From Fukuruma to Matryoshka
The Russian matryoshka (painted wooden dolls nestled
into one another) is known far outside Russia and has a history of almost a
century. During this comparatively short space of time it emerged as an
all-embracing symbol of Russia, a symbol of Russian folk art.
There are at
present several centers for the production and painting of matryoshkas. They
include Sergiev Pasad near Moscow, the city of Semyonov and the villages of Polkhovsky Maidan and
Krutets in the Nizhniy Novgorod Region. Other known centers are in the Vyatka,
Tver, Mariel and Mordovian areas. The art of matryoshka painting has spread
from Russian to the Ukraine and Byelorussia. The art of authors’ matryoshkas
has seen vigorous development.
The wooden panted
doll appeared in Russia in 1890s, the period which saw burgeoning economic and
cultural development. It was the time of a growing sense of national identity
and interest in Russian culture and art. As part of this general trend a new
artistic current called “Russian style” emerged. The so-called Mamontov circle
was among the early centers which advocated the revival of Russian culture. It
was presided over by Savva Mamontov (1841–1918), a Russian industrialist,
patron and connoisseur of arts who had gathered around him а group of outstanding
Russian artists including I.E. Repin, M.M. Antokolsky, V.M. Vasnetsov, M.A.
Vrubel and others.
In his Abramtsevo
estate near Moscow Savva Mamontov built art studios where folk craftsmen worked
along with professional artists. The enthusiasts who formed the Mamontov circle
engaged in education, art and collection with a heavy emphasis on reviving
Russian culture, especially the national and folk traditions. Among the items
of folk art the collected were peasant toys.
The development of
the folk peasant toy was a major area of their efforts. To this end a
Children’s Education workshop was opened I Moscow which began by making dolls
to demonstrate the festive costumes of inhabitants of various gubernias and
uyezds in Russia and were an accurate portrayal of ethnic features of peasant
women’s dress. It was at this workshop that the idea of a Russian wooden doll
was conceived. Sketches were made by S.V. Malyutin (1859–1937), a professional
artist and member of the Mamontov circle, an active pioneer of the embroidered
shirt, a sarafan ( a Russian national dress) and an apron, in a colored
kerchief holding a black rooster.
The Russian wooden
doll was called matryoshka. The name is not fortuitous. In provincial Russia
before 1917 the name Matryona or Matryoshka was among the most common female
names derived from the Latin root “mater”, which means “mother”. The name
conjured up the image of a sturdy family matron.
Subsequently, it
became a symbolic name and was specifically applied to describe painted wooden
dolls fashioned in such a way that they could be taken apart to reveal smaller
dolls fitting into one another. Yet to this day matryoshka remains the symbol
of motherhood and fertility. A doll with a numerous off-spring of dolls is a
fine metaphor for the oldest symbol of human culture.
The first Russian
matryoshka manufactured from the sketches of S.V. Malyutin by V. Zvezdochkin,
the best toy-maker of Sergiev Pasad, contained eight dolls. A girl with a black
rooster contained a boy, which contained a girl again. No two figures were
alike with the smallest, eighth, figure portraying a baby tightly wrapped in a
diaper.
S.V. Malyutin
borrowed the idea of a “take-apart” doll from a Japanese toy which S.I.
Mamontov’s wife had brought from the Island of Honshu. That figure showed a
sage by the name of Fukuruma, a good-natured bald-headed old man, a doll which
contained several other figures nestled in one another. The Japanese,
incidentally, claim that the first such doll on the Island of Honshu was made
by a Russian monk.
Russian craftsmen
who had a long tradition of making wooden objects which fitted into each other
(for example, Easter eggs) mastered the matryoshka technology with ease. The
basic technique of matryoshka-making remains unchanged and it draws on all the
turning skills used by Russian folk craftsmen.
The most common
kinds of tree used for matryoshkas are lime and birch. The trees chosen are
usually cut in earl spring, stripped of their bark leaving a few rings to
prevent the wood cracking when dried. The logs are arranged in piles with a
clearance between them to allow aeration. The logs are kept in the open air for
several years. It is essential not to allow the wood to be too dry or not dry
enough. Only an experienced master can tell when the material is ready.
The logs are then
cut into workpieces for matryoshkas. Every workpiece passes before being
fashioned into a doll.
Fashioning a doll
on a turning lathe requires a high degree of skill, an ability to handle a
beguilingly small set tools – a knife and chisels of various length and shape.
The first to be made is usually the smallest figures which cannot be taken
apart. In the making of the next matryoshka the bottom part is fashioned first.
Then it is processed to a necessary height and the top end is removed.
After that the
upper ring is made on which the top part of the matryoshka will be fitted and
then its lower part is made. Then the matryoshka’s head is fashioned and enough
wood is removed from within the matryoshka’s head to slip on the upper ring.
All these operations do not involve any
measurements, and rely on intuition and require great skill.
The upper part of
the matryoshka stuck on the lower part dries and tightens the ring so that it
securely in place. The turning work done, the snow-white wooden doll is
thoroughly cleaned, primed with starchy glue to make its surface ideally smooth
and to prevent the paint making smudges and then dried. The matryoshka is now
ready to be painted.
The pattern of the
first Russian matryoshka was poked and it was painted with gouache and
covered with varnish by S.V. Malyutin
himself. Until the late 1890s matryoshkas were manufactured in the Children’s
Education workshop in Moscow and after the workshop was closed the show-case
and training works in Sergiev Pasad near Moscow, an old toy-making center,
picked up the tradition.
It soon launched
commercial production of the toy and developed the type of matryoshka that
became known as Sergiev Pasad or Zagorsk matryoshka (in 1930 the city was
renamed Zagorsk but its old historic name has been recently restored).
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