«The peasant art of Ukraine»

Description

This edition is the study by the famous Ukrainian scientist and museum worker Mykola Biliashivskyi (1867–1926), initially published by The Studio art journal in London in 1912. The book is supplemented by exclusive ethnographic photographs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries from the collection of the National Art Museum of Ukraine (fund no. 33). The edition is dedicated to Mykola Biliashivskyi’s 155th birth anniversary.

Let us refer now to the main points of M. Biliashivskyi. In the very beginning he mentions that 20—30 years ago every corner of Ukraine was very rich from artistic view, the village seemed inexhaustible treasury of things which were produced mostly for peasants own needs, and only recently uncharacteristic for Ukraine art handicraft started developing. Folk art is a relic of national culture of 17–18th centuries. The most archaic forms of embroidery preserved in Northern Ukraine, and analogues of Ukrainian wooden churches still can be found in Northern Europe, in Scandinavia. At the time when the Ukrainians were characterized by mainly floral designs, Russians prefer geometric, animalistic, architectural motifs in ornamentation.