Title | Russia's gift to the world |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Publisher | Hodder and Stoughton |
Place of Creation (TGN) |
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Date | 1915 |
Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Extent | 48 pages; 22 cm. |
Original Item Location | DK32.7.M3 1915 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304497~S11 |
Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
Use and Reproduction | This item is in the public domain and may be used freely. |
File Name | index.cpd |
Title | Image 25 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | uhlib_1315132_024.jpg |
Transcript | Russia's Gift to the World 23 It is on the side of popular art that Russia has enriched the common store from resources of national genius. This art is the work, not of great individual artists, but of a really great feeling for art diffused throughout the people. This is so particularly as regards the household arts, that is to say the application of beauty to the things of common life. In this respect Russia still retains much of what was best in the Middle Ages. The native instinct here, as in other countries, has been checked and sometimes nearly killed by industrialisation, by the victory of the factory and the machine, but it is still living, and is capable of a great revival. Much of this domestic art now finds its way to this country. It consists mainly of two things, the application of design and ornament to wood, and their application to textiles, the former being the native birth of the forest regions, the latter of the agricultural flax-growing districts. Russian carving is inexhaustible in design and full of vitality. The figures and patterns carved by the peasantry are in the fullest sense art by the people, and for the people ; they are work done with pleasure and done for the sake of the pleasure which it gives. Their figure carving has the full mediaeval life and charm. Design is lavished on the carving of the house, as in boards and cornices ; of furniture, as tables, chairs, cupboards, and chests ; and of objects of common use, such as salt boxes, distaffs, washerwomen's beetles, bowls, and mugs. So, too, design is applied lavishly in form and colour to common woven fabrics, such as curtains and towels, shirts, aprons, and belts. The embroidery and drawn thread work of Russia is remarkably fine, and in the most remote districts there is a very fine tradition of work in enamelled metal and in lacquer. Special note should be taken of the beauty of Russian toys. For a nation's toys are no slight index to its civilisation in the most |