SHOWCASE 4

 The exhibits presented in the showcase provide an opportunity to get acquainted with a variety of materials and methods of adorning pieces—chasing and enamel, carving and niello. Chasing is one of the most time-consuming methods of decorating silver and gold items. Masters of Moscow, Novgorod and Volga region were known as first-class chiselers. Russian niello was famous for its durability.

A very peculiar centre of applied art was Solvychegodsk—there were art workshops of "court nobility Stroganovs" already at the end of the 16th century. In the second half of the 17th century original products with painted enamels called "usolie crafts" were created there. Those were various items, decorated with ornate painting on white background.

Painted enamel became a new genre of decorative and applied art of the 17th century. Masters enamelled hemispherical surfaces of bowls, drinking vessels (charka) with great technical perfection and covered them with colourful garlands of tulips, daisies and sunflowers. Paintings was done in bright yellow, green, blue, pinkish-lilac tones, complemented by dark shading, which enhanced the expressiveness of the ornament. Solvychegodsk craftsmen reproduced various themes from folklore, books and engravings on their products. There were often images of boys, girls and birds.

The "usolie crafts" help to trace a creative interpretation of engravings, sometimes Western European as well. For Russian artists of the second half of the 17th century, Western European engravings were a kind of canvas on which their own, thoughtful and colorful pattern was embroidered. The engravings were treated as auxiliary material. Using it, Russian master created an elegant, colorful composition, in which the samples themselves acquired a completely new folklore and fairy-tale character.