist's gift, admire the autumn forest. But what then to say about those who are born with talent?



Lessons of colour or black and white graphics a child takes from infancy, watching as his father or grandfather cut out "towel" and trims, as a sister or grandmother crochets lace chooses stitch, weaving bright rags. He will not necessarily become a painter or builder later. Talented or just artistically appreciative people often combine several capacities, like Gogol's Vakula, who managed to create a beautiful devil. Craftsmanship allowed a person to be the blacksmith or the builder. But art demanded loyalty from a man to something singular, although Andrei Rublev could, perhaps, no worse than the other build chambers and churches.



Folk artists often mastered several crafts, thinking: "Extra craft do not hang up on the shoulders." Those notorious street painters, which at one time often were ridiculed by satirists and feuilletonists, could, on occasion, dig a well and layout the oven. A carpenter has fashioned for himself a cupboard, felt a child's urge to paint it. With plenty of experience and paints, he did not ask a true painter for a favour but himself worked with the brush. And then the cupboard door turned into outlandish boyar gate towers, appeared to have vases with flowers and wavy patterns. Lovely were those cupboards with pink and green floral ornaments on a white background.



The owners built themselves painted chests, used later as benches for the autumn and winter parties. So, on the chest of Athanasius, Ozerkov (hamlet Lobanikha) was depicted as a magnificent stylized lion with around, not a beastly face, with a thin raised paw and a small tail. The bushy tail bends somehow very elegant and funny. Yes, and the lion was smiling.



The ceiling was painted with precise coloured divergent circles in the same house. They diverged from the center and from which hung the wooden bird made of plates. A full-length brave soldier with a mustache was painted at the gates of the basement of a house (Gryazovets county). Each mustache was only slightly shorter than the soldiers' swords. In the middle of the last century, people began to paint the gables of houses covered with planks in Vologda and Arkhangelsk villages. Images of the clocks, birds and wildflowers on the balconies and towers are preserved in many places that are not washed away by rain, not weathered by centuries of wind. Colourful tables, chests, rakes, perches, chests, spinning wheels, spoons, etc., quite well matched unpainted floors, clean white walls and skillfully carved benches. All this was not created by professionals but by the owners themselves, who were carpenters, blacksmiths, cabinet makers, stove builders, whose primary business was arable farming.



The brightness of decorative fabrics, garments, home furnishing, inherent in everyday life, coupled with the beauty of nature, influenced a person from birth. This surroundings in itself, to some extent, is art, and in such circumstances, it will wake up the artist's soul. Among many middle-level talents were born many good artists, and among them became outstanding and, finally, the brilliant.



The transition to high art from a colourful everyday household is inconspicuous. It is smooth, not sharp, and it would not be worth remembering if, at some time, the art was accompanied by personal vanity.



It is not difficult to imagine the difference between self-love in art and love of art in oneself. Let's recall that even the most beautiful works of Russian icon painters are not signed, that the names of the founders of architectural masterpieces are known only from legends. The artist did not put his signature on his artistic creation, not because he did not know letters, as now it is presented by another "over the hill" researcher. The purpose of the artist was not self-assertion. He did not assert himself in the world but claimed the outside world through himself.



The artistic genius of the Russian people became known chiefly through the spoken word, architecture and painting. Experts divide the art of painting into everyday paintings and religious paintings. But to what category include the fantastic miniatures that adorn the handwritten holy books? Or the same little devil painted by a Gogol's blacksmith?



Icon painting, preceded by mural paintings, left the most tangible evidence of numerous national artistic genius. For the relatively small number of subjects, millions of high-grade works of art were created. An icon, or two or three, were present in every Russian house, and in every cathedral and church, in every chapel was set up the iconostasis - a group placed in a specific order of the icons. Keeping in mind here also monastic cells, ships and soldiers' portable chapels, one can imagine many icons written in Russia.



The Russian icon is a phenomenon unique; it is known worldwide, spread one way or another around the world. The variety of art schools and styles within the iconography art does not interfere but helps its artistic integrity, its complete independence.



What unites all the schools and styles of Russian icon painting art? What makes it a one-piece set?



However much we may disclose, the mystery of artistic creation will remain a mystery. A discovered secret will belong to science rather than artistic creativity.



For many years, an army of curious scientists and art historians tried to solve the mystery of creation, opening up one after another of its little private secrets. And already, it would seem, is about to close, very close and inevitably a remarkable discovery. But no, creativity, again and again, moves away from the prying feelings of the rationalistic mind.



In the North, three icon-painting subjects were most beloved by people. Born of peasant origin, an icon painter, of course, painted the image of the Savior, but, following the popular taste above all created images of the Virgin Mary, St. George and St. Nicholas. This is not by accident. Strength and depth of maternal love are not put by people to any doubt. The cult of motherhood spiritualized entire Northern life. The maternal theme sounds in all kinds of folk art. Christianity and paganism did not compete when it came to Mother. The image of the Virgin was in almost every house. She was called the patroness not for nothing.



Even in ancient times, the last chance before the execution was an appeal to the mother of the man on whom the fate of the convicted person depended. The most effective prayer of the people was considered maternal, but the mother, in turn, turned in prayer to the Mother, too.



St. George on a white horse represented the military force capable of protecting from a creeping evil. The icon with his image was considered mandatory in the house. But the most beloved of all saints was in the North St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker. He was called simply, Nicola, and respectfully - St. Nicholas. In a rare home, there was no icon with his image: to popular belief, Nicola was protecting young and old, in the woods and water, battle and labour. Picturesque images of St. Nicholas are very diverse; he is kind and affectionate, stern and fierce, thoughtfully tender, then disapproving. There is a remarkable icon with his image in the Novgorod Church of St. Sofia. But perhaps the most beautiful picture of St. Nicholas was a fresco of Dionisio in Ferapontov Monastery - in a Russian pearl in the necklace of world culture.




From the village Timonikha and neighbouring villages, some old ladies walked on foot to the Ferapontov monastery, and it lasted until the early 20s. They walked on country roads and boggy paths, all with one overnight stay in transit. A rare traveller could go without sleep for 80-90 kilometres. In three hundred meters from Timonikha, village Lobanikha is mentioned in the ancient books with the second, not a very respectable name. Standing above the lake, the Nicholas churchyard opened the way to Alferov and Pomazikha villages, now extinct. Also behind a small forest is Ploskovo and Ezovo villages - vast and ancient settlements decimated over the last 30-40 years.



Across the river Ustyug, taking the swamps, you can get to other villages, which were numerous and now disappear one after another. Cloudberry bogs suddenly disappear, the forest parts at once, and the white walls of the Ferapontov monastery friendly shine in the sun.



Not very long ago, Ferapont probably thought where to cut the cell, among some pleasant wooded hills and two light reaches of lakes, located one above the other, connected by a noisy river.



Similar to these places, a white stone convent was built - not bulky, like a toy, with two towers above the gates with the cozy, low fence. A low-height church building with the semi-circular upper part of outer walls and thin brick attracted Dionisio, maybe because of its intimate, small size, and here the great Russian painter told his sons to stop and settle ...



In one year, Dionisio had accomplished his feat and painted the church with the help of his sons. There was at this time the mother of his sons? Unknown. Most likely, she was no longer alive. In the image of Our Lady, artists have invested so much of their sad love, so much filial and conjugal affection, loyalty and reverence that the mural, despite the considerable damage, now moves souls.



By the location and placement of murals under the arches on the walls of the spherical and curved surfaces, you can learn from Dionysian compositional skill. There is something to remember for all those involved with art: the architect and writer, musician and sculptor, playwright and art critic. Graphics and colour paintings and perfect rhythm: it again forces remember such words and concepts as harmony, proportionality, harmony.



The image of St. Nicholas, written in the right hemisphere of the nave, was to Dionysii evidently a proper take-off, inspired enthusiasm, the complete disappearance and dissolution of the "self" in art ...



Like all great works of art, Nicola Dionysii is perceived at different times in different ways, even by the same person. There is the highest wisdom and strong insuperable spirit, earthly man beauty, in the form of Northerner peasant, a citizen of Novgorod, warrior and provider.



Nicola looks at us with the very eyes of Dionysii for the past five centuries. He looks as if appealing to conscience, with a mournful reproach or as if with encouraging approval, penetrating with his gaze into the very depths of our soul and instilling in it the courage.



And the memory of the ingenious icon painter (izugraph) Dionysii lives not only in our hearts. It lives in the colours of forests, fields, waters, stones and skies of our beloved North.