In the school curriculum, an important place in the study of national culture is occupied by ancient images in folk art. Fine arts (visual arts) begin to be taught from the elementary grades, and one of the first topics is devoted to symbols that our distant ancestors embroidered on clothes, carved on wooden utensils, depicted on jewelry and clay cast irons. These images served not only as decoration - they carried a sacred meaning.
Spiritualization of images
Coded in architectural compositions, household items, artworks and folklore texts, ancient images in folk art reflect the ideas of our ancestors about the world around us. The outstanding scientist Nikolai Kostomarov considered ancient symbols to be a figurative manifestation of moral ideas with the help of objects of a physical nature endowed with spiritual properties.
Academician Vernadsky noted that the life of a given era and a given people is manifested in the works of folk art, and thanks to this, the soul of the people can be studied and understood. He recognized the deep symbolism of artistic creation, which the Cosmos gives us, passing through the consciousness of a living creature.
Key Images
Examples of sacred symbols and their meaning exactly in an accessible form are presented in the school theme “Ancient Images in Folk Art” (Grade 5, Visual Arts). This is a geometric ornament, images of the sun, eggs, the Tree of Life, sky, water, mother earth, images of animals and others.
- The sun personified the bosom of the universe.
- The Tree of Life is the center of the universe, the hierarchical structure of being.
- An egg is a symbol of life, a celestial sphere from which stars, planets arise.
- The image of the Earth was associated with the image of the mother-nurse.
- With the help of ornaments, sky, earth, water, animals and plants, fire, manifestations of nature (wind, rain, snow, etc.) were depicted.
The sun
This is the oldest image in folk art. The sun was considered the center of the world and the source of life, symbolized heavenly spirituality, often acquiring the image of individual gods. The cult of the sun was universal. In the Ipatiev Chronicle of 1114, it is stated that "the sun is the king, son of the Svarogs, hedgehog is Dazhbog." According to other sources, Svarog was considered the god of the sun .
The sun is the “Eye of God”, which is endowed with the epithets “holy”, “righteous”, “clear”, “red”, “beautiful”. Later, the Sun occupies a special place in the heavenly hierarchy next to the Almighty: a clear month, a bright sun and a God of heaven. Recall the teachings of Vladimir Monomakh, who pointed out the need to give "morning Praise to God, and then to the rising sun."
The school textbook about ancient images in folk art (Grade 5) says that the Sun was designated by our ancestors allegorically in the form of rhombs, round sockets and even horses (symbolize the arrival of spring). They decorated female hats, belts, beads, pastries, a wedding loaf, Easter eggs, ceramics, etc.
The Tree of Life
This is no less an ancient image in folk art than the Sun. The Tree of Life symbolizes the trinity of the world, the world tree, the mythical bird - the creator of Jehovah. It combines the sky (branches), earth (trunk) and the underworld (roots). Tree also means genus - hence the name "tribal tree", "genus roots", "native roots".
The image of the Tree of Life has perhaps the most complex ornamental structure. This is a fancy pattern depicting a sprawling tree, with leaves, large fruits and flowers. Often the tops of the ornamental tree are crowned with images of magical guardian birds (hence the expressions “blue bird”, “bird of happiness”). Canonically, the Tree is depicted growing out of a cup (vessel), pointing to the origins of its roots from the sacred bosom (receptacle of the world, the universe). The famous folklorist Xenophon Sosenko noted that the idea of the World Tree "is considered by the people as the first peace factor."
Mother Earth
The Earth has always been associated with the female image of the mother, because the Earth is the nurse. The goddess of fertility is found in many world cultures. Ancient images in the folk art of mother Earth were personified with a large-breasted woman. She can give birth to children, and the crop "give birth." To this day, archaeologists find figures of wooden idols of a female gender set in the fields.
On ornamental images, Mother Earth almost always stands with her arms raised to the sky, and instead of a head, a rhombus can be depicted - one of the symbols of the Sun. This emphasizes the dependence of the crop on solar heat and sky (rain).
Sky
According to ancient beliefs, the sky was the core of the universe, a symbol of the cosmos, that is, order and harmony, the source of life. The semantics of the word “sky” in many nations means “number”, “harmony”, “middle”, “order”, “navel”, “life” (in particular in Latin, English, Latvian, Hittite, Irish, Welsh ). Ancient images in folk art endowed Heaven with special power: often the interpretation of the word "sky" is consonant with the concept of "God."
Our distant ancestors believed that the sky is a river along which the bright sun travels. Sometimes a cow was identified with Heaven, which was considered a celestial and was called a "heavenly cow." To people, the Sky was represented by a hemisphere, a dome, a lid, a vessel that protected them. Images of the sky were indicated on painted eggs, shirts, towels, carpets, etc.
Ornament
From ancient times, pottery, woven, embroidered, hand-drawn, wicker, carved wooden and stone household items were decorated with various ornaments. The patterns had worldview semantics and compositionally consisted of simple elements: dots, zigzags, curls, straight and spiral lines, circles, crosses and others. Among the main groups and types of ornaments (geometric, floral, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic), researchers distinguish a group of symbols of celestial bodies (sun, moon, stars, etc.).
It was in the form of ornaments that most often depicted ancient images in folk art. The central place in such compositions was usually occupied by astral signs of heavenly fire, stars, the sun and the month. Later, these deified elements transformed into a floral ornament.
Output
The Sun, the Tree of Life, mother Earth, the Sky, the Month are the main ancient images in folk art. A discussion of their meanings both in the school lesson and among scholars develops into a fascinating debate. It is enough to imagine yourself in the place of a long-time ancestor to understand what an indelible impression is made by the majestic sunrise and the bottomless depth of the heavenly vault above your head, the violence of the elements and the pacifying fire of the hearth. Our ancestors captured all this beauty, grandeur, rampant in ways accessible to them for future generations.