The Rising Fame Of Nesting Dolls And Why You Should Have One

Appeared in the late 19th century it was at this time that Russia experienced rapid economic and cultural development. In society began to show interest in Russian culture and art. In this regard, a whole artistic direction emergedthe “Russian style”, which united many famous Russian artists. They were looking for a style where the Russian national identity would be revived. One of the centers for the revival of Russian culture was the Mammoth circle. It was there that our nesting dolls were born.

The best Horizons

In order to broaden the horizons of the toy masters in the workshop they wrote out samples of doll toys for games from different countries of the world. Especially fashionable was the art of the countries of the East, in particular Japan. That is why in the late 90s of the 19th century, toli from Paris, toli from the island of Honshu, a figure of the Buddhist sage Fukurum was brought to the Mamontov estate. Inside it was invested one more in the other six smaller figures. Fukurumu is the deity of happiness and longevity, and the five figures inside are gods of lower rank. True, the story of the origin of our nesting dolls from the Japanese god Fukuruma is only one of the versions. According to another version, the brownnesting dolls are a modified Easter egg-pysanka. Such detachable painted eggs have long been popular in Russia.

The first Russian nesting dolls was a chubby peasant girl in an embroidered shirt, sundress and apron, in a flowery scarf, holding a black rooster in her hands. The real nesting doll- exclaimed someone when he saw the doll. So the doll was nicknamed Matryona, and affectionately Matryosh, Nesting dolls with a rooster. The name Matryona was very popular among the Russian people. They say that was the name of a servant who served tea at Abramtsevo evenings and looked like a chubby nesting dolls.

  • And in the first Matryona a whole family also settled; One young lady with a rooster, the other with a sickle, the next with a loaf of bread and then the brother in a painted shirt. The whole family is friendly and hardworking.

The first brown nesting dolls were eight. Painted in gouache, it was not as bright and elegant as modern nesting dolls, but immediately gained popularity. In 1900, at the World Exhibition in Paris, the nesting dolls received a bronze medal and world recognition.The center of manufacturing nesting dolls became the city of Sergiev-Posad, Moscow Region.

Types of dolls

SergievPosad differed initially restraint. Painted dolls without prior preparation of gouache. The features of the nesting dolls were strict, because they were created by monastic masters who painted icons.

In 1922, the turner A. F. Maiorov brought nesting dolls from the Nizhny Novgorod fair to his village Merinovo (Nizhny Novgorod region). At home, he tried to carve the same, and his daughters began to paint the nesting dolls.

Then the initiative of the Mayorov family was picked up by other villagers, and behind them the neighbors from the neighboring villages of the Semenovskiy district of the Nizhny Novgorod region. The rosy nesting dolls got to Semenov itself. Soon the wooden painted doll became the most popular production of masters of the whole Nizhny Novgorod (then Gorky) region.

  • Only Semenov nesting dolls was no longer like SergievPosad. Semenov masters made the doll more fun, more loaded. In accordance with their own traditions, the craftsmen left on the nesting dolls more unpainted wood. Painted nesting dolls no longer gouache, and aniline paints.In general, artists use only three colorsred, blue and yellow.
  • Nesting dolls are all different. One is long, the other is round. One spit to the waist, the otherfashionable haircut. And the faces of all nested dolls are different. Not only the appearance of the traditional nesting dolls, but also the painting technique itself, changed the craftswomen. Along with aniline dyes, they began to use oily. They can draw an oil chamomile next to the aniline rose.
  • Created and special equipment purely oil. The surface of the tree is covered with a layer of whitewash with a colored pigment added to them, and the oil painting lies on this oil background.

The most northern of the nesting dolls is Vyatka. She portrays a blue-eyed northerner with a soft, shy smile. The face of the dolls is cute and affable. Residents of Vyatka and the surrounding villages have long been engaged in the production of toys. Vyatka nesting dolls appeared in the 30s, but the Vyatka wooden doll received a special originality in the 60s. It was then that the nesting dolls was not only painted with aniline dyes, but also encrusted with straw.For inlays, rye straw is used, which is grown in special areas and carefully cut with a sickle manually.

They have their own secrets of making nesting dolls and masters of Tver. They feel in this souvenir the soul of Russia and with trepidation belong to its creation, wanting to convey to people the warmth of their soul and the mastery of their hands. Nesting dolls carved from wood and painted by hand artists. Each doll is an author’s work. These nesting dolls are characterized by painting with gold and silver ornaments.

Nowadays, the nesting dolls doll, made not in this or that style, but authors, made by an individual artist, has become more interesting. Modern matryoshchechny artists first of all turned to the traditions of the first Russian painted dolls. Various versions of a Russian peasant girl dressed in folk clothes appeared. Fantasies of modern artists have no boundaries. The traditional type of SergievPosadnesting dolls holding some object in its hand has now been replenished with numerous variants of nesting dollssgirls, women with baskets of fruit, samovars, and plots. Increasingly, you can find nesting dolls, painted under the “Gzhel”, “Zhostovo”, “Palekh”. In the 1990s, dolls depicting famous politicians were popular.

Identify current trends.

Nesting dolls is a happy toy. Interest in it has always remained, despite the political regimes and the change of economic models. Appearing just over a hundred years ago, the nesting dolls became a true symbol of Russia. She is known and loved not only in our country, but also abroad. You can find more varieties of  nesting dolls at nestingdolls.co

In the Russian nesting dolls, in its form and decor reflected folk ideas about the world, goodness, beauty. At the same time, the creative energy of the Russian people, its ways to create expressive images by simple means, were manifested in it. That is why the nesting dolls are regarded as a decorative symbol of Russian art. Cutting boards, aprons, key rings and magnets, bags, boxes of chocolates and fountain pens with pictures of dolls speak of its great popularity.

Until now, craftsmen matryoshchechniki compete with each otherwhich will create nesting dolls more and more beautiful. Foreign masters are also trying to create their own nesting dolls. But still, the nesting dolls remain a Russian symbol, possessing something inexplicable, attracting more than bright aniline dyes.