Jewelry art of Kievan Rus. Introduction Jewelry in Russia

The art of making jewelry is called beautiful word"pattern". However, our ancestors resorted to patterning to a greater extent not in order to beautiful eye rejoiced, but to create amulets.

They were able to protect against numerous troubles: the evil eye, the loss of livestock, water, fire, snakes and many other dangers that lay in wait for our ancestors at every turn. At the same time, the “magic” properties of jewelry were valued by everyone without exception, regardless of class and wealth.

Initially, the userazi or temporal rings were not just put into the ears or fixed above the ears (therefore they were also called “muffs”), but they were also woven into the hair or attached to the headdress with ribbons, straps or “braids”. It is these decorations that are considered one of the characteristic details of the traditional ancient Russian costume. Women in each of the Slavic tribes wore special temporal rings: Krivichi - bracelet-shaped, Vyatichi - seven-lobed, Novgorod Slovenes - rhombic shields. Usually useryazi were made of copper or iron alloys, although, for example, in the Kiev Historical Museum you can see Vyatichi temple rings made of silver. Useryazi could be wire rings - and this was the most common way to make them, less often jewelry was made from beads or shields.

This hollow metal pendant attached to a headdress was especially popular with women in the 11th-13th centuries. Kolts were found in the composition of many treasures found on the territory of Ancient Russia. It is interesting that the name "colt" was given to the decoration only in the 19th century - its ancient name has not been preserved. Star-shaped and rounded kolts are known, while the latter were often made of gold and decorated with cloisonné enamel depicting birds, sirens, the tree of life, etc. Pearl trims were launched along the edge of such kolts. Star-shaped silver and gold kolts 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 general population, kolts began to be cast from bronze and lead. Now everyone could buy jewelry in the markets. Unfortunately, after the Tatar-Mongol invasion, kolts went out of fashion.

Hryvnias are a kind of neck jewelry. It is interesting that women in Russia adored green beads, and their husbands had to bear significant expenses, because one green bead was estimated at 15-20 silver coins. And if women of all classes decorated their outfits with glass beads, then only wealthy ladies could afford metal hryvnias. The most expensive were bilon hryvnias - they were made from an alloy of copper and silver, but the "hit" ones themselves were copper or bronze, sometimes covered with silver.

Rings with a shield, which was decorated with precious stones, were called rings. Often the rings turned into bracelets - twisted, lamellar or woven. The images on the rings could be very different: animals, geometric patterns or other symbols that were significant for the owner of the jewelry. A special place was occupied by printed rings, which were used to apply an imprint-signature on various documents. It is clear that on seals the symbolism of the image was certainly associated with the owner.

Necklace

The necklace is an ornament that was often mentioned in the documents of the 17th century. It was a standing or lying collar, which was fastened to clothing. In front, the necklace was fastened with buttons made of precious stones. Necklaces could be worn by both men and women. The decoration was embroidered with pearls or decorated with jewels. Among the remains women's clothing In 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 ornaments were passed down with love from generation to generation. So among the treasures that the Belozersky prince Mikhail Andreevich gave to his children, there was a tie-down necklace. The necklace, embroidered with more than three thousand pearls, was also passed on to her children by Princess Ulyana of Volotsk. By the way, not so long ago, necklaces seem to be back in fashion!

World jewelry art began with jewelry, which was originally made from bone, sea shells, etc. But in the 7th millennium BC. humanity invented the technique of mechanical processing of native stone, and in the 5th millennium BC. high-temperature melting of copper in furnaces and casting technique appear. Jewelry art begins to develop rapidly.
On this page, we will introduce you to the traditional jewelry technologies that existed in the times of Kievan Rus and have survived to this day - such as casting, forging, chasing, stamping, niello, gilding, inlay, wire drawing, filigree and graining.

Foundry business

One of the most important ways processing of copper, silver and their alloys was casting. With gold, due to its high cost, this technique, which required massive objects, was almost never applied, with the exception of small things. The casting of copper, bronze, brass, silver, and other alloys does not represent fundamental differences. Casting was the main method of metal processing by village "copper and silver smiths".

Casting in the old Russian village

Casting is the oldest technique known to the population of Eastern Europe since the Bronze Age. The metal was melted in clay crucibles with the participation of bellows, which increased the temperature of the hearth. Then the molten metal (or an alloy of metals) was scooped from the crucibles with a clay spoon, which bore the special name "lyachka" (from the verb "to pour"). Lyachki were most often made with a spout for draining molten metal and a clay sleeve into which a wooden handle was inserted. The lyachka with metal was heated on fire, and then the liquid metal was poured into the mold, it was necessary to fill all its recesses with metal. When the poured mold cooled, a metal product was removed from it, exactly repeating the casting mold. The forms and volumes of ancient Russian crucibles are varied. The capacity of the crucibles ranged from large volumes of 400 cc to small volumes of 10 cc. Crucibles could be round-bottomed or sharp-bottomed, less often flat-bottomed. The most common were cone-shaped crucibles with a rounded bottom. The crucibles were made of clay mixed with sand and fireclay.

Almost all casting molds were one-sided. Such forms were covered from above with smooth tiles, most often made of limestone. The front side of objects produced in this form was embossed, and the reverse side (touching stone tiles) was smooth.

Casting could be done in one-sided molds and without a smooth cover, directly in open molds. If both halves did not fit snugly against each other, then the metal leaked into the cracks and formed the so-called casting seams, which were usually removed already from the finished product. With a one-sided mold, these seams are located closer to the back flat side of the product. In order to make some kind of openwork pendant with slots in the middle, it was necessary to leave intact those places where there should be voids in the mold during its manufacture. Then these places that are not cut on the form will be in close contact with the overhead cover of the form, and the metal will not penetrate there. If it was necessary to make a hole not in the plane of the thing itself, but, for example, an eyelet for hanging from a necklace, then for this a channel was made in the mold perpendicular to the casting, and an iron rod was inserted into this channel. The metal, pouring through the casting, flowed around the inserted rod, and when the rod was removed, a hole was obtained. The ornament, carved into the form in depth, on the finished thing, of course, turned out to be convex.

In addition to one-sided forms with a smooth lid, two-sided ones were also used, that is, those in which their second half was not smooth, but also figured. Sometimes both halves of the mold were made exactly the same, and the thing turned out to be symmetrical, and the casting seam went in the middle.

A clay soft mold was also used, which most accurately conveyed all the details of the processing of the original model, from which the mold was made. Clay forms are also known in the cities - in Kyiv, in Chersonese, but in the cities they were not used as widely as in the countryside. In the city, the demand for mass production forced the craftsman to look for more durable materials than clay.
Very interesting and original casting on a wicker model. At first glance, the things made by this technique seem to be woven from copper wires, but upon closer examination, it turns out that they are cast. The wax model for such products was woven from wired linen or woolen cords, which easily stuck together and made it possible to weave complex patterns. The resulting wax model was doused with a liquid solution of clay, enveloping all the finest recesses of the form. After the clay thickened, the model was poured over several more times until a solid clay mold was obtained. The next task was to melt the wax and burn out the remnants of the cords.

This wicker wax casting technique was widespread in the northeast. In the Russian regions proper, this painstaking technique, which brought casting closer to lace knitting, was not particularly successful.

City ancient Russian casting

In the early era of the development of the Russian city, many casting techniques were the same in the city and the countryside. For example, during the IX-X centuries. urban casters most often used casting on a wax model, and only later did rigid casting molds appear.
The ease of making complex patterns on wax has always attracted the attention of craftsmen to this type of casting. The only obstacle was the fragility of the resulting casting mold, which, although it could withstand several castings, was easily chipped and broken. In the IX-X centuries. this technique was used to make pendants for necklaces, belt plaques, clasps for caftans (Gulbishche) and heads for neck torcs. Compared with the rural technique of processing a wax model, the following differences can be distinguished: urban casters cut the model with special cutters, not content with just extruding a pattern, which was used by rural craftsmen. Wax carving gave a bright play of light and shadow and made it possible to significantly increase the artistic expressiveness of the cast product. The method of the lost form was also used in the 11th-13th centuries. for casting the most complex objects.
An important improvement in foundry was the discovery of a method of double-sided casting on two wax models, which was widely used in the 12th century.

Another form of foundry craftsmanship is casting in rigid moulds.

Various types of slate (including pink slate), occasionally limestone, and at the end of the pre-Mongolian period, mainly lithographic stone, which allowed for particularly careful finishing, served as the material for the manufacture of casting molds. Very rarely, and only for tin casting, bronze molds were used.

Most stone molds are double sided with very carefully lapped surfaces to eliminate casting seams. For the correct alignment of both halves, nests were drilled in the molds, of which one was filled with a lead pin, fitted so that it fit snugly into the free groove of the second half. This ensured the immobility of both forms. Three-component molds were invented by Kyiv jewelers to cast voluminous things with complex relief ornamentation.

According to the nature of the finish, all casting molds can be divided into molds with incised lines and molds with convex lines. In the first case, the master did not need special care: he simply cut deep into the stone. On the finished product, a relief pattern was obtained.

Forging and chasing

These techniques are most widely used in the city.
In most cases, various dishes were forged from copper and silver. The goldsmith cast a flat cake from silver (or copper), and then began to forge it on an anvil from the middle to the edges. Thanks to this technique, the thing gradually took on a hemispherical shape. By intensifying the blows in certain areas and leaving some places less forged, the master achieved the desired contour of the thing. Sometimes a pallet was riveted to the bowls (the edges were rounded), and a chased ornament was applied to the rim and body. An example of forged silver utensils is the gilded silver chara of the Chernigov prince Vladimir Davydovich, found in the Tatar capital Sarai.

Forging works in jewelry technology had the widest application for a wide variety of purposes. Of particular note is the forging of thin sheets of silver and gold for various crafts. The greatest virtuosity was achieved by goldsmiths in the manufacture of gold plates for cloisonne enamel. The thickness of the gold leaf is measured in such plates not only in tenths, but even in hundredths of a millimeter.

The coinage of these metals is almost inextricably linked with the forging of silver and copper. The chasing technique can be divided into three types: small-punch ornamental chasing, flat chasing and embossed chasing. For some works, all types of chasing were used, but each of these types has its own technical features and its own history.

The simplest type of embossing is that the pattern was applied to the outer surface of the thing with various punches. The plate to be decorated was placed on a rigid lining and a pattern was applied, compacting the metal in the place of the pattern, but without making bulges on the back. The pattern was applied with punches of various shapes: some looked like a small chisel, others gave an imprint in the form of a ring, circle, triangle, etc. The most complete chasing with miniature punches can be traced from Smolensk and Chernigov materials of the 9th-10th centuries. The technique of small-punched chasing arose in the northern Russian cities in the 9th-10th centuries. and continued to exist there.

The second type of chasing works - flat chasing - is characterized by the creation of any compositions by drowning the background around the outlined figures. The work is carried out with the same miniature punches, but only the simplest pattern - a solid circle, a ring, a dash. This method of chasing is always combined with the work of a chisel. Chasing was carried out as follows: a forged thin sheet of silver was nailed to a smooth wooden board, the outline of the pattern was applied to it with a light pressure of the cutter, and then the background around the outlined pattern was sunk down with repeated blows of the hammer on the punch, as a result of which the pattern became embossed. Typically, the height of the relief with this method was small - 0.5-1.5 mm, and the relief was flat.

Examples of flat chasing include the famous silver fitting of a turye horn from Chernaya Mogila. It is a unique monument of Russian jewelry art of the 10th century.

Flat-relief chasing prevailed among the ornamental techniques of the 10th - the first half of the 11th century. Around the middle of the XI century. it is partly superseded by a new, improved technique of stamping or embossing silver on special matrices, which later developed into a favorite technique - “basma embossing” (repeated use of one stamp in the same ornament). Chasing is preserved only when making unique custom-made items. But at the same time, master chasers are not satisfied with punch or flat chasing, but work in a third way - the method of relief, convex chasing, which in ancient Russia was called "defensive business".

The essence of convex chasing lies in the fact that at first the ornamented silver plate is minted from the reverse side, squeezing the pattern outward with a sharp convex relief. Only after a convex pattern is obtained on the front side by such chasing, the front side is subjected to more detailed processing: clothes, face, hair are cut, the general relief is corrected. In order not to tear the thin metal with such a deep, convex chasing, the work is done on a special elastic cushion made of pitch, wax or resin. This technique was much more complicated than simple embossing on the front side. Armored coinage appears around the 12th century. Samples of this coinage are found mainly in Veliky Novgorod.

Embossing and stamping

An improvement and mechanization of the process of flat-relief chasing was the use of special stamps or matrices, with the help of which a relief pattern was imprinted on thin sheets of silver or gold. The technique of silver embossing was of particular importance due to the widespread use of the art of niello, which required a protruding relief pattern and a background sunk down.

Mostly silver went under the niello, as it gave a clear and bright pattern against the background of velvety niello. In order to carry out this game of silver and niello, the ancient Russian masters usually acted as follows: a drawing was applied on a silver plate with a light outline, then the background around this drawing, intended for blackening, was sunk in such a way that the drawing itself was higher than the background, since on the plane of the background a layer of black mass should be laid. Embossing was carried out on thin sheets of gold, silver, less often copper, by applying them to metal (copper, steel) matrices with a convex pattern. A lead plate was usually placed on top of the sheet on which the pattern of the matrix was to be imprinted, and this soft pad was struck with a wooden mallet, forcing the lead (and behind it the silver sheet) to fill all the recesses of the matrix. The plasticity of lead contributes to the exact repetition of the forms of the matrix on the processed silver sheet. At the end of embossing, a plate with a double pattern is obtained: on the front side, the pattern of the matrix is ​​​​repeated, on the back - the same pattern, but in a negative form. Between the relief of the matrix and the relief of the finished product, some discrepancy is inevitable, due to the thickness of the metal sheet. The thicker the sheet, the smoother, flattened the relief on the front side will be.

Of particular interest is the time of the appearance of a new technique, which replaced painstaking chased work. The time when the embossing technique appeared is the era of Olga and Svyatoslav - the middle of the 10th century. Most likely, the emergence of a new technique in the work of Russian urban jewelers is connected to a certain extent with the influence of Byzantine culture and was one of the positive results of rapprochement with Byzantium.

Black

Enamel was most often used on gold, with niello worked on silver. "Where gold replaces silver, there enamel replaces niello." gold 1063°. Therefore, it is more difficult for an enameller working with silver to make thin enamel partitions and solder them in the oven to the bottom of the tray so that they do not melt. In the process of making niello, such delicate operations were not performed.

Niello is best preserved in the recesses of the design, so the creation of a suitable stock for it was achieved most naturally with the help of engraving. As a result, the master received a blackened drawing on a light background. Another way - blackening the background with a light pattern on it - assumed a deepening of the surface for the black. In all these cases, gilding was also widely used.
All of these techniques - engraving, gilding, blackening - basically changed little. Thus, chemical studies have shown that the blackening recipe described by Pliny the Elder passed from antiquity to the metalworking of the early Middle Ages with virtually no changes.

The first stage in complex process The production of silver jewelry with niello was the manufacture of the thing itself, which was to be decorated with niello. Casting was rarely used for this. Only the tips of twisted bracelets and some rings with niello were cast, but in general, casting is a very uneconomical way of making things from precious metals. Usually blackened products were made from a thin sheet of silver. To create a hollow body from it in a cold state, a very ancient method was used - a manual punch (difovka). It is based on such a property of silver as viscosity, due to which the sheet processed by blows of a wooden hammer stretches, bends and acquires the necessary shape. In this way, some colts and hoops were made, performed by individual orders.

Mass production required more easy way. They turned out to be embossed on the matrix. Matrices cast from copper alloys had a convex outer surface and a flat inner one. The first, when embossed, provided the plate with a convex surface, the second made it possible to tightly fix the matrix on the workbench. During excavations, similar matrices were found more than once. They differ only in greater or less thoroughness of execution.

The second stage in the manufacture of hoops was engraving, an art closely related to niello. Engraving is the cutting of a pattern on metal, in which a linear pattern is applied to the metal using a steel cutter, or, as jewelers call it, a chisel. The ancient products with engraving that have come down to us differ from each other in various traces left by the engraver. In ancient Russia, as at the present time, craftsmen used engravers with a working edge of various shapes.

Radiar needle perform the first engraving operation - transferring the pattern from paper to metal. The plate on which the drawing must be transferred is fixed motionlessly on a special pillow. Resin heated in a vessel can serve as such a pillow, as is done when chasing. After that, a thin layer of wax is placed on the workpiece. A drawing made with a pencil on tracing paper is placed on the wax with the front side and lightly pressed down, which leaves an imprint on the wax. This operation could look like this: a wooden stick with a pointed end is drawn along the lines of the drawing. When the paper is removed, the indented lines of the translated drawing remain on the wax.

It is difficult to say how the transfer of the drawing to metal was practically carried out in antiquity. It can only be argued that this process took place, as evidenced by the perfect engraving drawing of such subjects as complex wickerwork, which is impossible without a preliminary sketch and translation. The translation of the drawing easily explains the amazing closeness of the plots engraved on the hoops with the ornamental plots of the handwritten books of ancient Russia. Along the line of the pattern transferred to the wax surface of the silver blank, the drawing was passed with a radiometer needle, and it was finally fixed on the metal.

The final stage of work on the decoration with niello and engraving was the niello itself. Niello on ancient Russian jewelry varies in density and tone. Sometimes it looks black and velvet, sometimes it looks like silver-gray with a slate sheen. It depends on the various formulations, the subtleties of which we could only penetrate as a result of chemical quantitative analysis. Since such an analysis requires a significant amount of niello and the partial destruction of an ancient thing, this way of research cannot be used. Already in the X century. we meet with silver items decorated with a niello pattern. V. I. Sizov singled out among the Gnezdov materials plaques of Russian work, with a background filled with niello. The niello ornament adorns the already mentioned turium horn from the Black Grave.

The composition of the black mass includes: silver, lead, red copper, sulfur, potash, borax, salt. Usually this mixture is stored in powder form.
Until the end of the XII century. niello art was dominated by a black background and light relief figures on it.

Samples of niello 11-13 centuries.

Inlay

The simplest and oldest type of inlay is found on spurs of the 10th-11th centuries. A series of depressions were made in the hot iron with a thin chisel, which were later clogged with small gold or silver carnations. Gold was sometimes driven flush with the surface of the iron, but sometimes it appeared in the form of small bumps.

Also used was the insertion of gold wire into iron and the coating of large areas of iron with silver sheets (often followed by gilding). To do this, the surface of the iron was either notched with an oblique groove (for wire) or the entire surface was covered with notches and roughness for better adhesion to silver.

The helmet of Yaroslav Vsevolodovich can serve as an example of solid silver stuffing, the case of which, free of gilded chased overlays, was stuffed with silver. Battle axes were decorated with inlay and overlay.

Gilding

It found the widest application in the life of Kievan Rus, allowed several different ways of applying gold. Least of all, the imposition of gold foil was used as the least durable method of connection.
In products of the IX-X centuries. Gilding is used very widely, playing an important role in decorating various products.
The oldest monument should be considered a fragment of a copper plate from Kyiv with a gold pattern depicting a city with a part of the fortress wall, a tower, a boat with a high curved prow and a crowd of soldiers with spears and shields. Warriors are beardless, beardless, their hair is cut in a circle. It is quite possible that, unlike other church doors that have come down to us, the Kyiv fragment belonged to the door of a secular palace, since the images on it are devoid of any admixture of churchness.

Copper plate with a gold pattern (Kyiv)

The invention of gold writing freed the artist from the tedious physical work required in inlay work, allowing him to freely create intricate and intricate patterns and compositions.

In this regard, Russian jewelers overtook their Constantinople, Italian and Rhine contemporaries, creating a new type of gilding technique. Judging by the fact that this technique survived the Tatar pogrom and continued to exist in Novgorod in the XIV century, one can think that in the XII-XIII centuries. it was distributed in all the most important Russian cities (Kyiv, Novgorod, Ryazan, Suzdal).

Wire drawing, filigree and granulation

One of the most important sections of the jewelry technology of the ancient Russian cities is wire drawing. The need for wire was great and a lot of it was required for various needs. Copper, silver and gold wire was used for various products. Large-caliber wire was used to make hryvnias and bracelets, thinner - for temporal rings, chains, and the thinnest wire threads decorated the surface of various objects with a complex and elegant filigree pattern.

An interesting blank of a copper wire harness for hryvnias was found in Kyiv. The master made a thick wire in advance, twisted it into a bundle, and then twisted it into several rows. As needed, a piece was cut off from the workpiece and a hryvnia was made from it. Found tourniquet is designed for 8-10 hryvnia.

Here we have an example of the transition from work to order to work on the market. The master pulls the wire in advance, even before receiving an order for hryvnias, prepares raw materials for them - a tourniquet. It is quite obvious that the master made a blank for future orders and did not dare to cut the wire, since hryvnias could be ordered in different sizes. From here, there is only one step before the master decides to prepare for the future not only the wire, but also the hryvnias themselves; in this case, his workshop would become at the same time a place for selling jewelry.

Thin wire served to make a variety of filigree patterns. Filigree, Russian filigree (from "skati" - to twist, twist), is a twisted wire that forms a pattern. The filigree can be openwork, when the wires themselves form the frame of the thing, but it can also be a consignment note on the plate. In both cases, soldering is required to fasten the threads to each other or to the plate.

The granulation technique that always accompanies it is completely inseparable from filigree - soldering the smallest grains of metal onto the plate. Grains of gold or silver were harvested in advance from the smallest drops of metal, and then placed with small tweezers on an ornamented plate. Then everything followed in the same way as with filigree: sprinkled with solder and put on a brazier. It is possible that copper soldering irons heated in the same brazier were used in this work. Soldering irons corrected those places where the solder poorly covered the grain or thread.

To prepare granules, modern jewelers practiced the following simple technique: molten metal (gold or silver) is poured into a tank of water through a wet broom or sieve, spraying the metal into tiny drops. Sometimes casting of molten metal through a jet of water is used; this technique was difficult for ancient Russian masters to implement, since this required a horizontal jet of water. The grains of the solidified metal had to be sorted by size, since with the methods described they could not be even.

Grain and filigree were found in Russian burial mounds starting from the 9th century, and later on they were the favorite technique of urban goldsmiths. AT early time the silver crescents were especially zealously decorated with granulation. Some of them are soldered with 2250 tiny silver grains, each of which is 5-6 times smaller than a pinhead. For 1 sq. cm accounts for 324 grains. On grained Kyiv kolts, the number of grains reaches 5000.

Sometimes cloisonné grain was used. A thin smooth wire was soldered onto the plate - the frame of the pattern. The space between the wires was densely covered with grain, which was soldered all at once.

A special decorative technique that appeared hardly earlier than the 12th century was the soldering of miniature wire rings onto a hollow silver ball, on which one grain of silver was attached on top. It was with these techniques that star-shaped Kyiv kolts were made. The diameter of the wire from which the rings were made reached 0.2 mm. The painstaking work was rewarded by a subtle play of light and shadow.

One of the uses of filigree was the ornamentation of gold and silver planes on large items such as icon frames, kokoshniks, large kolts and barms.

The development of filigree technique with spiral curls influenced the ornamentation of the 12th-13th centuries. In fresco painting, in miniature and in applied art, it is at this time that the spiral pattern appears.

As well as in casting and in other areas of urban jewelry technology, and in the field of filigree and graining, we are faced with the presence of a wide mass production along with the works listed above for demanding customers. In the mounds of the Dregovichi Drevlyans, Volhynians, and partly Krivichs, there are copper beads made of a wire frame with a blue grain on it.

For a long time, ancient Russian masters improved their skills, reaching a higher and higher level. Artisans at the highest level were engaged in pottery, wood carving, stone processing, etc., but they achieved the most excellent results in metal processing. They mastered all the techniques of jewelry art. Old Russian craftsmen used the technique of filigree, granulation, casting, chasing, forging, inlay, drawing, blackening, etc., they even mastered the prohibitively complex technique of cloisonné enamel.

Blacksmiths were engaged in casting from silver and bronze, creating real works of art. But jewelry work in the Old Russian state was not limited to casting. Many cast items were decorated with unique engraved and chased patterns and inlaid with precious stones. The uniqueness of the jewelry traditions of Ancient Russia lay in the versatility of the craftsmen who knew how to work with all known techniques.

The remarkable art of the ancient Russian jewelers of the era of Yaroslav the Wise and Vladimir Monomakh amazed European travelers who visited Russia in those days.

The remarkable art of the ancient Russian jewelers of the era of Yaroslav the Wise and Vladimir Monomakh amazed European travelers who visited Russia in those days. It has been forgotten for centuries. However, through the efforts of domestic archaeologists in the 19th-20th centuries, the creations of ancient masters gained new life. Hundreds and thousands of jewelry created by masters of the 10th - early 13th centuries were mined from the ground. Exhibited in the windows of museums, they are able to enchant the modern fashionista and arouse deep, sincere admiration of the artist.

In ancient times, Russia was influenced by several developed cultures at once. In medieval Kyiv, entire quarters were inhabited by foreigners: Greeks, Jews and Armenians. Severe warriors and clever merchants from Scandinavia brought the fine pagan art of the Viking Age to the Russian lands. Merchants from the East - a colorful and intricate ornament, so beloved in the countries of Islam. Finally, Christianity, adopted from the mighty Byzantine Empire, spread out on the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, connected Russia with the high artistic culture of this state. 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, Russia for several centuries preserved persistent pagan traditions. The complex, highly developed religious system of East Slavic paganism became an important source of creative imagination for 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 perished in the hard times of Batyev's defeat or were driven away 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 - the second half of the XIV century. began its slow recovery.

JEWELERY TECHNIQUES

In an era when Kyiv was the capital of the Old Russian state, Eastern Slavs loved to adorn themselves with many jewels. Cast silver rings with ornaments, twisted silver wire bracelets, glass bracelets and, of course, beads were in fashion. They were the most diverse: from colored glass, rock crystal, carnelian and rubies, large hollow beads made of cast gold. Round or moon-shaped bronze pendants (lunnitsa) were hung to them, decorated with fine ornaments: unprecedented magical animals in the Scandinavian style, complex wicker designs, very reminiscent of images on Arab dirhems - coins that were in circulation both in Russia and in those days. 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 by one or several pairs at once. Each East Slavic tribe that became part of the Kievan state had its own special type of temporal rings, unlike the same adornments of its neighbors. Northern women, for example, wore an elegant variety of rings that looked like a curl or flattened spiral. The Radimichi liked the temporal rings more, in which seven rays diverged from the bow, ending in teardrop-shaped thickenings. On the temporal rings of the Vyatichi, which were among the most decorative, instead of rays, there were seven flat blades.

Citizens of the XI-XIII centuries. most of all they loved kolts - paired hollow gold and silver pendants, which were attached with chains or ribbons to the headdress. Many kolts that have survived to this day are distinguished by an amazing perfection of form. In 1876, near the village of Terekhovo, Oryol province, several pairs of kolts of the 12th - early 13th centuries were discovered in a rich hoard. They are massive five-ray stars, densely covered with thousands of soldered tiny metal balls. This jewelry technique is called granulation; it came from Scandinavia and was widespread in Ancient Russia. Along with granulation, filigree was also used: the thinnest silver or gold wire, twisted in bundles, was soldered onto plates or twisted into openwork patterns. In 1887, on the territory of the ancient Mikhailovsky Golden-Domed Monastery, another treasure of jewelry of the 11th-12th centuries was found, including a pair of gold kolts. Colts were decorated river pearls and images of fantastic birds with female heads. The colors of the images have not lost their brightness, and their combination is extremely elegant: white, turquoise, dark blue and bright red. Meanwhile, the master who created this splendor died about eight centuries ago. Mikhailovsky kolts are made in the virtuoso 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 on the edge, which formed the outline of the future pattern. Then the cells between them were filled with enamel powders of different colors and heated to high temperature. In this case, a bright and very strong vitreous mass was obtained. Products made using the technique of cloisonne enamel were very expensive, so it is no coincidence that most of the works that have survived to this day are details of an expensive princely attire.

Another favorite technique of ancient Russian jewelers was blackening, which, according to some scholars, was a Khazar legacy. Niello was a complex alloy of tin, copper, silver, sulfur and other constituents. Inflicted on a silver surface, the black created a background for a convex image. Especially often, blackening was used to decorate folding bracelets-bracers. Several dozen such bracelets of the 12th century. kept in the State Historical Museum. It is not difficult to distinguish figures of musicians, dancers, warriors, eagles and fantastic monsters on them. 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 depicting Christ, the Mother of God, 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 pectoral crosses-encolpions have been preserved, consisting of two wings, between which particles of the relics of saints were placed. On the wings there was usually a cast, carved or blackened image of the Mother of God with the Child. No less often, archaeologists find pagan amulets - objects that protected from diseases, troubles and witchcraft. Many of them are cast figurines of horse heads, to which "bells" are attached in chains, made in the form of animals, birds, spoons, knives and grips. With their ringing, the bells were supposed to drive away evil spirits.

"HRYVNA OF VLADIMIR MONOMAKH "

Some monuments of ancient Russian jewelry art gained great 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 "Chernihiv hryvnia", or "Vladimir Monomakh's hryvnia". 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 an evil inclination in general. Prayer in Greek is directed against the disease. On the other side is the archangel Michael, called to defend 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 torcs-serpentines are borrowed from Byzantium; in pre-Mongol times, decorations of this kind were not uncommon. "Chernihiv hryvnia" is made with unusual skill and should have belonged to a rich, noble person, most likely of princely origin. The cost of this jewel is equal to the amount of 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 - suggested to 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 "Instruction" to the children, written in the form of memoirs. In this essay, the prince wrote that one of his favorite activities was hunting. Going out on it, Vladimir Monomakh was not afraid of boar fangs and elk hooves. Hunting not far from Chernigov, he dropped a precious hryvnia, which brought to the descendants the work of skillful Kyiv masters.

NAMES ON METAL

The vast majority of the monuments of jewelry art of Ancient Russia are anonymous. Archaeologists, finding the remains of workshops that belonged to ancient Russian gold and silver craftsmen, extracted from the ground all the accessories necessary for the jewelry craft. However, history has not preserved the names of the remarkable craftsmen who created the "Chernihiv hryvnia" or kolts from the Mikhailovsky treasure. Sometimes only the jewels themselves "let slip" about their creators. So, craters - precious silver bowls for holy water, created in medieval Novgorod of the 12th century - bear inscriptions in which the names of the masters Kosta and Bratila are reported.

The famous Polotsk educator of the XII century. In 1161 Princess-Abbess Euphrosyne ordered a cross to contribute to the Spassky Monastery founded by her. The six-pointed cross, about half a meter high, was made of cypress wood and covered with gold plates adorned with precious stones at the top and bottom. Already by the 20s. 20th 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 fastened in nests 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, particles of the relics of Saints Stephen and Panteleimon, as well as the blood of St. Dmitry. The shrine was overlaid with gilded silver 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 precious 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 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, it was searched for by journalists, writers, scientists, politicians and even Interpol (International Crime Organization). 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 searched for by scientists.

Descriptions and drawings made before the disappearance of the cross of St. Euphrosyne preserved the text of the inscription, which 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 temporal rings, kolts and many other works of medieval Russian jewelry art are collected in museums. Particularly rich collections belong to the State Historical Museum, the Armory of the Moscow Kremlin and the Patriarchal Sacristy.

The jewelry art of Russia impressed both the masters of ancient Europe and modern designers, who increasingly borrow ancient techniques and jewelry to create their own masterpieces. So, temporal rings and kolts, common in Russia, smoothly transformed into large earrings, and charms and hryvnias became fashionable in the form of pendants, and all this together with the techniques of blackening, filigree and cloisonné enamel, which are used to this day.

ancient techniques

From ancient times, the jewelry art of Ancient Russia amazed Europeans, because work and decoration were influenced not only by Western technologies - crossing with Eastern merchants also played a decisive role in the development of Russian craftsmanship. True, unlike the exquisite geometric patterns that were most often used in the East, Russian designers mixed various techniques, receiving products with an unusual color.

One of the most famous directions can be considered graining, when thousands of small metal beads were welded onto one product, creating a magical play of light without the use of precious stones. At the same time, the basics of jewelry work were carried out using casting: wax was used for more expensive and piece items, and stone molds were used for mass consumption items.

Thanks to the use of filigree technique, laid on and openwork, a light, dynamic relief ornament was created. AT modern world this is called filigree, and recently bracelets using a similar technique have been in special demand (for example, in the 2010 season, such things can be found at Sabrina's Wide Ornate Diamond CZ Brace). In the 12th century, when the production of mass consumption items increased, some one of the most common works was engraving and blackening on silver, while only the background was made dark, while the picture itself remained light.This made it possible to create exquisite and refined miniatures.

Jewelry exclusives of Ancient Russia

Despite the fact that many works were lost during the Tatar-Mongol invasion, archaeologists managed to recover some truly unique jewelry. For example, kolts (paired hollow gold and silver pendants fastened with chains or ribbons to a headdress), which were worn by townspeople in the 11th-13th centuries, can interest many fashionistas with their delicate work. Especially Mikhailov's gold kolts, decorated with freshwater pearls and images of fantastic birds with female heads in cloisonne enamel technique.

No less famous is the “Chernihiv hryvnia” (aka “Vladimir Monomakh's hryvnia”), which was lost by the owner and later found by archaeologists. On this chased medallion of the 11th century, on one side, a female head is depicted in a ball of eight snakes with a prayer against diseases in Greek, and on the other, Archangel Michael, called to defend the owner of the hryvnia from devilish machinations. Finest work the medallion is so high that, according to the records of that time, it was estimated approximately as the size of a princely tribute from a middle city.

The rise of jewelry in the 18th century

It was in the 13th century that the term “jeweler” appeared in Russia instead of “gold and silversmith”, and thanks to new technologies and the active use of precious stones Gems: fashion eternity

Jewelry art in Russia has a rich history and is rooted in the ancient life of peasant settlements. Interestingly, the first masters in the manufacture of such products were women. That's really who did not have to worry about where to buy jewelry. In addition to their main job of arranging their homes and everyday life, they also made amulets and jewelry.

At that time they made different types jewelry. The process went as follows - women skillfully wove beautiful products from wired cords, covered them with clay and, after drying, annealed them in a special oven. Molten silver or bronze was poured in place of burnt wax. Silver jewelry or intricate bronzes were obtained. They looked as if they were woven from a metal thread.

If in pre-Christian Russia the jewelry craft was the lot of women, then already in the 10th century men started casting, using stone and clay molds. In addition to casting, engraving and chasing appear, and with them real author's jewelry.

Representatives of each tribe brought something original, peculiar only to them, to the manufacture of jewelry. A good example of this is the temporal decorations "colts". Women wove them into their hair or attached to a headdress - up to three pieces on each temple.

Gold and silver craftsmen, who eventually moved to the cities, mastered the patterns and techniques that came from the north and east. Skillfully combining the traditions of their ancestors with new knowledge, the jewelers retained their own unique flavor, striking with their works not only their own, but also our contemporaries. These are diadems and crowns, barms, hryvnias, kolts, bracelets, crosses, buckles.

XXII - XIII centuries - the period of the greatest prosperity of jewelry art in Russia. Then the masters mastered many new techniques - these are “grain”, and “filigree”, and “filigree”. Thanks to them, they learned how to make amazing jewelry, for example, an original woven silver ring or figured earrings. New, previously unknown styles of jewelry appear.

The skill of the ancient masters is hard to overestimate. The Russian Museum keeps ancient silver kolts. They are made in the form of an oval shield, decorated with six cones. On each such cone, 6 thousand small rings are soldered, and on each silver ring a grain is soldered, that is, 30 thousand silver grains on one colt alone. The modern jewelry that the BestGold online store offers to its customers can only vaguely resemble those that our ancestors once made, although there are those that definitely fall under the concept of “Slavic style”. Take a look and see for yourself!