Городецкая роспись

Gorodets painting

Gorodets painting is one of the most famous folk arts and crafts of Russia, and a vivid phenomenon of the so-called naive art. Bright and laconic Gorodets painting (genre scenes, figurines of horses, roosters, and flower patterns) performed with free strokes of paint brush, with white and black graphic outlining, decorated distaffs, furniture, doors and shutters. Though Gorodets masters did not follow the laws of perspective and their designs were flat, painting always turned to be stunningly light and transparent. It is saturated with rich colours of Russian summer with its motley grass, and lit with bright noon sunlight, pouring on luxurious garlands of flowers and fanciful birds.

Gorodets painting sprang from carved Gorodets distaffs that were manufactured in villages nearby Gorodets Nizhni Novgorod Region. Initially Gorodets craftsmen used the incrustation technique to ornament the distaffs: they carved figures out of a different species of wood and inserted them into a hollow of a corresponding shape.

Horsemen, soldiers, ladies and gentlemen, and dogs – these were the images of the unique style and technique of carved Gorodets distaffs. The inserted figures of fumed oak were surrounded with additional carved motifs of tree stems and branches, and birds sitting on them. Compositions with these traditional motifs are still present in Gorodets painting, but the most important is the Horse, embodying the notion of power and beauty.