Mass Media Overview
White Magic
08.02.2018 14:03
«Aeroflot»
http://webfiles.aeroflot.ru/AEROFLOT_February_March_2018.pdf?_ga=2.214845655.158691952.1518076755-1244433770.1518076755
February | March ʼ18
By Galina Okulova
Photo: Laced Firebird. Decorative lace
VOLOGDA LACE IS ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS CRAFTS PRODUCED IN RUSSIA — AN OBJECT OF NATIONAL PRIDE. THIS LACE, CREATED WITH NOTHING MORE THAN RAW LINEN THREAD, IT’S ALL ABOUT TALENT, INSPIRATION, AND LOVE FOR BEAUTY
The Librarian
In August 1879 a woman walked into the building of the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg. Aged 37, Sofya Davydova, whose maiden name was Von Goyer, moved with her sons to St. Petersburg from the south of the country to make sure they would receive a good education. She also sought to satisfy her own intellectual appetite, and as interest in folk arts and crafts was on the up, Sofya decided that she would get to the bottom of things. As she walked through the Art Department of the library, she decided to ask the librarian for recommendations on books about the Russian style. The librarian turned out to be Dmitry Stasov, one of the country’s most famous music and art critics, and the inspiration behind the ideology of the “Mighty Handful”, the circle of composers which included Mussorgsky, Borodin, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Stasov was a friend of the artists and had a keen interest in folk art and crafts.
Stasov had wanted to study the history of Russian lace, the needlework which was practiced across the country, but there was no established resource of knowledge. As a result, Stasov could not find the time to undertake this research, and so it seemed to him that Sofya Davydova was heaven-sent. The librarian decided to make her an offer that was difficult to refuse. “It became clear that it was necessary to go to the very source, which meant to travel the villages, towns and cities where lace was made,” she wrote. “Stasov also informed me of the so-called Naturselbstdruck (nature printing) and recommended that I contact Sergei Levitsky, the well-known photographer. Levitsky taught me how to take photographs and taught me all of the tricks of the trade.”
In the spring of 1880, this respectable housewife went off on her first expedition in search of lace, armed with camera, a stock of plates, and a pile of notebooks. Over the next few years she managed to traverse almost the entirety of the Russian Empire, in a journey of more than 15,000 kilometres by train, horse-drawn carriage, and steamboat. Davydova photographed antique lacework found on the vestments of priests, she studied the decorations on the dresses of noblewoman and watched as peasant girls worked to prepare their dowries. However, the lion’s share of her discoveries awaited her in Vologda.
Heaven on Earth
“Vologda is located two and a half days from St. Petersburg by rail,” wrote Davydova in 1883. “The city is most attractive, with its paved streets, wooden sidewalks and numerous boulevards and gardens.”In the frozen winter months, whimsical patterns flourish on the windows. In summer Vologda seems like heaven on earth, surrounded by swaying fields of light blue flowering flax. In the north, wool and flax are the only fibres available for fabric-making. Another point to note is the city’s location on the Northern Sea Route, along which merchants transported goods from Western Europe through the White Sea. These goods included Brussels lace which was woven on bobbins, and was popular among the aristocracy.
Russians were not familiar with the technology of using bobbins to make lace. In her writings, Davydova presents a curious legend. It was said that in 1725 Peter the Great called for 30 lacemaking nuns from Flanders to teach their artistry to 250 orphans at the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow. She was unable to find any documentary evidence to support the tale, but she did find that lace made with bobbins had indeed settled on Russian soil and that the lacemakers referred to the thread used as “Drabanskoye” (Brabant) thread, and that the tools used were exact copies of those used for centuries in Europe.
Knock on Wood
When making lace using a wooden stand, the lacemaker has a cushion in front of them, which is about 40 centimetres long and with a diameter of around 15–20 centimetres, stuffed with sawdust or hay. A sheet of paper is attached to it featuring the design, which is made up of dots. This is called a “splinter”, a name which is derived from the fact that a pin is inserted into each dot. Linen thread is cut into three-meter lengths and each thread end is wound onto wooden bobbin sticks. Complex patterns call for up to 300 pairs. The more skilled the craftswoman, the faster they can wrap the thread around the pins, weaving them together and filling the room with a tapping sound. Bobbins made from briar wood are considered the most musical, although maple, birch and spruce bobbins are also said to sing.
The cushion, stand and bobbins were inexpensive, as was the linen thread itself. The most expensive part of the process was the design itself. Even making a copy cost a pretty penny, however simple patterns could be made without one. Beyond this, the only things required were a sharp eye, nimble fingers and time. By the beginning of the 19th century, this lace, fairly unelaborate in nature, was woven on landlords’ estates, and in the towns and villages of many regions of Russia, including Vologda.
Life Line
Anfiya Bryantseva, a priest’s daughter born close to Vologda in the early 1810s, was noted for her love of needlework. At the age of 24 she moved into the city and began to take a keen interest in the dresses worn by wealthy ladies. It was braid decoration that proved to be the biggest fashion hit of the 1840s. Bryantseva decided to reproduce something similar using bobbins, connecting different sections of the pattern together with a crochet hook, where necessary.
This innovation soon became known as “the Vologda style”. She did not stop there, and decided to drag handicrafts out of their supporting roles and onto centre stage. She began to weave large objects, where right from the off the pattern was secondary to the logic of their form, such as scarves, capes, tablecloths, and even dresses. Her five-year-old daughter quickly mastered the basic skills, and at ten already joined her mother in teaching other girls. Bryantseva didn’t keep her techniques secret, on the contrary. Nor did she demand payment from children from poor families for lessons, and this continued for more than 20 years. For many of these girls, lace would turn out to be their only opportunity to earn their living. At the end of 19th century any needy woman, no matter which layer of society she belonged to and whatever her education, could become a lacemaker.
Patronage from on High
Vologda lace as set out by Bryantseva have remained unchanged. It is white, airy and light, reminiscent of the patterns drawn by frost on a winter window or a snowy landscape as seen from a bird’s eye view. The main feature which can be used to distinguish it from other types of lace is its winding nature. It resembles a river bed, with an uninterrupted line of patterns. The most common designs featured are flowers with either five or seven petals, snowflakes, and leaves. Many other motifs are much more archaic and have been borrowed from traditional folk embroidery such as the tree of life that features prophetic birds on its sides, female figures representing protection of fertility and symbols of life. Backgrounds are an openwork lattice constructed of straight and sidelong crosses, onto which the lacemakers plant the decorations in the form of dots, ovals, and squares that spread across the lace like footprints in the snow.
This is the lace that awaited researcher Davydova when she arrived to Vologda in 1883. She even met with Anfiya Bryantseva in person. Although she was already over 70 years old, she continued to work, coming up with new designs and enjoying the great fame she shared with her daughter. Life for the average lacemaker was not so rosy. The girls were handed their bobbins at the age of just five, and from their early teens they would spend 16 hours a day working at the pillow (a small shirt-front required 20 hours work, while a large one took more than 100 hours), however they received scant reward for their work. As a result of this there was a drop in quality of workmanship, patterns became simpler and the profession did not enjoy any particular prestige.
The situation elsewhere in Russia turned out to be no better either. Davydova realised that the craft needed to be rescued and so appealed to Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Alexander III, patroness of the arts and a serious fashionista. That same year, on 20 August 1883 the Mariinsky Practical School of Lacemaking was opened in St. Petersburg. Girls were admitted to the school from the age of 16. They received free training in lacework, sewing, and spelling, as well as free accommodation, food and travel to and from St. Petersburg, along with a sizeable stipend. There was only one condition: that the skilled lacemakers would pass on their knowledge to other girls when they returned home. In 30 years, almost 1000 girls passed through the school. The works they produced were taken for exhibition in Copenhagen, Chicago, Antwerp, and Stockholm. These works received the Grand Prix at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900 “for preserving the incredible beauty of long-standing forms of design and for outstanding workmanship”. Lacemaking flourished throughout the country, but Vologda lace remained streets ahead of the competition, so while in 1892 the city had just 500 craftswomen their number had reached 4000 by 1893 and 40,000 by 1912. Every single one of them used the Sofya Davydova’s opus magnum Russian Lace and Russian Lacemakers which included 77 tables and 270 designs as their reference book.
The Wind of Change
The Vologda lace was lucky in that the political upheavals had no impact on it. Women continued to practice the craft, which brought both an income and a way to escape from the burdens of life. After the revolution of 1917 lacemakers that worked from home joined together to form a guild. Their hands were not idle during the Second World War too. “You ask if we still weave?” one wrote to her son who was at the front. “We weave, son, without bread and without kerosene. When there is no light, we weave in the moonlight. While the tapping of our bobbins can be heard, it means we are still alive.”
Time has no impact upon the old techniques, it only brings patterns through which we can study the course of history. Traditional openwork collars featuring flowers and birds made way first for ribbons decorated with tractors and lampshades with silhouettes parachuting soldiers, and later for pictures of Lenin’s mausoleum, the emblem of the USSR and space shuttles. Today these patient women, and their tapping bobbins, peacefully weave couture dresses and napkins emblazoned with the logos of large companies. The only thing that can hinder this elegant art is stagnation. When the last visitors leave the Vologda Lace Museum each evening, the stands on which the exhibits are based rise up automatically by 30 degrees. “They are alive after all, so they need to move too,” noted the supervisor philosophically.
FROM VOLOGDA WITH LACE
Ulyana Sergeenko, the Russian fashion designer and trendsetter uses traditional crafts and ancient techniques in her collections. One of her works could be seen in Beyonce’s video for the song Jealous. The singer wears a revealing blouse made of intricate black lace. The 15 best craftswomen in Vologda worked on this piece from morning to evening for two months, as their great-grandmothers did.