Masters of Russian Arts

The question of the existence in Ancient Russia of its own masters for the manufacture of gritted jewelry - lunettes, earrings in the form of a ring with a complex pendant of oval and complex lobed beads, as well as all the splendor of the ceremonial kpyazh-boyar grain dress and cloisonné enamel, aged with amazing integrity, as one artistic whole - has been proven incontestably. Using the technique and skill of the Byzantine craftsmen in this matter, Russian craftsmen created such a proper Russian dress that cannot be found in other countries of the West and East. But for the art historian, the question is not only who made these things, but also in what interaction of artistic ideas. Where did the images previously known in the art of others come from on Russian products of the X-XIII centuries? more ancient civilizations? Does not their appearance speak of the emergence of ancient Russian art from the former tribal limitation into the broad historical arena? Could the Russian art craft become on a par with the art of other peoples and countries, keeping to isolation? And how was it possible to put a new meaning into those artistic images that emerged in Russia either from the depths of pre-Slavic antiquity, or from the art of other highly developed countries neighboring Russia by that time, without assimilating the advanced experience of other masters? Historiography of the 1940s and early 1950s did not answer these and other questions of the interaction of artistic cultures. The appreciation of artistic styles also did not meet with sympathy and development.

The formulation of problems of interaction between art schools rested primarily on the theory of autonomy, that is, the eternity of local cultures and the complete independence of their development. If in the old Russian historiography the internal socio-economic development of countries was neglected, then in the works of Soviet historians and archaeologists it was observed (and this is only noticed today) “a certain disregard for the cultural influence of advanced civilizations on neighboring countries, a passion for autochthonism ... only now, according to With the accumulation of new materials and revision of previous hypotheses, the Soviet historical spider is gradually freed from old mistakes. " It cannot be said that the supporters of the originality of Russian art did not understand the significance of the East for the artistic culture of Russia. However, they could not look for new solutions. And while this theory prevailed

So, N. N. Voronin, on the one hand, denied the connection of Vladimir architecture with the Caucasus, but on the other hand, he could not help but note that “such excellent products as the famous silver brothers covered with embossed images came from Georgia to Russia. reminiscent of the reliefs of the Dmitrov Cathedral ”. It was these imported objects that gave birth, in his opinion, such a “fantastic accumulation” of animal images and monsters. "