JEWELRY ART OF ANCIENT Rus'
The remarkable art of ancient Russian jewelers of the era of Yaroslav the Wise and Vladimir Monomakh amazed European travelers who visited Rus' in those days. Over the centuries it was forgotten. However, through the efforts of domestic archaeologists in the 19th-20th centuries, the creations of ancient masters found new life. Hundreds and thousands of jewelry created by craftsmen of the 10th - early 13th centuries were extracted from the ground. Exhibited in museum windows, they are capable of enchanting the modern fashionista and arousing the deep, sincere admiration of the artist.
In ancient times, Rus' was influenced by several developed cultures at once. In medieval Kyiv, entire neighborhoods were inhabited by foreigners: Greeks, Jews and Armenians. Severe warriors and clever traders from Scandinavia brought the sultry pagan art of the Viking Age to the Russian lands. Traders from the East - a colorful and intricate pattern so beloved in Islamic countries. Finally, Christianity, adopted from the powerful Byzantine Empire, spread out on the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, connected Rus' with the high artistic culture this
Saint George. Byzantine enamel. X-XII centuries
Enamel images of princes
Boris and Gleb on Mstislavov's salary
Gospels (XII V.) and on ancient barmas,
found near Staraya Ryazan (XII-XIII V.).
states. Byzantium was in those days the beacon of civilization in barbarian Europe and the keeper of ancient knowledge bequeathed by the era of antiquity. But along with Christianity, Rus' for several centuries retained persistent pagan traditions. The complex, highly developed religious system of East Slavic paganism became an important source of creative imagination of ancient Russian painters, sculptors and jewelers.
The Mongol-Tatar invasion turned out to be disastrous for many secrets of jewelry art. The masters who owned them disappeared during the hard years of Batu’s defeat or were stolen by the Horde to serve their rulers. For a whole century, the skill of ancient Russian jewelers was practically in decline, and only in the middle - second half of the 14th century. its slow revival began.
JEWELRY TECHNIQUES
In the era when Kyiv was the capital of the Old Russian state, Eastern Slavic women loved to decorate themselves with a lot of jewelry. The fashion included cast silver rings with ornaments, twisted silver wire bracelets, glass bracelets and, of course, beads. They were very diverse: from colored glass, rock crystal, earrings and rubies, large hollow beads made of cast gold. Attached to them were round or moon-shaped bronze pendants (lunars), decorated with delicate ornaments: unprecedented magical animals in the Scandinavian style, complex wicker structures, very reminiscent of images on Arab dirhams - coins that were in circulation in those days both in Rus' and in Europe.
But the most popular decorations were temporal rings. Cast silver temple rings were woven into women's hairstyle at the temples or hung from headdresses, they were worn one or several pairs at once. Each East Slavic tribe that became part of the Kyiv state had its own special type of temple rings, unlike the same jewelry of its neighbors. Women of the northern tribe, for example, wore an elegant variety of rings that resembled a curl or a flattened spiral. The Radimichi people preferred the temporal rings, which had seven rays diverging from the arch, ending in teardrop-shaped thickenings. On the temple rings of the Vyatichi, which were among the most decorative, there were seven flat blades instead of rays. Townswomen of the 11th-13th centuries. loved most Colts- paired hollow gold and silver pendants,
Star Colt from the Terekhovsky treasure.
Front side.
Star Colt from the Terekhovsky treasure.
Reverse side.
Colt from the Terekhovsky treasure. Front side.
Colt from the Terekhovsky treasure. Reverse side.
Colt from the Mikhailovsky treasure. Front side.
Colt from the Mikhailovsky treasure. Reverse side.
which were attached with chains or ribbons to the headdress. Many colts that have survived to this day are distinguished by the amazing perfection of their shape. In 1876, near the village of Terehovo, Oryol province, several pairs of kolts from the 12th - early 13th centuries were discovered in a rich treasure. They are massive five-rayed stars, densely covered with thousands of soldered tiny balls of metal. This type of jewelry technique is called grains; it came from Scandinavia and was widespread in Ancient Rus'. Along with grain, it was also used scan: finest silver or gold
wire, twisted into bundles, soldered onto plates or twisted into openwork patterns. In 1887, on the territory of the ancient St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery, another treasure of jewelry from the 11th-12th centuries was found, including a pair of gold kolta. Colts were decorated freshwater pearls and images of fantastic birds with female heads. The colors of the images have not lost their brightness, and their combination is extremely exquisite: white, turquoise, dark blue and bright red. Meanwhile, the master who created this splendor died about eight centuries ago. Mikhailovsky Colts are made in
masterly jewelry technique septate enamels, which were adopted from the Byzantines. This forgotten art required patience and amazing precision in work. On the surface of the gold decoration, the jeweler soldered the thinnest gold ribbons-partitions onto the edge, forming the outline of the future design. Then the cells between them were filled with enamel powders of different colors and heated to a high temperature. In this case, a bright and very durable glassy mass was obtained. Products made using the cloisonne enamel technique were very expensive, so it is no coincidence that most of the works that have survived to this day are parts of the divine princely attire.
Another favorite technique of ancient Russian jewelers was blackening, which, according to some scientists, was a Khazar heritage. The niello was a complex alloy of tin, copper, silver, sulfur and other components. Applied to a silver surface, the niello created the background for a convex image. Blackening was especially often used to decorate folded bracelets. Several dozen such bracelets from the 12th century. kept in the State Historical Museum in Moscow. On them it is easy to distinguish the figures of musicians, dancers, warriors, eagles and fantastic monsters. The plot of the drawings is far from Christian ideas and closer to paganism. This is not surprising. Jewelers used enamel or niello to depict both Christ, the Virgin Mary, saints, and griffins, dog-headed monsters, centaurs and pagan festivals.
There were both purely Christian and purely pagan jewelry, which were objects of religious cults. Many encolpion breast crosses have been preserved, consisting of two wings, between which pieces of the relics of saints were placed. The doors usually had cast, carved or
blackened image of the Mother of God and Child. No less often, archaeologists find pagan amulets - objects that protected against illness, misfortune and witchcraft. Many of them are cast figurines of horse heads, to which “bells” made in the shape of animals, birds, spoons, knives and grips are attached with chains. With their ringing, the bells were supposed to ward off evil spirits.
"HRYVNA OF VLADIMIR MONOMACH"
Some monuments of ancient Russian jewelry art have gained enormous fame. Articles and books are written about them, their photographs are placed in albums dedicated to the culture of pre-Mongol Rus'. The most famous is the “Chernigov hryvnia”, or “the hryvnia of Vladimir Monomakh”. This is a chased gold medallion from the 11th century, the so-called coil, on one side of which is depicted a woman’s head in a ball of eight snakes, symbolizing the devil, a pagan deity or the evil spirit in general. A prayer is directed against the disease in Greek. On the other side is the Archangel Michael, called upon to protect the owner of the hryvnia from the devilish goats. The inscription, made in Slavic letters, reads: “Lord, help your servant Vasily.” It was a real Christian amulet against evil spirits. The plot and the very technique of performing the serpentine torcs were borrowed from Byzantium; in pre-Mongol times, decorations of this kind were not uncommon. The “Chernigov hryvnia” was made unusually skillfully and must have belonged to a rich, noble person, most likely of princely origin. The cost of this jewel is equal to the size of the princely tribute from an average city. The medallion was found in 1821 not far from the city of Chernigov, which in ancient times was the capital of the principality.
Bracelets with image
fantastic animals and ritual
scenes XII V.
State Russian
museum, St. Petersburg.
Bracelet with picture
animals. XII V. State Historical Museum, Moscow.
Hryvnia of Vladimir Monomakh. XII V. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
The inscription indicating the identity of the owner - Vasily - told historians that the hryvnia belonged to Vladimir Monomakh (1053-1125), who was given the name Vasily at baptism. This famous ancient Russian commander and politician reigned in Chernigov for some time. He left a “Teaching” to the children, written in the form of memoirs. In this essay, the prince wrote that one of his favorite pastimes was hunting. When going out onto it, Vladimir Monomakh was not afraid of boar tusks and elk hooves. While hunting not far from Chernigov, he dropped a precious hryvnia, which conveyed to his descendants the work of skilled Kyiv craftsmen.
NAMES ON METAL
The vast majority of monuments of jewelry art of Ancient Rus' are anonymous. Archaeologists, finding the remains of workshops that belonged to ancient Russian gold and silver craftsmen, extracted from the ground everything necessary for
jewelry craft supplies. However, history has not preserved the names of the remarkable craftsmen who created the “Chernigov hryvnia” or the kolta from the Mikhailovsky treasure. Sometimes only the jewels themselves “let slip” about their creators. Thus, craters - precious silver bowls for holy water, created in medieval Novgorod in the 12th century - bear inscriptions that indicate the names of the masters Costa and Bratila.
The famous Polotsk enlightener of the 12th century. Princess Abbess Efrosinia in 1161 ordered a cross to contribute to the Spassky Monastery she founded. The six-pointed cross, about half a meter high, was made of cypress wood and covered at the top and bottom with gold plates decorated with precious stones. Already by the 20s. XX century Almost all the stones were lost, but it is known that there were about two dozen of them, and among them were grenades. The stones were mounted in sockets on gold plates, and between them the master inserted twenty enamel miniatures with images of saints. Every saint's name
HELMET OF YAROSLAV VSEVOLODOVICH
In one of the showcases of the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin, an ancient helmet is displayed, the iron of which has rusted, and only the silver plates still shine with pure brilliance. On the plates decorating the top of the helmet are stamped images of Jesus Christ, Archangel Michael and selected saints. The work belongs to Novgorod masters and was performed at a high artistic level. The history of the helmet itself is connected with important political events. In 1216, on the Lipitsa River, near Yuryev Polsky, two Russian armies met - Novgorodians and Suzdalians with numerous allies. The battlefield was abundantly watered with the blood of warriors who belonged to the cities and principalities of half of Rus'. The leaders of Suzdal, and among them Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, the father of Alexander Nevsky, were confident of victory. Shortly before the start of the battle, Yaroslav Vsevolodovich and his brother Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich, according to ancient custom, exchanged armor. The crushing defeat forced them to seek salvation by fleeing the battlefield. Yuri, not remembering himself from fear, took off his heavy chain mail and helmet and hid them until better times. The vanquished remained alive and retained princely power, but they failed to find expensive weapons.
Helmet of Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, father of Alexander Nevsky.
minted next to the image. Christian relics were kept inside the cross: the blood of Jesus Christ, pieces of the relics of Saints Stephen and Panteleimon, as well as the blood of Saint Demetrius. The shrine was covered with silver and gilded plates, and the edges of the front side were framed with a string of pearls. In the eyes of believers, relics made the cross more valuable than the gold and silver used by the jeweler.
The fate of the cross of St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk, which was in turn in the hands of the Orthodox, Catholics, Uniates, in the treasury of the Moscow sovereigns and the hiding place of the French who occupied Polotsk in 1812, is sad. It was lost during the war of 1941 - 1945; journalists, writers, scientists, politicians and even Interpol (Interpol) were looking for it. The history of these searches is as dramatic and inconclusive as, for example, the epic associated with the famous Amber Room (the walls and all the furnishings of which were decorated with amber), stolen by the Nazis during the same war and since then without success. successfully sought by scientists.
Descriptions and drawings made before the disappearance of the cross of St. Euphrosyne preserved the text of the inscription that was left on the surface of the cross by its creator, the Polotsk master Lazar Bogsha (Boguslav). The Cross of St. Euphrosyne is one of the main spiritual shrines of Belarus and a recognized masterpiece of medieval jewelry art.
Nowadays, temple rings, colts and many other works of medieval Russian jewelry are collected in museums. Particularly rich collections belong to the State Historical Museum, the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin and the Patriarchal Sacristy.
PROTO-RENAISSANCE
ARCHITECTURE
SCULPTURE
PAINTING
EARLY RENAISSANCE
ARCHITECTURE
SCULPTURE
PAINTING
HIGH RENAISSANCE
DONATO BRAMANTE
LEONARDO DA VINCI
RAPHAEL
MICHELANGELO
GIORGIONE
TITIAN
LATE RENAISSANCE
ANDREA PALLADIO
PAOLO VERONESE
TINTORETTO
ART OF MANNERISM
Humanity has its own biography: infancy, adolescence and maturity. The era, which is called the Renaissance, is most likely to be likened to the period of emerging maturity with its integral romance, the search for individuality, and the fight against the prejudices of the past. Without the Renaissance there would be no modern civilization. The cradle of Renaissance art (French) Renaissance), was Italy.
Renaissance art arose on the basis of humanism (from lat. humanus - “humane”) - a movement of social thought that originated in the 14th century. in Italy, and then during the second half of the XV-XVI centuries. spread to other European countries. Humanism proclaimed man and his good as the highest value. Humanists believed that every person has the right to freely develop as an individual, realizing their abilities. The ideas of humanism were most vividly and fully embodied in art, the main theme of which was the beautiful, harmoniously developed person, possessing unlimited spiritual and creative capabilities.
Humanists were inspired by antiquity, which served as a source of knowledge and a model for them artistic creativity. The great past, constantly reminiscent of itself in Italy, was perceived at that time as the highest perfection, while the art of the Middle Ages seemed inept and barbaric. Originated in the 16th century. the term “revival” meant the emergence of a new art that revives classical antiquity and ancient culture. Nevertheless, the art of the Renaissance owes much to the artistic tradition of the Middle Ages. The old and the new were in indissoluble connection and confrontation.
With all the contradictory diversity and richness of its origins, the art of the Renaissance is a phenomenon marked by deep and fundamental novelty. It laid the foundations of European culture of the New Age. All major types of art - painting, graphics, sculpture, architecture - have changed enormously.
Creatively revised principles of the ancient order system were established in architecture (see the article “The Art of Ancient Hellas”), and new types of public buildings emerged. Painting was enriched with linear and aerial perspective, knowledge of the anatomy and proportions of the human body. Earthly content penetrated into the traditional religious themes of works of art. Interest in ancient mythology, history, everyday scenes, landscapes, and portraits increased. Along with monumental wall paintings decorating architectural structures, painting appeared and oil painting arose.
Art had not yet completely divorced itself from craft, but the creative individuality of the artist, whose activity at that time was extremely diverse, had already come to the fore. The universal talent of the Renaissance masters is amazing - they often worked in the field of architecture, sculpture, painting, combined their passion for literature,
*Antiquity - the history and culture of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, as well as countries and peoples whose culture developed in contact with ancient Greek and Roman traditions.
**Linear perspective is a way of depicting a three-dimensional object on a plane. Methods of linear perspective allow you to create the illusion of spatial depth and generally correspond to the features of the photographic image of space and objects. Aerial perspective is a method by which the artist conveys distant objects, softening their outlines and reducing the brightness of color.
Michelangelo Buonarroti. Copper serpent. Fresco. XVI V.
Michelangelo Buonarroti. Prophet Jeremiah. Fresco. XVI V.
The Sistine Chapel. Vatican.
Michelangelo Buonarroti. Last Judgment. Sinner. Fresco. XVI V. The Sistine Chapel. Vatican.
poetry and philosophy with the study of exact sciences. The concept of a creatively rich, or “renaissance” personality subsequently became a household word.
In the art of the Renaissance, the paths of scientific and artistic comprehension of the world and man were closely intertwined. Its cognitive meaning was inextricably linked with sublime poetic beauty; in its desire for naturalness, it did not stoop to petty everyday life. Art has become a universal spiritual need.
The formation of Renaissance culture in Italy took place in economically independent cities. In the rise and flowering of Renaissance art, a large role was played by the Church and the magnificent courts of uncrowned sovereigns (ruling wealthy families) - the largest patrons and customers of works of painting, sculpture and architecture. The main centers of Renaissance culture were first the cities of Florence, Siena, Pisa, then Padua, Ferrara, Genoa, Milan, and later than all, in the second half of the 15th century, wealthy merchant Venice. In the 16th century Rome became the capital of the Italian Renaissance. From this time on, local art centers, with the exception of Venice, lost their former importance.
In the era of the Italian Renaissance, it is customary to distinguish several periods: Proto-Renaissance(second half of the XIII-XIV centuries), early Renaissance(XV century), High Renaissance(end of the 15th - first decades of the 16th century), later Renaissance(last two thirds of the 16th century). Jewelry artAncientRus'. M.: 1972. Sedova M.V.- Jewelry products Ancient Novgorod X-XV centuries. M., 1981 ...
- this is a phenomenon that covers the Culture of Kievan Rus, which is rooted in the depths of the folk culture of the Slavic tribes
DocumentThe similarity is not accidental. IN ancient Kyiv jewelryart, in particular, the skill of cloisonné enamel was... Kyiv masters. The vast majority of monuments jewelryartAncientRus' anonymous. Archaeologists, finding the remains of workshops...
Approximate basic educational program direction of training 073900 theory and art history
Main educational programN.N. JewelryartAncientRus'. M., 1972. Tolochko P.P. Ancient Kyiv. K., 1983. Utkin P.I. Russians jewelry decorations. Chapter Jewelryart Kievskaya Rus' and Russians...
The remarkable art of ancient Russian jewelers of the era of Yaroslav the Wise and Vladimir Monomakh amazed European travelers who visited Rus' in those days.
Over the centuries it was forgotten. However, through the efforts of domestic archaeologists in the 19th-20th centuries, the creations of ancient masters found a new life. Hundreds and thousands of jewelry created by craftsmen of the 10th - early 13th centuries were extracted from the ground.
Exhibited in museum windows, they are capable of enchanting the modern fashionista and arousing the deep, sincere admiration of the artist.
In ancient times, Rus' was influenced by several developed cultures at once.
In medieval Kyiv, entire neighborhoods were inhabited by foreigners: Greeks, Jews and Armenians. Severe warriors and clever traders from Scandinavia brought the subtle pagan art of the Viking Age to the Russian lands. Traders from the East - a colorful and intricate pattern so beloved in Islamic countries. Finally, Christianity, adopted from the powerful Byzantine Empire, located on the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, connected Rus' with the high artistic culture of this state. Byzantium was at that time the beacon of civilization in barbaric Europe and the keeper of ancient knowledge bequeathed by the era of antiquity. But along with Christianity, Rus' preserved persistent pagan traditions for several centuries. The complex, highly developed religious system of East Slavic paganism became an important source of creative imagination of ancient Russian painters, sculptors and jewelers.
The Mongol-Tatar invasion turned out to be disastrous for many secrets of jewelry art. The masters who owned them disappeared during the hard times of Batu’s defeat or were kidnapped by the Horde to serve their rulers. For a whole century, the skill of ancient Russian jewelers was in decline, and only in the middle - second half of the 14th century. its slow revival began.
JEWELRY TECHNIQUES
In the era when Kyiv was the capital of the Old Russian state, Eastern Slavic women loved to decorate themselves with a lot of jewelry. Cast silver rings with ornaments, twisted silver wire bracelets, glass bracelets and, of course, beads were in fashion. They were very diverse: from colored glass, rock crystal, carnelians and rubies, large hollow beads made of cast gold. Hanging from them were round or moon-shaped bronze pendants (lunars), decorated with subtle ornaments: unprecedented magical animals in the Scandinavian style, complex wicker structures, very reminiscent of the images on Arab dirhams - coins that were in circulation in those days both in Rus' and in Europe .
But the most popular jewelry were temple rings. Cast silver temple rings were woven into women's hairstyles at the temples or hung from headdresses; they were worn one or several pairs at a time.
Each East Slavic tribe that became part of the Kyiv state had its own special type of temple rings, unlike the same decorations of its neighbors. Northern women, for example, wore an elegant variety of rings that looked like a curl or a flattened spiral.
The Radimichs preferred the temporal rings, which had seven rays diverging from the arch, ending in drop-shaped thickenings.
On the temple rings of the Vyatichi, which were among the most decorative, there were seven flat blades instead of rays.
Townswomen of the 11th-13th centuries. Most of all, they loved kolta - paired hollow gold and silver pendants, which were attached with chains or ribbons to the headdress. Many colts that have survived to this day are distinguished by their amazing perfection of shape. In 1876, near the village of Terehovo, Oryol province, several pairs of kolts from the 12th - early 13th centuries were discovered in a rich treasure. They are massive five-pointed stars, densely covered with thousands of tiny soldered balls of metal. This type of jewelry technique is called granulation; it came from Scandinavia and was widespread in Ancient Rus'. Along with grain, filigree was also used: the thinnest silver or gold wire, twisted into strands, soldered onto plates or twisted into openwork patterns.
In 1887, on the territory of the ancient St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery, another treasure of jewelry from the 11th-12th centuries was found, including a pair of gold colts. The kolta were decorated with freshwater pearls and images of fantastic birds with women's heads. The colors of the images have not lost their brightness, and their combination is extremely exquisite: white, turquoise, dark blue and bright red. Meanwhile, the master who created this splendor died about eight centuries ago. Mikhailovsky kolta are made using the masterly jewelry technique of cloisonné enamel, which was adopted from the Byzantines. This forgotten art required patience and amazing precision in work. On the surface of the gold jewelry, the jeweler soldered the thinnest gold ribbons-partitions onto the edge, forming the outline of the future design. Then the cells between them were filled with enamel powders of different colors and heated to high temperature. This produced a bright and very durable glassy mass. Products made using the cloisonne enamel technique were very expensive, so it is no coincidence that most of the works that have survived to this day are parts of expensive princely attire.
Another favorite technique of ancient Russian jewelers was blackening, which, according to some scientists, was a Khazar heritage. The niello was a complex alloy of tin, copper, silver, sulfur and other components. Applied to a silver surface, the niello created the background for a raised image. Blackening was especially often used to decorate folded bracelets. Several dozen such bracelets from the 12th century. kept in the State Historical Museum. On them it is easy to distinguish the figures of musicians, dancers, warriors, eagles and fantastic monsters. The plot of the drawings is far from Christian ideas and much closer to paganism. This is not surprising. Jewelers used enamel or niello both for the image of Christ, the Virgin Mary, saints, and for griffins, dog-headed monsters, centaurs and pagan festivals.
There were both purely Christian and purely pagan jewelry, which were objects of religious cults. Many encolpion breast crosses have been preserved, consisting of two wings, between which pieces of the relics of saints were placed. The doors usually had a cast, carved or blackened image of the Mother of God and Child. No less often, archaeologists find pagan amulets - objects that protected against illness, misfortune and witchcraft. Many of them are cast figurines of horse heads, to which “bells” made in the shape of animals, birds, spoons, knives and grips are attached in chains. With their ringing, the bells were supposed to ward off evil spirits.
"HRYVNA OF VLADIMIR MONOMACH"
Some monuments of ancient Russian jewelry art have gained enormous fame.
Articles and books are written about them, their photographs are placed in albums dedicated to the culture of pre-Mongol Rus'. The most famous is the “Chernigov hryvnia”, or “the hryvnia of Vladimir Monomakh”.
This is a chased gold medallion of the 11th century, the so-called serpentine, on one side of which a female head is depicted in a ball of eight snakes, symbolizing the devil, a pagan deity or the evil spirit in general. A prayer in Greek is directed against the disease. On the other side is the Archangel Michael, called upon to protect the owner of the hryvnia from the devil’s machinations. The inscription, made in Slavic letters, reads: “Lord, help your servant Vasily.” It was a real Christian amulet against evil spirits. The plot and the very technique of performing the serpentine torcs were borrowed from Byzantium; in pre-Mongol times, decorations of this kind were not uncommon. The “Chernigov hryvnia” was made with extraordinary skill and must have belonged to a rich, noble person, most likely of princely origin. The cost of this jewelry is equal to the size of the princely tribute from an average city.
The medallion was found in 1821 near the city of Chernigov, in ancient times the capital of the principality.
The inscription indicating the identity of the owner - Vasily - told historians that the hryvnia belonged to Vladimir Monomakh (1053-1125), who was given the name Vasily at baptism. This famous ancient Russian commander and politician reigned for some time in Chernigov. He left a “Teaching” to the children, written in the form of memoirs. In this essay, the prince wrote that one of his favorite pastimes was hunting. When going out onto it, Vladimir Monomakh was not afraid of boar tusks and elk hooves. While hunting not far from Chernigov, he dropped a precious hryvnia, which brought to posterity the work of skilled Kyiv craftsmen.
NAMES ON METAL
The vast majority of monuments of jewelry art of Ancient Rus' are anonymous. Archaeologists, finding the remains of workshops that belonged to ancient Russian gold and silversmiths, extracted from the ground all the supplies necessary for the jewelry craft. However, history has not preserved the names of the wonderful craftsmen who created the “Chernigov hryvnia” or the kolta from the Mikhailovsky treasure. Sometimes only the jewels themselves “let slip” about their creators. Thus, kraters - precious silver bowls for holy water, created in medieval Novgorod in the 12th century - bear inscriptions that give the names of the masters Costa and Bratila.
The famous Polotsk enlightener of the 12th century. Princess Abbess Efrosinia in 1161 ordered a cross to contribute to the Spassky Monastery she founded. The six-pointed cross, about half a meter high, was made of cypress wood and covered at the top and bottom with gold plates decorated with precious stones. Already by the 20s. XX century almost all the stones were lost, but it is known that there were about two dozen of them and among them were grenades. The stones were mounted in sockets on gold plates, and between them the master inserted twenty enamel miniatures depicting saints. The name of each saint is minted next to the image. Christian relics were kept inside the cross: the blood of Jesus Christ, pieces of the relics of Saints Stephen and Panteleimon, as well as the blood of Saint Demetrius. The shrine was covered with silver and gilded plates, and the edges of the front side were framed with a string of pearls. In the eyes of believers, relics made the cross more valuable than the gold and silver used by the jeweler.
The fate of the cross of St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk, which in turn was in the hands of Orthodox, Catholics, Uniates, in the treasury of the Moscow sovereigns and the cache of the French who occupied Polotsk in 1812, is sad. It was lost during the war of 1941-1945, and was searched for by journalists, writers, scientists, politicians and even Interpol (International Crime Stoppers). The history of these searches is as dramatic and inconclusive as, for example, the epic associated with the famous Amber Room (the walls and all the furnishings of which were decorated with amber), stolen by the Nazis during the same war and since then unsuccessfully sought by scientists.
Descriptions and drawings made before the disappearance of the cross of St. Euphrosyne preserved the text of the inscription that was left on the surface of the cross by its creator, the Polotsk master Lazar Bogsha (Boguslav). The Cross of St. Euphrosyne is one of the main spiritual shrines of Belarus and a recognized masterpiece of medieval jewelry art.
* * *
Nowadays, temple rings, colts and many other works of medieval Russian jewelry are collected in museums. Particularly rich collections belong to the State Historical Museum, the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin and the Patriarchal Sacristy.
The remarkable art of ancient Russian jewelers of the era of Yaroslav the Wise and Vladimir Monomakh amazed European travelers who visited Rus' in those days. Over the centuries it was forgotten. However, through the efforts of domestic archaeologists in the 19th-20th centuries, the creations of ancient masters found a new life. Hundreds and thousands of jewelry created by craftsmen of the 10th - early 13th centuries were extracted from the ground. Exhibited in museum windows, they are capable of enchanting the modern fashionista and arousing the deep, sincere admiration of the artist.
In ancient times, Rus' was influenced by several developed cultures at once. In medieval Kyiv, entire neighborhoods were inhabited by foreigners: Greeks, Jews and Armenians. Severe warriors and clever traders from Scandinavia brought the subtle pagan art of the Viking Age to the Russian lands.
Traders from the East - a colorful and intricate pattern so beloved in Islamic countries. Finally, Christianity, adopted from the powerful Byzantine Empire, located on the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, connected Rus' with the high artistic culture of this state.
Byzantium was at that time the beacon of civilization in barbaric Europe and the keeper of ancient knowledge bequeathed by the era of antiquity. But along with Christianity, Rus' preserved persistent pagan traditions for several centuries. The complex, highly developed religious system of East Slavic paganism became an important source of creative imagination of ancient Russian painters, sculptors and jewelers.
The Mongol-Tatar invasion turned out to be disastrous for many secrets of jewelry art. The masters who owned them disappeared during the hard times of Batu’s defeat or were kidnapped by the Horde to serve their rulers. For a whole century, the skill of ancient Russian jewelers was in decline, and only in the middle - second half of the 14th century. its slow revival began.
In the era when Kyiv was the capital of the Old Russian state, Eastern Slavic women loved to decorate themselves with a lot of jewelry. Cast silver rings with ornaments, twisted silver wire bracelets, glass bracelets and, of course, beads were in fashion. They were very diverse: from colored glass, rock crystal, carnelians and rubies, large hollow beads made of cast gold.
Hanging from them were round or moon-shaped bronze pendants (lunars), decorated with delicate ornaments: unprecedented magical animals in the Scandinavian style, complex wicker structures, very reminiscent of the images on Arab dirhams - coins that were in circulation in those days both in Rus' and in Europe .
But the most popular jewelry were temple rings. Cast silver temple rings were woven into women's hairstyles at the temples or hung from headdresses; they were worn one or several pairs at a time. Each East Slavic tribe that became part of the Kyiv state had its own special type of temple rings, unlike the same decorations of its neighbors.
Northern women, for example, wore an elegant variety of rings that looked like a curl or a flattened spiral. The Radimichs preferred the temporal rings, which had seven rays diverging from the arch, ending in drop-shaped thickenings. On the temple rings of the Vyatichi, which were among the most decorative, there were seven flat blades instead of rays.
Townswomen of the 11th-13th centuries. Most of all, they loved kolta - paired hollow gold and silver pendants, which were attached with chains or ribbons to the headdress. Many colts that have survived to this day are distinguished by their amazing perfection of shape. In 1876, near the village of Terehovo, Oryol province, several pairs of kolts from the 12th - early 13th centuries were discovered in a rich treasure.
They are massive five-pointed stars, densely covered with thousands of tiny soldered balls of metal. This type of jewelry technique is called granulation; it came from Scandinavia and was widespread in Ancient Rus'. Along with grain, filigree was also used: the thinnest silver or gold wire, twisted into strands, soldered onto plates or twisted into openwork patterns.
In 1887, on the territory of the ancient St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery, another treasure of jewelry from the 11th-12th centuries was found, including a pair of gold colts. The kolta were decorated with freshwater pearls and images of fantastic birds with women's heads. The colors of the images have not lost their brightness, and their combination is extremely exquisite: white, turquoise, dark blue and bright red.
Meanwhile, the master who created this splendor died about eight centuries ago. Mikhailovsky kolta are made using the masterly jewelry technique of cloisonné enamel, which was adopted from the Byzantines. This forgotten art required patience and amazing precision in work. On the surface of the gold jewelry, the jeweler soldered the thinnest gold ribbons-partitions onto the edge, forming the outline of the future design.
Then the cells between them were filled with enamel powders of different colors and heated to a high temperature. This produced a bright and very durable glassy mass. Products made using the cloisonne enamel technique were very expensive, so it is no coincidence that most of the works that have survived to this day are parts of expensive princely attire.
Another favorite technique of ancient Russian jewelers was blackening, which, according to some scientists, was a Khazar heritage. The niello was a complex alloy of tin, copper, silver, sulfur and other components. Applied to a silver surface, the niello created the background for a raised image. Blackening was especially often used to decorate folded bracelets. Several dozen such bracelets from the 12th century. kept in the State Historical Museum.
On them it is easy to distinguish the figures of musicians, dancers, warriors, eagles and fantastic monsters. The plot of the drawings is far from Christian ideas and much closer to paganism. This is not surprising. Jewelers used enamel or niello both for the image of Christ, the Virgin Mary, saints, and for griffins, dog-headed monsters, centaurs and pagan festivals.
There were both purely Christian and purely pagan jewelry, which were objects of religious cults. Many encolpion breast crosses have been preserved, consisting of two wings, between which pieces of the relics of saints were placed. The doors usually had a cast, carved or blackened image of the Mother of God and Child.
No less often, archaeologists find pagan amulets - objects that protected against illness, misfortune and witchcraft. Many of them are cast figurines of horse heads, to which “bells” made in the shape of animals, birds, spoons, knives and grips are attached in chains. With their ringing, the bells were supposed to ward off evil spirits.
"Hryvnia of Vladimir Monomakh"
Some monuments of ancient Russian jewelry art have gained enormous fame. Articles and books are written about them, their photographs are placed in albums dedicated to the culture of pre-Mongol Rus'. The most famous is the “Chernigov hryvnia”, or “the hryvnia of Vladimir Monomakh”.
This is a chased gold medallion of the 11th century, the so-called serpentine, on one side of which a female head is depicted in a ball of eight snakes, symbolizing the devil, a pagan deity or the evil spirit in general. A prayer in Greek is directed against the disease. On the other side is the Archangel Michael, called upon to protect the owner of the hryvnia from the devil’s machinations. The inscription, made in Slavic letters, reads: “Lord, help your servant Vasily.”
It was a real Christian amulet against evil spirits. The plot and the very technique of performing the serpentine torcs were borrowed from Byzantium; in pre-Mongol times, decorations of this kind were not uncommon. The “Chernigov hryvnia” was made with extraordinary skill and must have belonged to a rich, noble person, most likely of princely origin. The cost of this jewelry is equal to the size of the princely tribute from an average city.
The medallion was found in 1821 near the city of Chernigov, in ancient times the capital of the principality. The inscription indicating the identity of the owner - Vasily - told historians that the hryvnia belonged to Vladimir Monomakh (1053-1125), who was given the name Vasily at baptism.
This famous ancient Russian commander and politician reigned for some time in Chernigov. He left a “Teaching” to the children, written in the form of memoirs. In this essay, the prince wrote that one of his favorite pastimes was hunting. When going out onto it, Vladimir Monomakh was not afraid of boar tusks and elk hooves. While hunting not far from Chernigov, he dropped a precious hryvnia, which brought to posterity the work of skilled Kyiv craftsmen.
Names on metal
The vast majority of monuments of jewelry art of Ancient Rus' are anonymous. Archaeologists, finding the remains of workshops that belonged to ancient Russian gold and silversmiths, extracted from the ground all the supplies necessary for the jewelry craft.
However, history has not preserved the names of the wonderful craftsmen who created the “Chernigov hryvnia” or the kolta from the Mikhailovsky treasure. Sometimes only the jewels themselves “let slip” about their creators. Thus, craters - precious silver bowls for holy water, created in medieval Novgorod in the 12th century - bear inscriptions that give the names of the masters Costa and Bratila.
The famous Polotsk enlightener of the 12th century. Princess Abbess Efrosinia in 1161 ordered a cross to contribute to the Spassky Monastery she founded. The six-pointed cross, about half a meter high, was made of cypress wood and covered at the top and bottom with gold plates decorated with precious stones.
Already by the 20s. XX century almost all the stones were lost, but it is known that there were about two dozen of them and among them were grenades. The stones were mounted in sockets on gold plates, and between them the master inserted twenty enamel miniatures depicting saints. The name of each saint is minted next to the image.
Christian relics were kept inside the cross: the blood of Jesus Christ, pieces of the relics of Saints Stephen and Panteleimon, as well as the blood of Saint Demetrius. The shrine was covered with silver and gilded plates, and the edges of the front side were framed with a string of pearls. In the eyes of believers, relics made the cross more valuable than the gold and silver used by the jeweler.
The fate of the cross of St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk, which in turn was in the hands of Orthodox, Catholics, Uniates, in the treasury of the Moscow sovereigns and the cache of the French who occupied Polotsk in 1812, is sad. It was lost during the war of 1941-1945, and was searched for by journalists, writers, scientists, politicians and even Interpol (International Crime Stoppers).
The history of these searches is as dramatic and inconclusive as, for example, the epic associated with the famous Amber Room (the walls and all the furnishings of which were decorated with amber), stolen by the Nazis during the same war and since then unsuccessfully sought by scientists.
Descriptions and drawings made before the disappearance of the cross of St. Euphrosyne preserved the text of the inscription that was left on the surface of the cross by its creator, the Polotsk master Lazar Bogsha (Boguslav). The Cross of St. Euphrosyne is one of the main spiritual shrines of Belarus and a recognized masterpiece of medieval jewelry art.
Nowadays, temple rings, colts and many other works of medieval Russian jewelry are collected in museums. Particularly rich collections belong to the State Historical Museum, the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin and the Patriarchal Sacristy.
Jewelry art in Rus' has rich history and is rooted in the ancient life of peasant settlements. It is interesting that the first craftsmen to make such products were women. So who didn’t have to worry about where to buy Jewelry. In addition to their main work of arranging their homes and everyday life, they also made amulets and jewelry.
In those days they made different types jewelry. The process was as follows - women skillfully wove beautiful products from wired cords, covered them with clay and, after drying, annealed them in a special oven. In place of the burnt wax, molten silver or bronze was poured. The result was silver jewelry or intricate items made of bronze. They looked as if they were woven from metal thread.
If in pre-Christian Rus' the jewelry craft was the lot of women, then already in the 10th century men took up casting, using stone and clay molds. In addition to casting, engraving and chasing appear, and with them real designer jewelry.
Representatives of each tribe brought something original to the making of jewelry, peculiar only to them. A clear example of this is the “kolta” temple jewelry. Women wove them into their hair or attached them to their headdress - up to three pieces on each temple.
Gold and silversmiths, who eventually moved to the cities, mastered patterns and techniques that came from the north and east. Skilfully combining the traditions of their ancestors with new knowledge, jewelers preserved their own unique flavor, amazing not only their own, but also our contemporaries with their works. These are tiaras and crowns, barmas, hryvnias, kolta, bracelets, crosses, buckles.
XXII - XIII centuries. - the period of greatest prosperity of jewelry art in Rus'. Then the masters mastered many new techniques - “grain”, “filigree”, and “filigree”. Thanks to them, they learned how to make amazing jewelry, for example, an original woven silver ring or curly earrings. New, previously unknown styles of jewelry are emerging.
The skill of ancient masters can hardly be overestimated. The Russian Museum houses ancient silver kolts. They are made in the form of an oval shield decorated with six cones. On each such cone there are 6 thousand small rings soldered, and on each silver ring the grains are soldered, that is, 30 thousand silver grains on the Colt alone. Modern jewelry that the BestGold online store offers its customers can only vaguely resemble those that our ancestors once made, although there are some that definitely fall under the concept of “Slavic style.” Take a look and see for yourself!
The art of making jewelry was called a beautiful word"patterned". However, our ancestors resorted to pattern making largely not for the purpose of beautiful eye rejoiced, and to create amulets.
They were able to protect from numerous troubles: the evil eye, death of livestock, water, fire, snakes and many other dangers that awaited our ancestors at every step. At the same time, the “magical” properties of jewelry were appreciated by everyone without exception, regardless of class and income.
Initially, useryazis or temple rings were not simply threaded into the ears or secured above the ears (that’s why they were also called “temporal ear hooks”), but also woven into the hair or attached to the headdress using ribbons, straps or “braids.” It is these decorations that are considered one of the characteristic details of the traditional Old Russian costume. Women in each of the Slavic tribes wore special temple rings: the Krivichi - bracelet-shaped, the Vyatichi - seven-blade, the Novgorod Slovenes - diamond-shaped. Usually useryazis were made of copper or iron alloys, although, for example, in the Kiev Historical Museum you can see the temple rings of the Vyatichi people made of silver. Useryazis could be wire rings - and this was the most common way of making them; less often, jewelry was made from beads or shields.
This hollow metal pendant, attached to a headdress, was especially popular among women in the 11th-13th centuries. Kolts were discovered as part of many treasures found on the territory of Ancient Rus'. It is interesting that the decoration received the name “colt” only in the 19th century - its ancient name has not been preserved. Star-shaped and rounded koltas are known, and the latter were often made of gold and decorated with cloisonné enamel depicting birds, sirens, the tree of life, etc. Pearl edges ran along the edge of such koltas. Star-shaped silver and gold koltas were covered with grain and filigree. It is clear that only rich women could afford such jewelry. However, at the end of the 13th century, to meet the demand of the wider population, kolta began to be cast from bronze and lead. Now everyone could buy jewelry in the markets. Unfortunately, after the Tatar-Mongol invasion, koltas went out of fashion.
Hryvnias are a type of neck jewelry. It is interesting that women in Rus' adored green beads, and their husbands had to bear significant expenses, because one green bead was valued at 15-20 silver coins. And if women of all classes decorated their outfits with glass beads, only wealthy ladies could afford metal hryvnias. The most expensive ones were bilon hryvnias - they were made from an alloy of copper and silver, while the most “hit” ones were copper or bronze, sometimes coated with silver.
Rings with a shield that was decorated with precious stones were called rings. Often the rings turned into bracelets - twisted, lamellar or wicker. The images on the rings could be very different: animals, geometric patterns or other symbols that were significant to the owner of the jewelry. A special place was occupied by seal rings, which were used to stamp signatures on various documents. It is clear that on the seals the symbolism of the image was certainly associated with the owner.
Necklace
The necklace is an ornament that was often mentioned in documents of the 17th century. It was a standing or lying collar that was fastened to clothing. The necklace was fastened at the front with buttons made of precious stones. Necklaces could be worn by both men and women. The decoration was embroidered with pearls or decorated with jewelry. Among the remains women's clothing From the 12th century, standing necklaces made of birch bark and leather, covered with silk or other fabric and decorated with embroidery or gold thread, were also found. These decorations were lovingly passed down from generation to generation. Thus, among the treasures that Prince Mikhail Andreevich of Beloozersk gave to his children was a necklace. The necklace embroidered with more than three thousand pearls was passed on to her children by Princess Ulyana of Volotsk. By the way, necklaces seem to have come back into fashion not long ago!
